A Brief History of Type

• Pictograph or pictogram — 

a pictorial symbol for a word or phrase;
representational. Cave drawings are pictographs.

• Ideograph or ideogram — 

a written character symbolizing the idea 

of a thing but not how the word sounds; 

may or may not be representational. 

Chinese characters are ideographs

• Alphabet — a set of symbols used to represent the

basic sounds of a language

• Logogram — a written character or symbol

representing a word or phrase, such as those used 

in shorthand (@) or texting (LOL)
 Storytelling to pictographs, 40,000 BC

• For most of history, man has passed on information through

story telling, but this is not a reliable way of conveying
information, as anyone who has played “telephone” or tried to
talk someone through a difficult computer problem can attest.

• The earliest way to record stories were through drawings and

paintings, called “pictographs,” the earliest examples of which
have been found in caves and date from 40,000 – 10,000 BC.

• A pictograph conveys its meaning through its pictorial

resemblance to a physical object. Cave drawings presented
people, places and things in a simple, easy to understand way.
The earliest known cave paintings (found in France) date from 32,000 BC.
Cave art portrays human hands, large numbers of animals in 

different activities, geometric figures and signs.
 They portrayed
prehistoric animals...
...and the hunt.
Aboriginal cave paintings
Indian cave paintings
Indian cave paintings included people and animals in domestic situations
And Anasazi pictographs from Arizona and New Mexico
Early Writing
 Hieroglyphics

The first hieroglyphics

appeared about 3,400 BC
on pottery in Egypt.
Originally they were
pictographs, like this 

one of a cat.
Hieroglyphics incorporate ideographs, 3100 BC

• By 3100 B.C. Egyptian

hieroglyphics used symbols to
present thoughts or ideas —
called “ideographs” — allowing
for more abstract concepts than
the more literal pictograms.

• A symbol for an ox could mean Egyptian ideograph 


for “weeping”
food, for example, or the symbol
of a setting sun combined with
the symbol for a man could
communicate old age or death.
 Hieroglyphics become ideographs

• Ideographs are a graphic

symbol that represents an
idea or concept. For instance,
a symbol of a star represents
the heavens or a peace pipe
represents peace.

• Egyptians, Native Americans

and Asians are people who
used ideographs.

• Chinese alphabets are still

based on ideographs. Logos
are also ideographs.
Egyptian hieroglyphics were a combination of pictograms, ideograms, and
phonetic sounds. They had no written characters representing vowels.
 Hieroglyphics in use

Eventually there were over 750 hieroglyphs.

Blau Monument from around 3100 BC

Writing also developed in other parts of the

Mediterranean. This is one of two stone tablets from
southern Iraq during the Late Prehistoric period that may
have recorded a land sale using both symbols and pictures.
Cuneiform
Cuneiform, created in Sumaria
(southern Iraq) around 3000 BC,
was one of the first systems of
writing to read from left to right.
At this stage the pictograms were
“drawn” rather than “written”. 

A pointed stylus was used to draw
the curved lines of the pictographs,
but drawing a curved line on wet
clay is not as easy as it sounds, and
it leaves granulated ridges on either
side of the line.
(The indents at the top here
represent numbers.)
http://sumarianshakespeare.com/30301.html
 When the Sumarians started
making their signs more linear
and abstract, they cut river reeds
into a triangular profile and used
it to impress a line in the clay
rather than dragging it across the
surface, creating a wedge-shaped
mark. (from Latin cuneus ‘wedge’)

At first the Sumarians made a sign for every object, but around 700 symbols
decided this was impractical. Abandoning their pictographic style, they began
to create words phonetically, combining signs with the desired pronunciation
for each syllable (think cat-a-log). This makes it the first written language.
http://sumarianshakespeare.com/30301.html, https://www.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Hieroglyphs/
 Proto-Sinaitic alphabet, 1700 BC
• It is thought that around 1700 BC Sinai (a wedge-shaped
peninsula east of Egypt) was conquered by Egypt for its
turquoise mines and trade routes. The local West-Semitic-
speaking population adopted a small number of hieroglyphic
signs (probably no more than 22) to write their language.

• Egyptian hieroglyphs had phonetic signs, but the Sinaitic

people did not adopt those phonetic signs. Instead, they
chose pictorial Egyptian glyphs (like ox-head, house, etc) that
sounded like the consonants they wanted to represent.

• Proto-Canaanite, also known as Proto-Sinaitic, is the first

alphabet, and evolved into the Roman alphabet. (The
Egyptians didn’t adopt an alphabet until the 2nd Century BC.)
Much as our own handwriting starts out blocky and stiff when
we are young and becomes fluid and scrawled as we practice,
pictograms changed and evolved through use.
Phoenicians, 1000 BC
• A non-pictographic
consonantal alphabet,
referred to as abjad.

• Developed to serve the

needs of sailor/traders.
One of the most widely
used writing systems.

• Assimilated by many other

cultures they traded with,
including Greek, Hebrew
and Arabic.

