History of Typography and Language

History of Typography and Language

Visual language can be traced back to early 3200BC with visual language been presented in the form of symbols  and pictures in which a message was communicated. It wasn't until the Greek began to form an alphabet system which had a range of letters that followed a system and included constants and vowels within the language system. Typography was communicated by hand using things like feather quills and sable brushes up until 1450. 

In the 1450s the Gutenberg Press was produced meaning bodes of text could be produced time and time again through the application of letter press blocks during this development of communicating language the idea of a typeface began to arise forming the start of typography design. Due to lack of education the written word was unknown and common poorer societies were seen as barbaric with no communication skills up until the release of the Fosters Education Act in 1870 which made education available to all classes. The market within typography and the need for typography design created a huge gap for the start of the Meta-Language that is known as Typography. 

The styles and classifications of typeface design built on and built on with type design been seen as a modernist art movement at the time before been transformed into a way in which communication can be legibility presented in texts which lead onto typesetting in the digital age. 

Typeface originates back too script/black letter lettering which then lead onto Classical old style fonts like Garamond. This then lead to the production of Transitional typefaces which breathed life into typography within the modern movement which then lead to the Swiss Modern style of type design in the 1950s.

We are now in a contemporary age were there is so much typeface design out there it is begging to be a challenge in itself finding an overall good typeface that can fit most medias as there is so much typeface design that takes the concept of Form over Function creating lots of stunt typography out there with not much legible and readable type been available.