Fun with Fonts

I never really thought about computer writing versus paper writing until I took this class. When I first started using the computer, I had it in my mind that paper writing was for school and computer writing was for fun. I think that is why I enjoy blogging. Actually using a computer in or for school did not occur until my Junior year of high school. There was always a significant emphasis on writing on paper because that is what was required for the AP tests and the standardized writing test. NO COMPUTERS ALLOWED actually hung over the door to my sophomore English classroom. So after I read "Seeing and Writing" I discovered a whole new concept of computer writing that I had never though of before. Who knew that by studying the history of printing one could depict the movement of computer writing?!

When I lived in Italy I loved to walk into the different museums and see the pages of bibles that were hand written by monks. They were always elaborately decorated with pictures and colors. The more important the patron, the more intricate the details were. You can see where mistakes were made and where the colors faded over time. To think that monks sat for years making the biblical pages into works of art is incredible, especially now when the click of th

e mouse can turn one word blue and the next red. One doesn't realize how significant the earl

y forms of print is to the computer. The idea of spacing and text and pictures and design are all possible on the computer because of early printers and typographers. Every word I type,

very picture I insert, Every font I use creates a bridge back to the roots of writing.

However, J. David Bolter points out that there is a significant shift through computer writing: "The new technology thus merges the role of writer and typographer that had been separate from the outset of the age of print." He brings up an important question that the class has been asking since the beginning... what does technology do to ownership and copyright? If a person like myself can now get on a blog, chose my fonts, text size, pictures, even video to publish to the world wide web, there is certainly no need for typographers. If that is the case, what will happen to the publishing industry as a whole ten, twenty, fifty years from now? Playing around with fonts and text is fun but will there ever be a time where an author decides that green is the new black? Is it possible to take the concept of hypertext a step further and create several completely different stories through colored text (the red one make you angry, the blue text calms you down, etc.). What do you think?

Bolter certainly concludes with an important point. He states, "[Authors] must envision what the reader will see at each moment and how that will will accord with what comes before and after. Authors in print or manuscript must also conceive of their text as unfolding in time, but they have little control of the reader's pace. The electronic author who chooses to animate must bear greater responsibility for the reader's temporal experience, because he or she can regulate the flow of text and images on screen."

So I ask... What does this mean to you?