Typography Research Most Human Languages

Typography Research

Most human languages have some version of a written form. The oldest records of written language are about 5000 years old, however written communication began much earlier in the form of drawings or marks. The earliest artificially created visual images that have been discovered to date are paintings of bears, mammoths, woolly rhinos, and other Ice Age animals on cave walls near Avignon, France. These paintings, symbolizing items of importance in the natural world, are over 30,000 years old. The oldest known animal carving, made from mammoth ivory, dates from approximately 30,000 years bc and was found in present-day Vogelhard, Germany. Other ancient symbol-recording systems have also been discovered, including a 30,000-year-old Cro-Magnon bone plaque discovered in France, which is engraved with a series of 29 marks. These marks are believed to be recordings of the moon's phases. Additionally, a piece of reindeer antler approximately 15,000 years old was discovered and contains both animal images and "counting" marks. In the 11th century, the ancient Incas in Peru used a system of knotted and colored strings called "quipu" to keep track of population, food inventories, and the production of gold mines. Another form of early written communication includes a system of clay counting tokens used in the ancient Middle East. These tokens are believed to date from 8000 to 3000 bc and are shaped like disks, cones, spheres and other shapes. They were stored in clay containers and were labeled in an early version of cuneiform writing, indicating what tokens were inside. Cuneiform itself was one of the first forms of writing and was mostly pictures. It developed as a written language in Assyria (an ancient Asian country in present-day Iraq) from 3000 to 1000 bc. Cuneiform eventually acquired ideographic elements -- that is, the symbol came to represent more than just physical objects. It developed into a representation of ideas and actions such as "running" or "swimming."

The oldest known examples of script-style writing date from about 3000 bc. Papyrus sheets (a kind of early paper made from reeds), dating back to between 2700 to 2500 bc, have been found in the Nile Delta in Egypt bearing written hieroglyphs, another pictographic-ideographic form of writing similar to cuneiform. Another example is the Chinese language, which itself began as a pictographic-ideographic written language perhaps as early as the 15th century bc. These early societies had previously developed systems for sending simple messages or signals that could be seen or heard over a short distance, such as drumbeats, fire and smoke signals. Then written messages were attached to the legs of carrier pigeons that were released to fly home (this system was still used until World War I, which started in 1914).

Writing evolved as a necessity to some ancient societies, such as the Roman or Byzantine empires, as they expanded their territorial control and came to rely heavily on trading. Early business transactions required excellent record keeping. Messages had to be carried easily due to the primitive forms of transportation available at that time, therefore lightweight mediums for recording information (such as papyrus or animal skins) were most desirable. These first lightweight mediums included papyrus, and in the 2nd century ad, the Chinese replaced writing on wood with the lighter form of silk fabric. Another lightweight writing form could be found as early as the 2nd century bc, when Europeans wrote on thin layers of tanned and scraped animal skins called parchment or vellum, with quill pens made from bird feathers.

Until the 1400s in Europe, all documents were handwritten. Copyists and scribes recorded commercial transactions, legal decisions, and manuscript copies of religious books. By the 15th century, however, the need arose for an easier way to duplicate documents. In the 8th century, Asian Buddhist monks had already begun block printing, and a similar technique was later used in the 15th century by Europeans to make book illustrations.

The Chinese developed the first version of movable type around 1045. In 1450, the German printer Johannes Gutenberg perfected movable metal type and introduced the first reliable system of typesetting. In this crucial first printing development, a raised, reversed image of each letter could be hand-set, placing each word side by side, into a frame that held the combined pieces. Ink was applied to the raised letters and a sheet of paper placed over them and pressed down. This reverse stamp created a correct mirror image on the paper of the desired text. When enough copies were printed, the letters could then be taken apart and reused. Numerous copies of a document could be printed much faster than ever before, and soon printing shops were appearing at a rapid rate over the next century. Not only books, but also newspapers, pamphlets, and other forms of media helped spread news throughout Europe, and by the 17th century, throughout the British colonies in America.

During the Industrial Revolution, technology evolved rapidly, including the printing press techniques. The steam-powered press was invented in Germany in the 19th century, and in 1846, the rotary press was introduced in the United States. This latest printing invention allowed images to be printed onto a continuous sheet of paper from a rotating drum. Next, the Linotype typesetting machine was patented by the American inventor Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1884, permitting typesetters to set text by typing on a keyboard rather than hand-setting each letter. Together, the Linotype machine and the rotary press transformed the speed of printing. These so-called "hot-metal" or "letterpress" printing technologies dominated the industry until the 1950s, when phototypesetting and photo-offset printing were introduced.

Photocopying was another technology that made document duplication easier. Invented in the 1950's by American physicist and inventor Edwin Land, photocopying transfers an image from one sheet of paper to another very rapidly. A natural advance from photocopying is the most recent computer-based typesetting and printing. Computers enable users to type document pages on the screen before actually printing them, and can be viewed and printed in either black and white or colored ink. Page layouts can also be transmitted digitally (numerically coded into electronic pulse format) through fax machines, computer modems, telephone networks, and satellite systems to separate locations for editing, redesign, and printing. This spread of computer-based word processing and graphic design has led to the fastest growth in the typography field that history has ever seen.