A History of Type

If you imagine a two-way venn diagram between visual communication and verbal communication, writing falls into the overlap. 
Typography is a combination of meta-communication, para-linguistics and kinesics (physical gestures), and is a modernist obsession. Each typeface has a different culture and family.

Writing started in the middle east and slowly progressed occidentally and orientally until the whole world was familiar with it. In particular the Romans, they set in stone (literally) the foundations for both numbers and letters. Trojans Column 113AD consists of elements of the Roman alphabet, which we still use to this day.

The 'late age of print' began around 1450, the time of the enlightenment which was the cultural movement of intellectuals, which moved on from tradition.

Here are some examples of popular typefaces through the following eras:

• Old style/Classical 1450-1700
• Transitional 1700-1790
• Modern/Didone 1790-1870
• Swiss Modern and Bauhaus 1870-1960
• Contemporary 1960-2000

In this timeline of type,it shows that the older fonts represent handmade fonts. They are connotations of sophistication, classics and renaissance. Old style/humanist type faces date back shortly after Gutenberg's adoption of the movable type printing press.

When modern consumer culture emerged and so did the modern type face with fewer references to handwriting. 'Slab serif' fonts became very popular, attempting aggressive print that stood out. They were often referred to as 'Egyptian' fonts as a bit of a red-herring. People were interested in Egypt at the time, it had not relation but it was just to signify something unusual.

In the 1800's the speed of life rapidly increased. So many things seemed to happen at once, including industrialisation, mass urbanisation, new inventions, transport, telephones etc. 

When modern 'Sans Serif' (without the serifs) type faces began to emerge so did a futuristic, neutral message with no references to any cultures past. It was looking to the future, a modernist message that was to convey the future development of society. It was to be a progressive font, not a black letter gothic font, to distil the essence of modern image.

In 1926, Eric Gill created 'Gill Sans', which was the epitome of English Modernity. Gill sans was used on a wide scale, including the BBC logo, the London Underground and other public transport, Penguin books etc.

However when 'Times New Roman' was created around ten years later specifically for The Times newspaper, it was the opposite of what modernists were trying to do.

An important thing to remember is that the choice of font is vital. For example, the Nazi's hated modern fonts. In their propaganda they used Gothic black letter fonts. Goths dominated Europe in the dark ages, and the Germans used this to signify power.

'Helvetica' was created in 1957 by Max Miedinger, it was the signiature font of swiss graphic designers, however microsoft released 'Arial' 25 years after and completely ripped it off!

To conclude, all type faces have different connotations.