History of Writing Systems 15000 – 10000 BCE
Cave paintings at Lascaux 1
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Drawing of visual communication using pictographs, elementary pictures or sketches that represent things depicted.
3600 BCE
Blau Monument combines images and early writing
3100 BCE
Early Sumerian pictographic scripts on clay tablets
3100 BCE
King Zet’s ivory tablet, earliest Egyptian pictographic writing 3
2750 BCE
Formal land-sale contracts written in cuneiform 4
2600 BCE
Early surviving papyrus manuscripts 5
2345 BCE
Pyramid texts in tomb of Unas 6
1739 BCE
Scarab of Ikhnaton and Nefertiti
1650 BCE
Stamp-cylinder seal 8
Inscribed stone objects from Mesopotamia. Etched writing and carved relief figures. This pictographic script contained seeds for development of writing. Information is structured into grids by horizontal and vertical division.
Abstract writing that only few could understand.
Paper like substrate for manuscripts. Papyrus is made from papyrus flowers, which is also used for other items such as sails, mats, cloth, rope, and sandals. 3
Decorative and textural qualities were carved into stone. 7
Carved scarab emblems were used as identification seals. The flat underside was engraved with a hieroglyphic inscription. Hittite, a signature that combines decorative figures and images. It has an image on the side for rolling, and an image on the bottom for stamping. This allows images to be reproduced.
Hieratic scripts
1420 BCE
Papyrus of Ani
1300 BCE
Early Book of the Dead papyrus scrolls
197 BCE
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The writing evolved into hieroglyphics.
1500 BCE
400 BCE
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Invented and developed for keeping records, accounts, and writing letters.
Demotic scripts
A northern variant of the Hieratic script. Used for writing documents in ink on papyrus. 9
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Rosetta Stone
Used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics by Champollion.
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History of the Alphabet 2000 BCE
Early Cretan pictographs, Phaistos Disk
1500 BCE
Ras Shamra script 10
1000 BCE
Early Greek alphabet
Used for bureaucratic and commercial documents and for myths and legends, reduces cuneiform to 32 characters. Evolved from the Phoenician alphabet, Greeks set foundation for accomplishments in Western culture.
850 BCE
Aramaic alphabet 11
190 BCE 100 CE
Parchment used for manuscripts 12 Pompeiian wall writing
Over 1600 messages of political campaign messages, advertising, etc. were preserved under more than 3.6 meters of volcanic ash.
Trojan’s Column 13
250 CE
Greek uncials
500 CE
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Gestural curves of this alphabet evolved into Hebrew and Arabic alphabets.
114 CE
200-250 CE
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Flat terra-cotta disk that has 241 signs consisting of pictographic and alphabetic forms.
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Consists of monumental capitals and gives silent testimony to the ancient Roman dictum “the written word remains.” Controlled brush-drawing combines with the precision of the stonemason’s craft to create letterforms of majestic proportion and harmonious form. 14
Broad single stroke letters and round forms.
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Roman square capitals and rustic capitals
Ancient form of writing and the basis for modern capital letters.
Early Arabic alphabet
1000 CE
Naskhi becomes dominant Arabic alphabet
1446 CE
Hangul, Korean alphabet
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A bold inscriptional lettering with extended thick characters that was widely used on coins, manuscripts, and inscriptions. 15
One of the most scientific writing systems ever invented. The alphabet has 14 consonant and 10 vowel signs through abstract depictions.
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Asian Contribution 1800 BCE
Legendary Ts’ang Chieh invents writing
1500 BCE
Oracle bone writing
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He was inspired to invent writing by contemplating claw marks of brids and footprints of animals. 17
Ancient pictographic writing, often found on tortoise shells which conveys communications between the living and the dead.
250 BCE Small seal calligraphy 105 CE Ts’ai Lun invents paper 165 CE Confucian classics carved in stone 200 CE Regular style calligraphy 18 300 CE Chops are used as identifying seals; chops used in Han dynasty
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Chops were used to imprint the names of owners or viewers of a painting.
770 CE Early datable Chinese relief printing; printed Buddhist charms 19 868 CE Diamond Sutra
Wang Chieh sought spiritual improvement by commissioning the duplication of the Diamond Sutra by printing.
