The Journey of Digital Type

Carl Shank • June 13, 2021

It all started with Gutenberg. Johannes Gutenberg’s 42–line Bible unleashed a typesetting revolution transforming movable type into today’s digitized computer formats. The printing press, Gutenberg, and the Bible have all played a primary role in the type you see everyday. As a matter of fact, Gutenberg could be credited with the printing "reformation." Movable type, that is, individual pieces of type for each letter, had been used by the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese. Yet, Johannes Gutenberg’s work stands out in both art and printing history as the first exquisitely, practically produced print job.


Type styles the reflected the scribal penchant for bold, heavy script letters. As art and technology grew together, the “modern” style developed with serifs and contrasting thick and thin strokes, such as seen in Adobe's Caslon Pro font — ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890.  With the nineteenth century, and the Industrial Revolution, Ottmar Mergenthaler’s Linotype (1886) introduced mechanical typesetting through the use of a keyboard control device. More styles of type followed for the growing business of mercantile advertising. Most of these typefaces followed the “serif” style, but the Bauhaus Design School in Germany, as well as the Art Deco style, gave us “sans serif” faces, such as the ever popular Helvetica. Designed by Max Miedinger in 1956 — ABCDEFGHIJKLMabcdefghijklm1234567890. Helvetica can be seen on road and street signs. It was later included as one of the first Apple LaserWriter fonts.


Individual letters of type striking paper through an inked ribbon took hold as the typewriter flooded the business market. But, the letters were monospaced, uninteresting, and unequalled to the printed page. In seeing the importance of typefaces as communication, IBM introduced the IBM Executive typewriter in 1954. Now the office typist could use special fonts and even true proportional spacing. The copy also looked much better than the traditional typewritten efforts.


Another step toward professional typesetting came in 1961 when IBM came up with the Selectric and a variety of interchangeable type balls. The IBM Selectric Composer became the typesetter of choice. Text was typed onto a magnetic roll of tape and the roll was then placed in the Composer, a key pressed and there it was—justified, book-like text that looked really sharp! But, the font choices were severely limited and the Composer only produced certain limited sizes of type. Headlines and other display faces had to be set differently.


Through the efforts of Rene Higonnet and Louis Moyroud in 1949, their machine, the Photon, helped push typesetting toward photocomposition. This electronic method of setting type directly on light sensitive paper started the “cold” typesetting revolution. Faster and more flexible than all previous technologies, photocomposition freed typesetters from the physical limitations imposed by hot-metal type processes.


Digital phototypesetters introduced in 1972 projected letterforms onto a CRT (cathode ray tube). This type image was then flashed onto photosensitive paper. Soon the electron beam was turned on a drum generating an electrostatic charge. Toner particles, attracted to the charged areas, were fused onto paper by heat. Dry typesetting had begun, and the laser printer was born.


Apple Computer, in its development of the Macintosh computer in the early 80’s, also introduced the Apple LaserWriter™ and the LaserWriter Plus. Using a new tech-nology called “Postscript,” licensed from Adobe Systems, a built-in font description language in the Laser-Writer’s ROM (read-only memory) converted screen fonts on the computer screen, through a mathematical process, to 300 dpi (dots-per-inch) output.


Users wanted, and soon got, true WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzy-wig— what-you-see-is-what-you-get) operating environments. With the advent of Adobe’s ATM (Adobe Type Manager™), and Apple’s TrueType fonts, the on screen font “jaggies” were replaced by the outline representation of the font, so that the screen faithfully represented the final printed output. Fonts could be “downloaded” per job to the Post-script printer, even if the printer did not have the specified fonts inherent in its ROM files.


“QuickDraw” gave the added advantage of producing laser-like output even from a nonPostscript printer. With QuickDraw, the font outlines are processed by the computer and sent to the printer for output. Software packages now skew, bend, shrink, condense, expand, rotate and manipulate typeforms.

Apple’s System 7.x and Windows 3.1x included several TrueType fonts that were installed with the system software. What a journey to digitized type—and it’s not over, as indicated in other blogs on this site.