• Characters became 

less representational 

and more symbolic.
The Greeks create modern alphabet, 900 BC

• Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region

called Canaan (areas where spoken include modern-day
Lebanon, coastal Syria, northern Israel, Tunisia, Algeria and Malta).
They traded all over the Mediterranean, taking the alphabet 

with them to use to keep track of what they were trading.

• The Greeks adopted and refined the Phoenician alphabet by

adding the first vowels (5 of them).

• Written Greek did not have punctuation, lower case letters or

spaces between words.

• “Typography” derives its origin from the Greek words τύπος

typos = “That by which something is symbolized or figured …”
and “to strike” and γραφία graphia = “to write”.
 The Romans refined the Greek alphabet, 600 BC

• It is generally believed that the Romans

adopted the Cumae alphabet, a variant
of the Greek alphabet, from Cumae, 

a Greek colony in Southern Italy.
• Romans developed the alphabet
further by adding more letters and 

it advanced rapidly to the modern
alphabet. (Roman scribes also began
joining and slanting letters in harmony
with the natural motion of the hand.)
• Trajan’s column in Rome, 113 AD, 

still stands as one of the most beautiful
examples of Roman letterforms. 

(See the font “Trajan” on your Mac.)
 Refinements of the alphabet

About 732 AD, Emperor

Charlemagne, uniter of
Europe, ordered the
creation of a system of
writing called the
Carolingian Miniscule, 

the first lowercase letters
that were more than just 

a small version of
uppercase letters.
Printing
 The roots of modern typography

• Modern typography traces its roots to the first punches

and dies used to make seals and coins in ancient times.

• Though their purpose isn’t understood, the first known

moveable type artifact is probably the Phaistos Disc.
Separate punches were used to imprint the disc sometime
between 1850 BC and 1600 BC.
 Moveable type invented
• China invents moveable type in the 11th century, but
restricted by the thousands of characters required to use it.

• In 1439, Johannes Gutenberg invents a system of moveable

type that revolutionizes the world by allowing mass printing
of written material — accidentally bringing on, among other
things, the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance.

• Gutenberg developed an ingenious process employing a

separate hard metal matrix, or mold, for each alphabet
character, from which soft lead type could be hand-cast in
great quantities. He then figured out how to assemble the
type into a page of text, which could then be printed on
paper using special inks he developed and a printing press
of his own design.
 Gutenberg Bible

Completed between 1450 and 1456,

the Gutenberg Bible was the first
book printed using his inventions.
The “Blackletter” font he printed
with was based on the regional
handwriting style of the scribes 

his printed books competed with.
 Example of Gutenberg’s “Blackletter” font

Hopetown-Young Gutenberg Bible, Cambridge University

The “Illuminated” initial cap was not printed; a space was left 

and it was added by hand.
 First “Roman” typeface
Within 15 years of the invention of printing, Frenchman Nicolas Jenson
designs and begins printing the first “Roman” font in Venice, Italy, 1470. 

Jenson construct his typeface on the basis of typographic principles, 

rather than copying manuscript samples.
Explosion of printing

• The first fifty years witnessed an explosion

of printing throughout Europe, and by 

1500 more than 10 million copies of nearly
3500 works were printed and distributed.

• In 1500, an Italian printer, Aldus Manutius,

invented the concept of the pocket or
portable book.

• He also created the italic typeface design,

for which he obtained a patent, though 

the honor is due more to his punchcutter,
Francesco Griffo.
 Garamond
• The 1500s brings the beautiful proportions of French type
designers Claude Garamond and Robert Granjon.

(Below, Adobe Garamond.)

ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRS
TUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmn
opqrstuvwxyz
1234567890
 Caslon
1716-1728 brings the transitional roman typeface of William Caslon —
thins are thinner, uniform serifs, more upright stresses.

ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRS
TUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmn
opqrstuvwxyz
1234567890
 Baskerville
Baskerville is a serif typeface designed in the 1750s by John
Baskerville (1706–1775) in Birmingham, England. It had so much more
contrast than previous fonts that people claimed it blinded them.
 Bodoni
• 1791 Giambattista Bodoni creates the first “modern” serif
typeface, Bodoni, with its ruled serifs and extreme contrast. 

A similar and often preferred version is Didot.

ABCDEFGHIJ
KLNOPQRS
TUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmn
opqrstuvwxyz
1234567890
 Fat Face

abcdefgh As the Industrial Revolution

took hold, more people were
ijklmnopq living in cities, and more was
rstuvwxyz being printed. So, with calls
from the printers for
ABCDEFG something more “visible,” type
designers created bolder type.
HIJKLMN First came “Fat Face,” around
1810, an exaggeration of
OPQRSTU Bodoni. (Bodoni Ultra, left)

VWXYZ
Bodoi Ultra Bold
 Egyptian (Slab Serif )

Next, both the strokes and

ABCDEFG the serifs were fattened. 


