Chapter one discusses the evolution of writing and
typography throughout history. The chapter is laid out in a timeline that is
accompanied by images. The timeline consists of 4 main parts: from the
invention of writing to the middle of the fifteenth century, then to the end of
the eighteenth century, then focusing on the nineteenth century, and finally
from 1900 to the new millennium. The first section of the timeline covers over
five thousand years, thus it is the most comprehensive. It depicts the earliest
written documents from Sumer, Egyptian hieroglyphics, cruciform, and woodblock
print. It’s truly fascinating to see how much type evolved during that time
period. It’s had to imagine how incredibly hard it would have been to carve
intricate letterforms and hieroglyphics out of stone with remedial tools. It
really shows the intellectual power and creativity that the human race is
capable of. What I found the most interesting is how fast typography has
evolved in the last several centuries. The introduction of new technology
really affected how type was created and used. It’s also fascinating that as
the years passed and the style changed, there were similarities throughout the
world; even before international communication was very accessible. This might
just be because of the limitations of the different technologies being used at
the time or perhaps what was being shared abroad had an extremely high impact
on other typographers. It’s also interesting that the “popular” style of type
in different centuries and decades reflect what was going on in pop culture.
This is especially apparent in 60’s 70’s and 80’s. The pictorial time line
format of this chapter is very important in helping the reader understand what
has happened with written language since it’s creation. If the chapter would
have been composed in a “traditional” fashion, I don’t think that the message
would have come across as clear as it does in its current form.
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