Everything from the history of typography and graphic design to the history of printing and bookmaking.
Dumb Ways to Die began as an Australian rail safety campaign back in 2012. I heard the viral jingle recently, and it got me to thinking about a particular kind of printed ephemera. From about 1530, London began to publish Bills of Mortality. By the close of the same century, these lists […]
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After more than 50 years, the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) chose to de-adopt (dump) the Vox-ATypI font classification system. Why the breakup? And does it really matter? Is there anything to be gained by devising replacement systems? Do we need font classification at all? And what’s a typographic dog?
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For more than a thousand years the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs was completely lost. For centuries, many assumed that they were magical symbols that might never be understood by mere mortals. The breakthrough only came with the discovery of a 2,200-year-old black basalt slab. But what does that have to do with typography, dragons and unicorns? Read on to find out.
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Tens of millions of broadsides were printed from the very earliest days of printing. Many were cheap and ephemeral, eventually being recycled or ending up in the trash. Others, like rebus and puzzle broadsides were novel and engaging enough to live longer lives. This is my very brief look at some early examples of these curious so-called hieroglyphic broadsides.
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The Industrial Revolution mechanized printing and reduced costs, leading to explosive growth in publishing. At the same time, an unprecedented increase in literacy produced millions of new readers and sparked a reading revolution. But what were these new readers to read? One of the century’s most popular genres, sold on the streets of Victorian England, was the penny dreadful. Cheap, entertaining and extraordinarily popular. This is their story.
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News has been around as long as humans have. From word of mouth to handwritten newsletters to printed newspapers in the early 1600s, the news has always captivated us. It has evolved from an expensive and bespoke service for an elite few into a major part of today’s mass media.
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By the sixteenth century, printmaking — or art prints — had become a burgeoning industry in Europe. Millions were printed and many thousands have survived until the present day. Their significance goes well beyond their value as art or artifact, revealing a great deal more than artists’ talents and virtuosity. A closer look at their subject matter and iconography reveals much about the motives of those who collaborated to publish them, sometimes making them as much propaganda as art.
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A brief history of the drop-cap: Decorated or illuminated initials were an important part of medieval manuscripts for a thousand years. From luxurious gold and silver letters to plain drop capitals, they functioned to illustrate, commentate, and adorn the text. Learn their history and purpose, why they eventually went out of fashion, and what replaced them.
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The remarkable story of early African American print culture; its authors, editors, journalists, printers, and publishers. From protest pamphlets to the first Black newspapers, periodicals and books.
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From around the beginning of the 1600s, there was a renewed interest in calligraphy. At the same time, women, known as writing mistresses, begin to teach handwriting and calligraphy to young women. Maria Strick in the Netherlands and Marie Pavie, perhaps from France, are the first two women to have their calligraphy copybooks published in print.
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