1.
Bulla with Clay Token
8000 BC
As civilization developed into a more agricultural society and began to trade goods, it was necessary to find a way to record transactions. Small portable clay tokens were used to represent objects on a one-to-one relationship until tokens were incised to represent more than one object.

2.
Cuneiform
3100 BC
Cuneiform was written with a wedge shaped stylus pressed into wet clay tablets. The characters started out as pictograms which were later rotated onto their sides, abstracted into symbols and organized into horizontal rows.

The chart above illustrating the evolution of cuneiform from pictograph to symbol is taken from the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania

4.
Early Greek
5th C. BC
Greek was written in straight rows but read in alternate directions, reading from left to right and then switching to right to left —"boustrephedon" or as the ox plows. Most scholars believe that the Greek alphabet was borrowed from the Phoenicians and that vowels were added by the Greeks.

5.
Early Roman Lapidary
2nd Century BC
As copied from the Greek style, the first Roman stone carved letters were of equal width and were without serifs. Rudimentary word spacing begins with dots used to divide words.

6.
Classical Roman Lapidary
1st C. AD
The first serifs are theorized to originate with the stone cutter's horizontal finish of the carved line to decrease the chance of a stone splintering at the end of a line and/or to mimic the thickness of the initial brush drawn guides.

"The lapidary stone-engraved letters were painted on stone with a square-cut tool and then incised; from such means resulted the thick and thin variations of the strokes and the serifs."

7.
Roman Capitals
1st C. AD
These early scripts were attempts to copy the characteristics of type inscribed in stone. They were written mostly on vellum with an edged reed or quill nib held nearly parallel to the baseline.

8.
Uncials
5th C. AD
Letterforms taken from the square capitals of stone carving and written majuscules. Early Christian works used this hand which was written between 2 guidelines of one uncial (the Roman inch).

9.
Half Uncials
6th C. AD
Written between four guidelines allowing for the development of ascenders and descenders. This new style was easier and faster to write.

10.
Carolingian
Miniscule
8th C. (789)
Emperor Charlemagne decreed that a standard style of writing be used across the vast Holy Roman Empire as a means of unification. This style is thought to have been influenced by the monk, Alcuin of York. During the Renaissance it was mistaken for early a Roman face and copied as a "Classical" type style.

Alcuin of York
A scholar and advisor to Charlemagne, he set up a school for all monks with standards for clear and legible script:
1. Uniform spelling
2. The Carolingian style of well-formed lowercase letters
3. Capitals to begin a sentence and lowercase to continue
4. Space between words
5. Standard punctuation
6. Division into sentences and paragraphs

11.
Blackletter
12—15th C.
After the death of Charlemagne handwriting became more condensed and angular. Word spacing, linespacing and letterspacing were reduced to conserve space and materials. As churches and universities increased, so did the demand for manuscripts. Secular professional scribes which contributed to a rise in regional varieties of handwriting styles.

Four Styles of Blackletter
As stated by Robert Bringhurst in his Elements of Typographic Style, "blackletter is the typographic counterpoint to the Gothic style in architecture."
There are 4 basic styles of Blackletter found in endless variations.
• Textura
• Fraktur
• Bastarda(Fr)Schwabacher (De)
• Rotunda

12.Humanism
A cultural and intellectual movement during the Renaissance fueled by the reexamination of the literature of ancient Greece and Rome (such as writings by Plato and Aristotle.)
The central feature of Humanism in this period was the commitment to the idea that the ancient world (defined effectively as ancient Greece and Rome, ... was the pinnacle of human achievement, especially intellectual achievement, and should be taken as a model by contemporary Europeans.
The Humanists approached life in a more secular manner, and dealt less with the abstract concepts of theology.

Pazzi Chapel, 1429- 1461
Filippo Brunelleschi
Florence, Italy

Renaissance architecture reintroduced the Classical Greek and Roman emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts. The elements included columns, pilasters, rounded arches and domes, niches and aedicules.

12.
Johann Gutenberg
15th C.
Mainz, Germany
(Visit the Gutenberg Museum)
Printing had been practiced in Korea, China and Japan for several centuries, and Europeans had printed type with carved wooden blocks for about 100 years when a modular "moveable type" system was developed in about 1450. A number of people were working
on a system of "automated writing" but the commonly accepted originator of the modular moveable type system was Johann Gutenberg.

13. Making Type
Punchcutting & Type Founding
(See the steps)
The first step in making metal type is to carve a letter on the end of a steel bar, the punch. That letterform is struck into a softer metal, copper, to create
a matrix.

A jeweler by profession, Gutenberg was knowledgeable
in metal carving, casting and knew which metals worked best for each stage of his process. The mixture he used for casting type was a mixture of lead, tin and antimony. He also formulated inks that would adhere to metal type surfaces and a device for printing that was based upon a grape/wine press.

Please note that Gutenberg did not use roman style lettering but rather the blackletter style which he hoped would replicate handwriting. It is believed that Gutenberg designed a font of 270 characters — several variations of each letter were used to add a human factor.

Screw Press image from the University of Texas

14.
Gutenberg's 42-Line Bible
Circa 1455
(See it here!)
Despite being a clever inventor Gutenburg was not a good businessman. He borrowed heavily from Johann Fust and when Gutenberg was unable to repay his debts Fust successfully sued to take over the business. Fust then enlisted his brother-in-law Peter Schoeffler as a business partner and they produced the bible, despite the fact that is it known as the Gutenberg bible.

A collection of samples printed by Schoeffler at Bridwell Library.

15.
Above: Konrad Haebler's Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke
"... we can say roughly that in the age of incunabula, about 1,100 printers used 4,600 type founts to print 27,000 titles of books and documents.
Gothic type accounts for 79% of all types used, while Roman types represents around 19%. Besides these two major founts, Greek, Hebrew ... were created... Some 1,200 Gothic type founts were used in both Italy and Germany, and some 700 Gothic type founts in France. Most of Roman types were used by Italian printers, while only a small number of German, French and Spanish printers used Roman type. Printers in England and the Netherlands seldom or never used Roman type."

Excerpt from the National Diet Library of Japan website

16.
Printing Techonology Spreads Causing Societal Change
"Within 50 years over a thousand printers set up shop all over Europe. Many groups sought to control this new technology. Scribes fought against the introduction of printing, because it could cost them their livelihoods, and religious (and sometimes secular) authorities sought to control what was printed. Sometimes this was successful: for centuries in some European countries, books could only be printed by government authorized printers, and nothing could be printed without the approval of the Church. Printers would be held responsible rather than authors for the spread of unwanted ideas, and some were even executed. But this was a largely futile struggle, and most such restraints eventually crumbled in the western world."

#15 & 16 are excerpts from the Japanese National Diet Library "Dawn of Western Printing."There are plenty of examples of type styles and a Type identification Experience.

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