01.03 - A Brief History of Type - The Foundations of Typography

Chapter 01 - Introduction
Lesson 03 - A Brief History of Type

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Typography is timeless and always changing. It has developed over the last 600 years as the printing process has evolved. The characters that are printed however, have been developed over a much longer time period as language itself has developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the Latin letters we use today. An appreciation of typography naturally involves understanding how written language developed. I could spend days going over the complex origins of typography and letterforms, but this series is created to give you a brief, basic understanding of typography, and I have condensed the general history of typography into a few short minutes!

The Evolution of the Alphabet

Language is not static. Letters, language and typography develop and change over time. The modern english alphabet we are all used to is a result of this ongoing transition that has been evolving over the last few thousand years. Take a look at a few of these letterform evolutions.

The ‘A’ was originally a Cretan pictograph representing an ox’s head. The Phoenecians developed the Cretan pictographs into the first alphabet (The Phoenician Alphabet) and they wrote from right to left, so the symbol was turned on it’s side. Greeks generally wrote from left to right, so the letterform was once again refined and rotated. Finally, the Romans turned the character once again, to an upright position, giving it the form that we recognize today. Finally, the Romans further refined the letter to give it the form that we recognize today.

Cuneiform Tablets

"Cuneiform tablets" - John Hill

Cuneiform uses a wedge-shaped stylus to make impressions into a wet clay tablet and is the earliest standardized writing system, developed in ancient Mesopotamia as early as 4000 BC.

Phoenician Alphabet

"Phoenician Alphabet"

The origins of the first alphabet dates back to approximately 1600 BC, and was developed by the Phoenicians. They created symbols to represent sounds rather than objects. The symbols were put together in different combinations to construct thousands of words even though there were only consonants and no vowels. The Phoenician alphabet is the precursor for many subsequent writing systems such as Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and ultimately the modern English alphabet that is used today.

The Greek Alphabet

"Greek Alphabet" - National Archeological Museum of Athens

The Greeks adopted the characters of the Phoenician alphabet. Early greek was written in boustrophedon style where each alternating line actually read in opposite directions. Once the Greeks developed punctuation, this allowed the writing to move away from the boustrophedon style and lines now read left to right.

"Boustraphedon" - PRA

The Roman Alphabet

"Trajan's Column"

The roman alphabet developed the 26-letter alphabet which we still use today. Times Old Roman, and more recently, Times New Roman is based off of the old roman style of letters that were carved into stone. 7 of the characters used to represent the roman numerals. Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, regarded as the founder of the Holy Roman empire began standardizing texts around 800 AD. Majuscules, uppercase letterforms, and minuscules, or lowercase forms were devised and would later become the basis of modern typography.

"Carolingian minuscules"

Blackletter

"Gothic Blackletter" - Adrian Pingstone

Blackletter, also known as “gothic”, “textura” or sometimes erroneously referred to as “Old English” came about around 1100 AD and were the prevalent style through the Middle Ages. These letterforms were very compact and made it possible to fit more text on a page, which ultimately saved costs of paper.

Moveable type

- Jeremy Keith

With the availability of paper, relief printing from woodblocks, and growing demand for books, the mechanization of book production by moveable type was sought by printers all over Europe. In 1454, Johann Gutenberg would revolutionize the typographic world, with the advent of the Gutenberg press.

"Johannes Gutenberg"

The key to the invention of the letterpress was the type mold, which could cast individual letters. Moveable type started the printing revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period, playing a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution by bringing information the masses.

"Operating a Gutenberg Press" - The Graphic, June 30, 1877, p. 617

We will go over the following classifications and evolutions of the serif typeface later in the course, but the three major transformations to the serif typeface can be described by the following:

• Old Style - Ex: Garamond (early 1400s)
• Transitional - Ex: Baskerville (mid 1700s)
• Modern - Ex: Didot (late 1700s)

The Old Style or humanist typefaces allowed for much easier reading compared to the thick, condensed blackletter. As time went on, technology allowed for more detail and the contrast between the thick and thin strokes became greater and greater.

The Industrial Revolution

"Koenig's 1814 Steam Powered Printing Press"
- Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1998, p. 132

The Industrial Revolution brought mechanization that allowed printing to speed up, photo-engraving which replaced handmade printing plates, and line-casting machines that revolutionized typesetting and allowed for ever-increasing levels of detail and intricacy. By the 1800s, cities were becoming much larger. The faster pace and mass-communication needs of an increasingly industrialized society produced a rapid expansion of printers, advertising, and posters. Larger scale, greater visual impact characters were demanded and the book typography that had slowly evolved from handwriting did not fulfill these needs. Slab serifs were used frequently on advertisements to grab the viewers attention and sans serifs began to be used as more descriptive subtitles. We’ll learn more about the slab serif and sans serif later in the course.

"Goldrush poster"

Linotype

"Linotype Machine"

The linotype machine was invented in 1886. The machine produces an entire line of metal type at once, which was a significant improvement over the previous industry standard which required each letter to be set individually.
Art Nouveau - The increased trade between Asia and European countries during the late 19th century caused a cultural collision, spurring the Art Nouveau design movement. The decorative Egyptian (slab serifs) became even more graphic in this time, as typography really started to emulate the graphic form of the posters. Type became even more graphic and ornate.

"Linotype Janson type specimen" - James Puckett

Bauhaus

"Bauhaus Exhibition Poster, Joost Schmidt, 1923"

The Bauhaus movement began in 1919 when Walter Gropius founded a school with a vision of bridging the gap between art and industry by combining crafts and fine arts. Prior to the Bauhaus movement, fine arts such as architecture and design were held in higher esteem than craftsmanship (i.e., painting, woodworking, etc.), but Gropius asserted that all crafts, including art, architecture and geometric design, could be brought together and mass-produced. The Bauhaus had a major impact on art and architecture trends in Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Israel for decades even after the school had shut down.

Art Deco

The Art Deco movement embraced technology and “the machine”. The typographic evolution in this time brought forth a new way of design thinking. Sans serif emulated the style well due to it’s futuristic, sleek, and streamline style.

International Typographic Style

"New Grafik - Walter Verlag"

International Typographic Style or Swiss Style design picked up on the essence of art deco, emphasizing cleanliness, readability, and objectivity. In 1957, Helvetica, one of the most popular typefaces of the 20th century and still today, was created.

"Weniger Lärm - Josef Müller Brockman, 1960"

Corporate Branding

"American Broadcasting Corporation Logo, Paul Rand"

The 1950s and 60s were a golden age of advertising and branding. Typography was heavily impacted by this new, “smarter” approach. Maintaining the simplicity of the international typographic style, but incorporating creative graphical elements which communicated the identity of the brand.

"Chase Manhattan Bank Logo, Chermayeff & Geismar Associates, 1960"

The Personal Computer

"Original mac fonts"

In the 1980s, the personal computer once again revolutionized the world of typography. This invention brought forth desktop publishing software, where designers could generate quality layouts much more efficiently than ever before. The process of creating typefaces was now much more simplified and the new digital process allowed the number of type styles to proliferate exponentially.

Age of Information

"MyFonts"

We are currently in the age of information, where we can share our thoughts and ideas instantly across the world with anyone we would like. And now with cloud services like Adobe’s Typekit, anyone can upload their desktop fonts to their website, which has immensely changed the look of our online world, and it will surely continue to change over the years to come. Our designs and typefaces can be created, distributed and arranged quickly and accurately. There have been more books written about typography in these last 5 years than the last 500! We are living in a true golden age of typography.

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I hope this quick history lesson was interesting and helpful! To end off the first introductory chapter, the next post will be covering the anatomy of letterforms!