Typography Basics

We’ll save the history lesson for another area.

People wrote things with their hands. Sometimes we think of Cursive as “fancy” – but it wasn’t always considered that way. Cursive is actually a way to write really fast! If you couldn’t afford the massively labor-intensive book with the steady hand lettering, – maybe you could afford a scribbled one!

(figure incoming)

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1041-1048

A Chinese commoner named Pi Sheng developed a movable type system during the Chi’ing-li period (1041-1048).

These were crafted by carving into clay and then hardening them in the fire. The letters were secured in place on a metal plate with a sticky mixture. They would be used as a block print, and when finished – could use heat to remove the lettings from their plate and put them away for later use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type

In 1450 Johannes Gutenberg had invented his metal movable type printing press and started actually printing things.

Blackletter was a type of writing. There were many types – in many places. One version was called Textualis and that’s what Mr. Gutenberg followed when carving out the first printable typeface? **

So, – Blackletter. It looks like this. It’s very stern calligraphy and clearly shows the thick nib used to letter it. You can see the little serifs at the beginning and end of each stroke.

They printed the Christian Bible with it. Thanks?

1400s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing

Humanist (aka Venetian)

1400

1500s-1700s

1700s

1800s

1900s

early 1900s

late 1900s

1900s

1900s