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Its easy to take books and other printed material for granted.
They were generally reserved for the elite, though growing literacy among the middle class increased their demand.
Pages from Gutenbergs bible, with original Blackletter typeface and decorative illustrations.
But as mentioned above, the downside was that they took up considerable space on the page.
He created the first Roman typeface, based on Blackletter and Italian Humanist lettering.
Jensons early Roman typeface was more streamlined than Blackletter and saved space on the page.
Jensons typeface was the first to be created based on typographic principles rather than manuscript models.
While initially invented as a space-saving measure, italics are still used to emphasize text.
An example of an early italic typeface.
In 1734, William Caslon created a new typeface style that included more contrast between strokes in each letterform.
An early typeface specimen for William Caslons typefaces, which include his Roman throw in.
John Baskerville took this a step further in 1757, creatingTransitional typefaceswith more distinct letterforms.
Baskervilles design was criticized due to the thickness of the strokes.
A typeface specimen of Baskervilles early punch in, including an italic version.
There are some distinct differences between the two fonts, mostly in the appearance and placement of particular letterforms.
A comparison of various versions of Bodoni and Didot.
They were more attention-grabbing than more traditional serifs.
The primary characteristic of slab serif fonts is the lack of curvature on the serifs.
Some slab serifs were developed specifically to be used at larger sizes for printed matter like posters.
This was a departure from earlier large-scale throw in designs, which adapted existing forms of book throw in.
Miller and Richards Oldstyle Antique, an Egyptian-style slab serif that has some slightly rounded serifs.
Large-scale advertising design also brought about the first sans serif typeface.
20th-century typeface history
The 20th century brought still more important developments in typeface history.
The first full-time pop in designer was Frederic Goudy, who got his start in the 1920s.
In 1957, Max Miedinger designed Helvetica, arguably the most iconic typeface of the 20th century.
Digital typography
The first digital typefaceDigi Groteskwas designed by Rudolf Hell in 1968.
Early digital fonts were bitmaps, which resulted in less-than-ideal readability at small sizes.
Typeface evolution on the web
The 21st century brought considerable advances inweb fonts.
Widespread adoption for web fonts allows designers almost unlimited typeface choices.
The introduction of variable fonts within the OpenType standard in 2016 strengthened the web typography revolution.
This flexibility means using fewer font files, resulting in faster page load times.
One area where many typefaces are still lacking is global language coverage.
Some areas of design change and evolve quickly, but typography has been slower to evolve over the centuries.
One emerging technology to watch is the development of color fonts, within the OpenType-SVG format.
These fonts allow designers to use multiple colors within a single glyph.
While the technology to do this has been around for a few years, it hasnt been widely adoptedyet.
Then again, web fonts were technically possible for more than a decade before they were widely adopted.
