Chronologies: Type- Production & Distribution 1

Type is a very powerful form of visual language and can be influenced by many different factors like cultural and social developments. One principle of visual literacy states that for a language to exist there must be an agreement that one thing will stand for another. Type is what language looks like. 

The historical definitions of typography are no longer accurate in society today. This is due to the fact that they are based on old typography which then was based on movable type due to the methods of printing that was used when they manually printed everything. Todays definition of typography is:
'the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form' or 'the art or procedure of arranging type through the style and appearance of printed matter'. 

The first physical representation of language was thought to be found in 7000BC, it was shown as a range of symbols that represented different objects. Each symbol was used to describe existing things, not experiences or emotions. We do not know the spoken language before this time however to create the alphabet we know today we had to manipulate those symbols over time. 

So that trade and other things in our world could take place, typography had to transform so that the different cultures and people could communicate with each other. This needed something that was understood by different cultures so it couldn't be one language it had to be the simplest form of visual communication - symbols.

In 1870 William Foster introduced the Education Act which made it compulsory for people to learn to read. It was a skill that needed to be taught and learnt by all as it is a vital part of communication. 

As more and more people were learning how to read hand lettering of newspapers and books became less common. This was due to the fact that the audience for these things were becoming bigger and hand lettering took a lot more time than the printing of text. 

in 1919 type was further developed by the industrialisation of type through the Bauhaus as it merged type with craft thus informing mass manufacturing of type. Which then allowed modern type to develop causing designers today to not just look at one aspect of typography but all aspects to understand and develop type further.