Type is Older Than Graphite Pencils

     You’re probably familiar, at least vaguely with the invention known as the printing press. 1450, Johannes Gutenberg, all that. So I needn’t tell you about the importance of that machine and the resulting boom of printed materials.

     But the predecessor to type was lettering. Lettering is, essentially, fancy handwriting, but is so much more than just fancy handwriting. Think imperial scribes writing artful and precise characters on scrolls, or monks copying the bible by hand. And then Johannes strolled up and said “You know what? I think I’ve got a cure for carpel tunnel.”

     Ok, obviously it didn’t happen like that. But type, being machine produced, saved a whole lot of time and hand cramps. Even still, the individual metal letters had to be placed by hand, and they were backwards. This was necessary to transfer it on to paper, but can you imagine if that was still the case with digital type? Honestly I can’t come up with a single situation where that would remain in the 2020’s. People would either learn to read backwards and keep it that way or wouldn’t bother writing anything on a machine ever. Printing, though accessible to nearly everyone today, was very much reserved for scholars and the wealthy.

     The types invented in the first few hundred years were designed to mimic the hand written lettering. Then in the 1700s sometime these Old Style typefaces began to transition into the more modern typefaces we see today as the paper and ink and machines were improved and could achieve more detail. Those who had printing presses were the ones designing and creating the typefaces, and each had their own individual style.

     Then of course the Industrial Revolution changed everything. Things began being mass produced and printers would sell their typefaces to other printers. Eventually they consolidated all of these types and created a library that grew to offer thousands of typefaces for sale.

     Now you can literally just Google typefaces or fonts and download them directly onto your computer.

"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." J. R. R. Tolkien