Ed’s History of type in six bullet points

• In the mid 1400s all books are hand-written manuscripts on sheepskin. This form of communication is costly, slow and unpopular with sheep.
• In 1276 a paper mill is established in Italy, and, in 1348, another is established in France. Sheep all over the world breathe a sigh of relief.
• In the early 1400s, Johann Gutenberg perfects a system for making moveable, reusable type from an alloy of lead and other metals. After this, all fonts imitate hand written letters.
• Roman letters are born with serifs to imitate the finishing strokes of hand written and calligraphic letters.
• Towards the end of the 1800s an anonymous designer makes a type without serifs and it is called “grotesk.”
• Grotesks are copied and refined until around 1957, Max Miedinger scores a slam dunk with a typeface that would come to be known as Helvetica and become one of the most used typefaces in the late 20th century.

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