1000 CE
Chinese calligraphy printed with perfection
1040 CE
Pi Sheng invents movable type in China
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History of Manuscripts and the Book 21
425 CE
Vatican Vergil
500 CE
Uncial lettering flourishes
600 CE 680 CE
Insular script 22 Book of Durrow
751 CE
Arabs learn papermaking from Chinese prisoners
781 CE
Caroline minuscule are developed
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The earliest surviving illustrated manuscript from the late antique and early Christian era. Rounded strokes were made with the pen held in a straight horizontal position. Uncial lettering also demonstrates the emergence of ascenders and descenders.
Full pages of decorative design called carpet pages were bound into manuscripts.
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The forerunner of our contemporary lowercase alphabet.
1200 Universities start appearing
Demand of books increase and incorporation of Arabic numerals occur.
1276 Paper mill established in Italy
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By 1276 a paper mill was established in Fabriano, Italy.
1300 Relief printing on textiles in Europe
Xylography, or relief printing, from a raised surface that originated in Asia. 24
1423 Early dated woodblock print 1450 Printing with movable type in Germany
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Gutenburg printing press is a revolutionary development.
1455 Gutenberg and Fust complete 42-line Bible
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An illuminator added red headers and text, initials, and floral marginal decoration by hand.
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1460 Pfister, 1st printed book with illustrations 27 1470 Jenson’s roman typeface Wider letterforms, lighter tones, and an even texture of black strokes on the white ground.
1475 Caxton, 2nd English-language typographic book
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Caxton used eccentric, jerky type that ushered the era of the typographic book into the British nation.
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1530 Garamond establishes an independent type foundry Type foundry used to sell cast type ready to distribute into the compositor’s case.
1557 Granjon, Civilit type
Imitates French cursive letters of the Renaissance.
1621 Weekly Newes, 1st English newspaper 28
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Development of Typography 1702 1st book print with Romain du Roi
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1722 Caslon, 1st Caslon Old Style font 29
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Compared to earlier roman fonts, Romain du Roi has a crisp geometric quality and increased contrast. The straightforward practicality of Caslon made it a dominant roman style throughout the British Empire far into the nineteenth century.
1737 Fournier le Jeune standardized type sizes 1757 Baskerville, title page for Vergil
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Reduced design down to letterforms which made it more simplistic and elegant.
1765 Cotterell, 12-line pica type
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These display letters seemed gigantic to society as they were used to setting handbills using types that were rarely even half this size.
1784 Didot, true modern style type
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1790 Bodoni, typefaces bearing his name
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1796 Senefelder invents lithography
The idea that stone could be etched away around grease pencil writing and made into a relief printing plate. Greater freedom with color and larger sizes.
1800 1815 1816 1846
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Cast-iron press Figgins, 1st Egyptian type Caslon, 1st sans-serif type American Chromolithography
Method of making multi-color prints
1866 Lewis Carroll experiments with typography
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Unexpected and different from the rest of his work, figurative typography.
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1870s Woodtype posters decline as lithography becomes dominant 1886 Linotype machine, Mergenthaler 35 The first line-casting keyboard typesetter.
1887 Lanston, Monotype machine
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Punches out metal types from cold strips of metal which were set into a matrix for the printing press.
1888 Morris designs Golden type 1891 William Morris invented the Kelmscott Press
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Refashioned Victorian typography. It created beautiful books by traditional methods.
1893 Morris, Chaucer type 1895 Goudy’s Camelot, his first typeface 1919 The Bauhaus School
Focused on functionality and simplicity.
1920 Futurism
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Deals with typography and used letters to emphasize the strength of the human voice.
1925 Herbert Bayer, universal alphabet
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An experiment in reducing the alphabet to one set of geometrically constructed characters. The lower letterforms show different weights.
1925 Jan Tschichold, Elementare Typographie
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Attacked Moholy-Nagy’s theses, it explained and demonstrated asymmetrical typography to printers, typesetters, and designers.
1926 1927 1928 1931 1953 1957 1956
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Eric Gill creates Gill Sans 40 Paul Renner creates Futura Tschichold, Die Neue Typographie Victor Lardent creates Times New Roman Adrian Frutiger creates Univers Max Medinger creates Helvetica 41 Sandberg, Experimenta Typographica
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Demonstrates that many underlying design ideas of the new typography remained vital after World War II.
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