Why call it Egyptian? Upon

HIJKLNOP Napoleon’s return from a

three-year Egyptian

QRSTUVW expedition and publication in

1809 of his Description de

XYZ1234
l’Égypt, Egypt was all the rage,
and type founders simply

567890
used a term that 

was in vogue. 

(Vincent Figgins, 

Figgins Antique, 1817)
Victorian Era

Here’s a sample of 

a Victorian-era
poster, mixing a
variety of bold fonts
including Fat Face,
Egyptian and 

Blackletter styles.
Victorian Engraving

From the mid-1800s to the early

1900s engravers illustrated type by
hand on steel and copper plates.
Freehand work like this allowed for
highly elaborate designs, including
drop shadows, strokes, inlines, etc.
Sans Serif

• In 1816, William Caslon IV

produces a font specimen book
listing a “sans serif ” all caps with 

no lower case (left). Not much 

is known about it and no
examples of it in use exist.

• The first popular sans serif was

Accidenz-Grotesk, created
for the AG typefoundry in 1896,
the beginning of the modern era.
 abcdefgh abcdefgh
ijklmnopq ijklmnopq
rstuvwxyz rstuvwxyz
ABCDEFG ABC D EFG
HIJKLMNO HIJKLMNO
PQRSTUV PQRSTUV
WXYZ WXYZ
Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk (1896) Linotype Helvetica (1957)
 Geometric Sans Serif
Futura, 1927, is a sans-serif
ABCDEFGHIJ typeface designed by Paul Renner.
Based on geometric shapes, it
KLNOPQRS became representative of the
Bauhaus design style of 1919–
TUVWXYZ 1933. Although Renner was not
associated with the Bauhaus, he
abcdefghijklmn believed that a modern typeface
should express modern models,

opqrstuvwxyz rather than be a revival of a

previous design. The typeface is

1234567890
derived from near-perfect circles,
triangles and squares and is based
on strokes of near-even weight,
which are low in contrast.
 Near history
Those are the basic styles — 

Oldstyle Serif, Transitional Serif, Modern Serif, Egyptian, and Sans Serif.
But there are always new sub-styles being created, and old styles
changing and evolving. Here are some recent examples.
Swiss Design

Combining styles of Russian

Constructivism, DeStijl, and the
Bauhaus, Swiss designers in the
1950s-1960s create stunning
designs with neutral elements
like the grid, sans serif
typography, and photography, in
an attempt to bring science and
rationality to graphic design.
(Josef Müller-Brockmann,
Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel)

(Univers, first systematic 


font family, 1957, Adrian Frutiger)
 Vernacular Design
The opposite of Swiss design,
ABCDEFGH vernacular design emerged with

IJKLNOPQR the founding of Push Pin Studios

in New York in 1954 by Milton
STUVWXYZ Glaser and Seymour Chwast,
who revived historical design
abcdefghijkl styles and improved and
adapted them. Other designers
mnopqrstuv from the 1950s–70s included
Peter Max, Lou Dorfsman at
wxyz12345 CBS and letterers Ed Benguait,

67890 and Herb Lubalin. Design style

revivals continue to be popular.

(left: ITC Bookman, 1975, 


Ed Benguiat)
 Macintosh & Emigre Magazine

ABCDEFGHIJKLN In1984, Emigre magazine was one of

the first publications to use
computers and was a huge influence
OPQRSTUVWXYZ on graphic designers moving into
desktop publishing. Zuzana Licko

abcdefghijklmn used the newly invented Macintosh

and a bitmap font tool to create
fonts that defined the decade. Her
opqrstuvwxyz ascendance in a primarily male-
dominated profession and her

1234567890 bypassing of traditional training have

been an inspiration to a generation
of font designers.
(left: font OaklandFifTeen, 1985,

Zuzana Licko)
 Grunge fonts
Originally, “punk” typography was
ABCDEFGHIJKLN created by ripping up or crumpling
photocopied type over and over

OPQRSTUVWXYZ again. Then, around 1994, House

Industries put out a font collection

abcdefghijklmno called “Flyer Fonts,” a collection of

“distressed” fonts created mostly
through their own over-enthusiastic
pqrstuvwxyz copy machine use. The availability
of these fonts ushered in the

1234567890 “grunge” era. Now angry fonts 


like these are so mainstream that
“Crackhouse” (left, 1994, Jeremy
Dean) is included with the
Macintosh operating system.
 An explosion of technology

• The development of steam-powered presses in the 18th

century created the newspaper and magazine industries.
• The late nineteenth century brought improvements in
typesetting equipment, such as the Linotype (automated hot-
metal typesetting — created in Baltimore). The late twentieth
century brought photo type, computerized typesetting, and
then computerized typesetting on our desks and laptops.
• The digital age has seen an explosion of typographic design.
There are more type designers now than have ever lived.
• Short term: Be aware of what historical styles are and how to
use them appropriately. Own a small number of versatile font
families and learn to use them well. Long-term: Be aware of
changes in styles and be open to new styles as they develop.
Use type with intelligence and passion