A History Of Typography

A History of Typography For as long as the written word has existed, typefaces and typography have been apart. From its roots in the midst of times and origins of communication to the million pound industry it is today, very little has done as much to influence the graphical world we see. Pictograms The first type of messages that we find in the history records were a series of pictures that told a story known as pictograms. Ideographs Ideographs substituted symbols and abstractions for pictures of events. A symbol of a star represented the heavens or a peace pipe represented peace. Native Americans and Egyptians are examples of some folks who used ideographs. Chinese alphabets are still based on ideographs. Hieroglyphics From Ideographs developed a system pioneered by the Egyptians known as Hieroglyphics. The Egyptians still used drawings to represent objects or ideas, but were the first to use objects to represent sounds. Phoenicians At around 1200 BC, the Phoenicians gained their independence from the Egyptians and developed their own alphabet that was the first to be composed Exclusively of Letters. Greeks The Greeks adopted the Phoenician language and began to develop the true beginnings of our modern alphabet. The Greeks refined the Phoenician language by adding the first vowels (5 TIO KAIEYIV of them). Romans AAEEAN POKANG DIAOYEBN The Romans further developed the alphabet by using 23 letters OLHPOPANO from the Etruscans who based AVE their language on the Greek.The Romans contributed short finishing strokes at the end of letters known as Serifs. Roman letters feature the first examples of thick and thin strokes. Charlemagne Around 732 Charlemagne ordered a system of writing called the Caroline Guttenberg Miniscule which for the first time was the First Lowercases that were In the 1400's Guttenberg invented a system of moveable type that revolutionized the world and allowed for dramatic more than just small versions of uppercase letters. mass printing of materials. Claude Garamond In 1490 Claude Garamond from France was the first that ( imdide Audru nofare:k developed the first true printing typeface not designed to imitate elrumet,Eralcendefhourviegaltum handwriting, but designed on ndirdetemdelemi:Nan era foemac, Rigid Geometric principles. Garamond also began the tradition of naming the typeface after himself. Garamond became the dominant typeface for the next 200 years. Aldus Manutius heantaa P abula parnd In 1500, a printer by the name E tnunc portici of Aldus Manutius for the first Apamaanikamanpahru No dufikReishu loarvta dekrun koput faid Abeudefnhuingum a petaimaes idlaro nelbosporta, a hamina DeokHVMILIATVM KW time invented the concept of S tagna fónat, fi pocket or portable books. He F ertur equis,ra also developed the first Italic typeface, one of the first typeface variations. I amq; hic germ Nec conferre ma Robert Granjon In 1557, Robert Granjon Diategne e fa vic et de invented the First Cursive Typeface, which was built to simulate handwriting. William Caslon ASPRCIMEN ABCD aR m In 1734, William Caslon issued the typeface bearing his name which included Straighter Serifs and greater contrasts between major and minor strokes. John Baskerville In 1757, John Baskerville introduced the First Transitional Roman which increased contrast between thick and thin strokes, had a nearly vertical stress in the counters and very sharp serifs. Common Prayer, SACRAMENTS Didot & Bodoni Didot I Bodoni In 1780 Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni of Italy developed the First Modern Romans. The moderns carry the transitionals to the extreme. Thin strokes are hairlines, plus a full vertical stress. -Vincent Figgins In 1815 Vincent Figgins ADUDEPOIAUEL POSTUTWETUS designed a face with square serifs for the first time and this became known as the William Caslon IV MANKIND Egyptians or more recently as the Slab Serifs. ABCDEPGIUKLIONOPORSTUVW In 1816 William Caslon IV produced the first typeface w CCASLON JUNR without serifs (sans serifs) of any kind, but it was ridiculed at the time. -Frederic Goudy In the 1920s, Frederic Goudy ABCDEFGHIJKLMN developed several innovative OPQRSTUVWXYZÀ designs and became the world's first full time type designer. We owe the Broadway typeface to him. LETTERFOUNDER ÅÉÎÒØÜabcdefghijkl Herbert Bayer mnopqrstuvwxyzàâéiðs &1234567890($£.,!?) In 1925 Herbert Bayer was appoined head of the newly created workshop for print and advertising at the Dessau Bauhau where he designed universal typefaces which were later adapted into Bauhaus font. architype bayer a bc -Stanley Morison In 1931 Stanley Morison was Times New Roman Times New Roman Time commissioned by The Times' newspaper to produce a new Times New Romai easy-to-read typeface for the publication, Times New Roman хчг universum abcdefghijklmn opgrstuvwxyz Times New Roman Times Ne Times New Roman Tir 0123456789 Times New Ro1 Max Miedinger Howard Kettler In 1954, Max Miedinger, ABCD most popular typeface EFGHIJK of our time.Helvetica. LMNOP a Swiss artist created the Howard Kettler designed Courier in 1955 for IBM. Aa Courier became the most popular typeface used on typewriters for 30 years. The Swiss also championed the use of QRSTUV white space as a design element. WXYZ Rudolf Hell In 1964 he invented the Digiset, the First Digital Typesetter. Digital Grotesk is the first all digital font produced. Adobe Adobe invented Postscript in 1985 which used mathematical calculations to describe typefaces instead of relying on pixel by pixel definitions of fonts. For years after that Adobe led the way in developing fonts for personal computers. Go digital with Digi Grotesk -Apple & Microsoft PostScript type Bemap type Adobe offered PostScript to both Apple and Microsoft, but they rejected Adobe's proposal and decided to jointly develop their own font technology called Truetype in 1989. The Truetype format is not as clean and reliable as the postscript format, but it allowed for an explosion in font design. Adobe & Microsoft OpenType is a cross-platform font file format developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft.The two main benefits of the OpenType format are its cross-platform compatibility (the same font file works on Macintosh and Windows computers), and its ability to support widely expanded character sets and layout features. -Matthew Carter Vv In 1996 Matthew Carter designed Verdana and Georgia for Microsoft; these fonts are tuned to be Carol Twombly extremely legible even at very small sizes on the screen. PROPYLAEA Carol Twombly worked for Adobe Systems from 1988-99, producing many well-known typefaces, including Lithos, Trajan, and Adobe Caslon. Online Solution Facquard Since Internet Explorer is by far the leading browser on the web, we call the set of fonts that used to come with IE "Web Safe Fonts" . The list includes: Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, Verdana and Wingdings. 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