The typographic trends initiated by Herb Lubalin and imitated by countless others, particularly the emphasis on tight type at the occasional expense of readability, were a reaction to the absence of the restrictions of hot metal typesetting that preceded them.

The elimination of so many restrictions in the typesetting process had a major effect on typography and design.

Images became sharp and crisp, corrections could be made electronically, and most importantly, there was now complete flexibility with regard to intermixing styles, weights and sizes letter spacing and kerning line spacing and word spacing as well as hyphenation and justification. The equipment took up much less space, and a typeface, whether a new design or a metal type classic, could be converted into a workable font much faster than in metal. Typesetting could now be done electronically rather than mechanically, setting over five hundred characters per second compared to perhaps five or six previously. The improvements over hot metal typesetting were qualitative as well as quantitative. Phototypesetting came about in the mid-1950s, and was a photographic process of setting type whereby typefaces were made into negatives through which light was focused onto photosensitive paper, producing an image of the type. Why did he do this? In part because he could – these were typographic capabilities never before possible prior to the arrival of phototypesetting, the ‘revolutionary’ typesetting technology that changed everything. Lubalin handled type in an illustrative, expressive way, often by employing type as graphic elements or by creating typographic puns. His work incorporated tight letter-and-line spacing, extreme kerning with acute attention to every typographic detail, and the overall use of type in ways never before seen. Herb Lubalin (1918–1981) was a brilliant, innovative, gutsy New York designer whose groundbreaking and adventurous use of type influenced designers around the globe.

One influential designer not to be overlooked is Herb Lubalin (Loob- a-lin), who was one of the most prominent figures in typography and type-centric design in the 1960s and 1970s. An important aspect in the education of a designer is learning about those who came before.

Herb lubalin font wgbh