Typography has been evolving over time as it was one of the first ways to express your ideas and creativity in an artistic way. It has been a way to communicate with others for thousands of years which have created a development on how we live today. Typography surrounds us everywhere we go, even if we don’t notice it. From looking at small shop signs to huge advertisement billboards. Each individual piece of typography influences our minds in different ways. So, where did it all start? When did typography become so important in our world, or even how?
As time began, the first sight of typography to ever show a sign of communication other than speech was through cave paintings in 38,000BCE. It was the earliest sign of visual communication to show future humans that there was a trace of people before their own time. Cave paintings are considered to show a separation of animals and humans due to art being a visual way to show the difference in species. In this modern age, cave painting massagers are still in use as new generations still learn to this day about the earliest communication that was ever made. After cave painting were discovered scientists also found ways how people communicated differently around the world. This consisted of 3 different ways: Pictographs, Ideographs, and Hieroglyphs. All 3 communications have links to each other because of the symbols that were used within the 3 different languages have similar meanings which made it easier to understand and decode when each way of communication was discovered.
The first type of communication was Pictographs. Scientists have historically found that ‘They were used by various ancient cultures all over the world since around 9000 BC and began to develop into logographic writing systems around 5000 BC.’ They began by hand-drawn pictures which narrated a story by communicating a visual message for it to be understood more easily. Over time this created the development of how icons became useful in the modern world as it is another language which has been shortened to understand communication more quickly.
Ideographs are used to represent a meaning by using symbols to create an idea or concept rather than a structured word. This made communication easier as each symbol represents not just one word but multiple. As a concept within a symbol was made, the communication was used as a regular way to communicate with others. Because of this more symbols began to be made making the language development in an artistic way. In today’s world, the Chinese/ Japanese language still use a form of ideographs to communicate when writing by hand to make the message quicker and shorter. It also has a benefit of not taking as much space up compared to writing a structured word sentence. In our time, this would be an alternative as it would use less material. For example, using less paper when making a hand-written letter or not using as much ink when printing out an advertisement due to it being overall shorter.
Hieroglyphs was a type of communication which was based all around the religion of Egyptians. The word ‘Hieroglyphs’ means ‘Holy Writings’. Because of this, the Egyptians believed that a name had great power when written in hieroglyphs so if someone’s name was remembered, they would supposedly live in the afterlife. The symbols represent sounds so, each picture means a letter. In the present day, scientists have found that each letter in the alphabet matches exactly up to the pictures in hieroglyphs. This shows a clear example of how pictures from 3100 BCE can be still translated into our modern alphabet showing that link of typography and how even though it has changed over time, simple things such as the concept of letters have been used for many years.
Another language which was early discovered was the Sumerian language located in modern day Iraq between 3000-3300 BCE. It has been shown that it was one of the first written languages ever made to communicate with others effectively because of them using Logographic’s which was symbols that represented full words rather than sounds. Sumerian’s did this by engraving symbols on a clay plate for it to set hard to make sure that the message was delivered in a way of it being readable to the receivers. This is why history scientists are able to decode symbols now because of the messengers being well preserved. This method was a practical way as clay was a popular use of material due it being the oldest handicraft. Because of this, it made communication through areas a lot easier and convenient to use.
Between the 4th and 8th century medieval calligraphy began to originally develop. Calligraphy became known as an artistic way to communicate by using patterns and nature to portray a detailed and intricate look to a piece of writing. It was the first step of bringing creativity and uniqueness together to make typography turn to a different aspect of making the appearance of communication aesthetically pleasing.
Calligraphy was used to add value to written books as it decorated the front covers to make them appear more expensive and well made. It was also used in religious holy books very often as a way to create a piece of art. As calligraphy was made by using a range of ideas of nature within the patterns it helped people to not stereotype an image of God so it was one of the few things that they could use through art.
Aa time went on, typography began to develop century by century and then in 1439 a man named Johannes Gutenberg invented the first ever machine to print with movable type. The press printer was originated from block lettering in 1040 as a way to create multiple copies of a certain piece of writing without great masses of production. Due to this invention, it changed the history of typography as it took a huge leap in development. If Gutenberg didn’t invent the movable type in 1439 typography would have taken a completely different and longer approach making it different in today’s world.
In modern-day continents around the world are filled with different languages that link together by the simplicity of the alphabet. All people believe that the alphabet has the same single meaning which results in the world’s population to communicate efficiently. The evolution of typography has not only developed how we interact with each other, it influences us every single day in our lives.