History of Typography

Chinese inventor Bi Sheng creates the first movable type system using clay characters. This revolutionary invention predates Gutenberg by 400 years.

Venetian printer Aldus Manutius creates italic to save space in his portable editions. He also standardizes punctuation and invents the semicolon.

Caslon creates the typeface that will dominate English printing for two centuries. The American Declaration of Independence was printed in Caslon.

Ottmar Mergenthaler invents the Linotype, a machine that casts entire lines of type. Newspapers can finally be printed daily with fresh news.

Tolbert Lanston develops the Monotype system, casting individual characters. More flexible than Linotype for quality book work.

Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann create Helvetica, which becomes the most used typeface in the world. Symbol of Swiss clarity and neutrality.

Photocomposition replaces hot metal type. Characters are projected onto photographic film, enabling new creative possibilities.

Unicode standardizes character encoding for all world writing systems. Today it includes over 140,000 characters.

Microsoft and Adobe collaborate on OpenType, supporting advanced features like ligatures, stylistic alternates, and complex scripts.

@font-face becomes widely supported. Google Fonts launches, democratizing access to quality typography on the web.