History of Typography

Understanding Typography A brief history of printed communication

Early Writing Systems The earliest known attempts to communicate with imagery were around 25,000 B.C These were pictorial forms (cave drawings) Early humans used pictographs – symbols to communicate ideas

Pictographs Pictographs are systems of symbols that represent ideas in a consistent manner. These simplified drawings represent objects

Pictographs The ancient Egyptians developed such a system called hieroglyphics The advantage of such a system is that it can be used to communicate universally- with no language barriers

Early Alphabets The Phoenicians developed an alphabet of 22 symbols around 1000 B.C. These symbols related to sounds in the spoken language There were consonants only – no vowels in this first alphabet The term “Phonetics” comes from this

Early Alphabets - Greek The Greeks expanded on the Phoenician alphabet by adding vowels and naming each character This system became the first system to read left to right and top to bottom

Early Alphabets - Roman The Romans develop the Greek alphabet further giving us the present alphabet we now use This alphabet had lowercase and uppercase versions of letters, condensed forms of text and cursive writing that flowed more naturally by hand

Writing During the Dark Ages For hundreds of years books were reproduced by hand, primarily religious manuscripts copied by monks Because of the painstaking long time it took to copy a single book, these rare books were treated as treasures and were works of art unto themselves

Typesetting from Wood The earliest known printed books were produced using wooden blocks with the text carved into them, which was then used as the printing plate. These “plates” were produced in much the same manner as those for wood engravings, instead of a picture carved into them, the actual text of the book was hand carved.

Invention of the Printing Press German metal carver Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid 15 th century. Letters were carved into a small metal plate, a “punch”. The letters were arranged to form blocks of text. Molten metal poured over the top of this to make a mold. This allowed books to be printed in quantities that had previously been impossible.

Invention of the Printing Press This invention changed the world, allowing rapid production and distribution of printed ideas for the first time. The Bible was the first complete book to be printed.

Hot Metal Composition By the middle of the 15 th century Guttenberg’s metal type became accepted and spread through Europe. Movable type is also called foundry type or hot type. In foundry type each piece of type was cast into a precise size from metal, which was comprised of lead, tin, or antimony.

Hot Metal Composition Each piece carried a raised image of a letter, number or character. The block of metal that carried the character was called the body. The raised image that was inked for printing was called the face; which is where we today get the term “typeface”.

Hot Metal Composition A distribution box was made up of many compartments, called the “California Case.” This box had a number of compartments so that each letter, number, and character was assigned a specific compartment of their own. I setting type letters were selected one at a time and lined up in what was called a composing stick until it was almost full.

Hot Metal Composition Then, by using pieces of type with no face on them, spaces between words were adjusted to bring the line to the required length. Each line was placed by hand into a larger box made especially for housing the type. The individual lines were laid out exactly like the page of a newspaper, book, or flyer was going to be, except the type was backwards as if looking into a mirror.

Hot Metal Composition In the beginning, printing from handset type, the type was inked and copies made directly from the type. When printing was finished, the type was taken apart, cleaned and returned to the distribution box for use another time.

Mechanical Composition For more than 400 years after the invention of the printing press, all type was set by hand. In the 19 th century men begin to consider the possibility of creating typesetting machines.

Mechanical Composition Numerous machines intended to replace hand composition were invented but none were sufficiently practical until Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the first practical typesetting machine in 1886 called the “Linotype.”

Mechanical Composition This first linotype machine produced solid lines of text cast from rows of matrices. Each matrix was a block of metal, usually brass, into which an impression of a letter had been engraved or stamped.

Mechanical Composition The line-composing operation was done by means of a keyboard similar to a typewriter. The depression of a single key released a matrix of a character from the magazine that stored 90 characters. After a few rows of matrices were assembled, it was transferred mechanically to a mold making device.

Linotype Composition Modern type alloy was forced into the mold against the matrices and hardened almost immediately. The result was a bar of metal of the desired length of line with raised letters where the molten metal filled the impressions of the letters in the matrices.

Linotype Composition After using the type for printing, it was dumped back into a pot and melted down for use again. This machine was much faster then human hand typesetting and required less staff.

Photomechanical Composition The next improvement in typesetting methodology was that of photocomposition machines. These machines had discs of film, which had each letter of the alphabet, numbers and characters on them. An individual disc or drum usually contained two or more typestyles and many machines were designed to carry more then one disc or drum. By varying the distance between the character on the drum and the film, it was possible to use the same negative image to produce a wide range of type sizes.

Cathode Ray Tube Composition The early 1960’s saw the next improvement in typesetting methods. This group of machines made use of cathode ray tube (CRT) for photocomposition.

Cathode Ray Tube Composition In this process, the image of each character was created on the screen of a cathode ray tube similar to a television picture tube. This image was projected through a lens, where it formed a character of the appropriate size on light- sensitive paper or film.

Digital Imaging Composition The age of electronics and computers has changed the way printed products are created and produced. Typesetting was impacted with the introduction of the Fotosetter in 1949 and the Photon in In 1950, the PDI electronic scanner was introduced to perform color separations.

Digital Imaging Composition Neither technology advanced much until the 1970s when the Video Display Terminal (VDT) and computers were introduced to improve typesetting. At this time also Electronic Dot Generation (EDG) and digital magnification expanded the capabilities of electronic scanners.

Digital Imaging Composition The digital revolution in typesetting occurred in 1985 with the introduction of the plain paper typesetter and the film imagesetter.

Digital Imaging Composition Digital imaging in prepress/platemaking started to expand in 1975 with laser printmaking, laser engraved cylinders for flexography in the 1980’s, computer-to-film in the 1980’s; computer-to-metal plates in 1991; thermal laser ablation nonprocessing computer-to-press plates in 1993; and computer-to-thermal processless plates starting in 1997.

Digital Imaging –The Present Digital imaging has transformed prepress. Photography has been almost completely replaced by digital imaging systems. HP Indigo Digital Printer

Digital Imaging –The Present Most typesetting is now done on a personal computer with sophisticated software for page layout, illustration, and image editing by a skilled user.