Evolution of Typography in Art and Design

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. It traces its roots back to the Upper Palaeolithic times when cave paintings were used as a symbol of communication. However, according to formal history, writing was developed by the Sumerians in the mid 3000 B.C. As each civilisation developed, so did the need to communicate became complex. From Egyptian hieroglyphs to ancient Greeks’ alphabets created by Phoenicians, taken over by the Romans later. The Romans have also styled the Uppercase alphabets, which we still use today. Moving in to the Middle Ages, manuscripts and calligraphy were popularised. Focusing on the handwritten texts, we came to the most important invention of modern typography – the invention of the moveable printing press in the 15th century by Johannes Guttenberg. After this everything changed. Books could be published and distributed on a large scale. News could be created and read, as well as advertisements using the initial serif and san serif typeface

Now the question arises that how has writing evolved since then, how did typography become more than just a decorative element and turned into not just an important form of art, but also a language itself in our contemporary society?

One of the last students of Bahaus, Herbert Bayer, has definitely left a huge mark in typography. He used and adopted the principles of reductive Minilism to develop his famous san serif type titled ‘Universal’. And it was one of the keys to defining the entire bauhaus aesthetic. The aesthetics of the Bauhaus has influenced many important artists. One among them is Jon Tschichold, the man who created visual experiences on a subconscious level for all the book lovers, who could now see art in books even while only observing letters. His most important work was Die Neue Typographie – The New Typography, published in 1928, as a masterpiece of the modern typography and graphic design.This reflected a move towards a more universal and modern communication style.

Furthermore, with the rise of technological capabilities, typography slowly creeped in to art, especially Pop art. The most important move which made a revolution in typography during the early 1950s was when Varityper and Photon each introduced a reasonably priced, standalone typesetting system. This also meant that both the producers of goods and artists can have more access to the production of typography. Pop art  emphasized the kitschy elements of pop culture and created art as a protest against the elitist culture and seriousness which surrounded it. Artists like Andy Warhol completely replicated both the forms of consumerist products, as well as the fonts used for their commercials. Roy Lichtenstein  on the other hand, integrated a simple, comic book text font as a part of his famous large-scale paintings. Known as one of the most important pioneers of contemporary Typographic art influenced by Pop art, British artist Mike Edwards created and creates Word Paintings or Text Portraits in which each letter becomes rendered in a separate colour. When the image is viewed from distance, the letters merge together and create a photographic quality of the work.

Moreover, as the 1960s, times of radical and social change, set in, typography was used as a way of spreading ideas about the ongoing changes, protests, and ways of adopting a new lifestyle. One of the eminent designers from that era is Victor Moscoso, who used the concept of vibrating colours (colours that are on the opposite side of the colour wheel with equal value and intensity) on his typographic posters.

Meanwhile concerning the technology of the 1970s, it included the invention of the third-generation typesetters which used electronically stored font data. Through the early ’80s, these machines were the most important producers in the printing and publishing industry. The bubbly, futuristic, colorful letters on album and book covers during these times remain an important inspirational point for artists even today, who try to copy the genuine retro fonts like Baskerville OF, Bubble Gum, or Futura. During this time, Alan Kitching established The Typography Workshop, a studio that uses traditional techniques of letter pressing combined with the obsolete technologies and seeks a new way of approach and application. 

In the meantime, as time passed, the approach became more contemporary. 

 As always, contemporary artists have been redefining and transcending traditional practices and proocedures of typewriting with the help of technology and multimedia design tools. The contemporary typography works, in the spirit of postmodernism, include and combine everything from Neo-Pop, contemporary calligraphy, filmmaking, installation art, sculpture and street art. Some of the notable artists working with this style today is definitely Craig Redman, who uses his iPhone, camera, laptop and Photoshop to create simple cynical messages presented in an optimistic, simple, form-reducing manner. On the other hand, even traditional alphabets like Hangul get reinterpreted in contemporary typography of Ann Sang Soo who transformed this ancient alphabet into an artform of its own. Another designer, whose work intrigued me is Oded Ezer. Oded Ezer makes projects which include implanting type into sperm’s DNA, doing Typo-plastic surgeries to modify our body using type, and makes creatures out of Hebrew and Latin type.

All in all, in my viewpoint, the development of written forms of expression includes a number of disciplines, from the origins of language itself to the bits and bytes of computer technology. As we have become more complex as a person, our means of communication have improved, and, rather than becoming more elitist, as might be expected, we have reached out to embrace a wider group. We saw this with the evolution of the alphabet, the development of the printing press and the democratization of typesetting through the introduction of off-the-shelf hardware and software.