Chapter 1- Bailey Ciombor

The Evolution of Typography

The chapter starts off emphasizing how typography is a visual form of communication and because this visual communication device is through human sight, there is a huge history. The origins of writing to Gutenberg’s invention of the movable type was in 3150 B.C.- A.D. 1450. This started off with written documents on clay tablets, which was probably written with pens sharp enough to engrave lettering into stone or clay.

            The medieval period came next and this was a big time for having manuscript books. Scriptoria was used and usually written in ink.  The invention of a more uniform writing style was developed too by Charlemagne. After this era, Early Gothic lettering, a traditional style, became known. Next, the nineteenth century came about and played around with printing types and many different type styles. Typography, illustration, and decorative initials were introduced during the French Renaissance and became very popular. Also, during this era the industrial revolution had a huge impact on typography and the graphic arts.

            Typography in the twentieth century had so much change and innovations. New artist that pushed the range of type really showed a whole new side to the typography world. It was expanded for movements, advertisements, art, literature, signs, posters, and so on. Lastly, the new century and new millennium began. The invention of new technology just keeps advancing and web sites grew, new ways to communicate, the Internet in general, gave artists and designers so many more options to be creative with typography.

            The invention of writing is over five thousand years old along with the invention of movable type. There are four big eras in history with type and they were: Europe in the fifteenth century, the Eighteenth century, Industrial Revolution in the 1900’s, and digital revolution in the twentieth century.