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Theology of Type (2): Gutenberg to Early 1900s

By Carl Shank • November 1, 2025
Theology of Type (2): Gutenberg to Early 1900s William Skeen in his 1872 Early Typography celebrated what he called “The Art Sublime” referring to typography and its use for divine illumination — I seek, Disciple of the Art; That to the famed Teutonic three Just meeds of praise may given be; That all aright the men may know To whom Typography we owe; The men whose names immortal ring, Whose gifts transcendent blessings bring, Whose monuments in every land By wisdom rear’d, heart-honor’d stand, Inscribed in tongues of every clime — “Inventors of the Art Sublime!”[1] Skeen pontificates that “to this Art, as it was invented and perfected in Europe in the Fifteenth century, the epithets Divine and Noble have not untruly been applied.”[2] "It is Divine, inasmuch as it is one of the grand instruments in the hands of Providence for the regeneration of fallen humanity. By it the mightiest movement the world has ever seen since the days when the Apostolic Twelve went about “turning it upside down,” — the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth century, — was mainly effected. Without it the Word of God could not have been diffused, as it has been, is being, and will continue to be, to every nation and tribe and people and tongue throughout the world.”[3] We are made by our Creator to be “sensory-rich,” and our typographic history unfolds this in stunning and diverse ways. As one writer has so eloquently said "Holy Scripture calls us to inhabit an ordered world of creation and providence that is sensory rich, but we suffer what we may regard as spiritual sensory deprivation. And the more we discover the depth, scope and lush richness of the divinely ordered real world, the more we discover the impoverishment of the modern condition."[4] Even the briefest of surveys and historical typographic study will reveal the theology of type. The depth, scope and richness of typography through the centuries displays either the beauty God has given this world, or the resistance to such beauty. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was deeply tied to advancements in typography and printing, which played a crucial role in spreading reformist ideas. Some major typographical advances during this period include the use of the printing press of Johann Gutenberg around 1440 which had revolutionized printing. Printers improved the efficiency of moveable type, making it faster and easier to print large numbers of religious pamphlets, tracts and Bibles. Instead of obscure Latin, reformers like Martin Luther advocated for scripture and religious texts in local, common languages. The Blackletter face Fraktur was a Gothic script used in German-speaking areas. The more humanist Roman type gained traditional use in parts of Europe. Woodcut illustrations like those of Lucas Cranach the Elder, who supported Martin Luther, complemented printed texts, making complex religious ideas and theological concepts more accessible to a largely illiterate population. There were greater efforts in standardizing spelling and grammar studies and books. Printing advancements enabled the production of smaller, more affordable Bibles. These typographical innovations, combined with the theological upheaval of the Reformation, transformed the way people accessed and engaged with religious texts, ultimately shaping modern literacy and communication.

Theology of Type (1): Printers Marks Expanded

By Carl Shank • October 25, 2025
Theology of Type . What does typography have to do with theology? Actually, quite a lot. It is significant that early typography had strong religious roots, especially Christian European roots. Many of these typographers and printers believed and lived from a worldview filled with the Divine. The history of typography operates out of a viewpoint of creativity that goes back to an overriding faith in God. Early Printers' Marks reveal a strong Christian theological stance. Printers’ Marks are symbols or logos that have been used as trademarks by early printers, starting in the fifteenth century. Before the introduction of copyrights, printers’ marks legitimized a printer’s work. Copyright legislation would not be introduced until the eighteenth century. Such marks usually appeared on the last page of a printed work. The first known mark can be found on the Mainz Psalter, produced by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer in 1457. This mark depicted two shields bearing a saltire, a diagonal cross and a chevron surrounded by three stars. At the outset these were marks of the printer, but the practice was gradually adopted by publishers. In early works a statement at the end listed the date of completion and the location. Sometimes the name of the printer or scribe or their initials were included. In printing and typography this is called a colophon, derived from the Greek word κολοφών, meaning summit, or finishing touch. The printer’s mark was added and gradually moved to the title page of the book. The earliest marks were simple designs produced by using a woodcut stamp. Maggie Patton in her excellent introduction to printers’ marks notes that “the design of a printer’s mark used visual puns, wordplay or sometimes a rebus, a puzzle combining illustrations and letters to depict a motto or printer’s initials. Sacred symbols, the cross and the orb, real and mythical animals, heraldic symbols, and scientific instruments were used in thousands of combinations. The sixteenth century was the highpoint for printers’ marks, when lavish illustrations incorporating a printer’s mark decorated title pages. Many famous images and symbols originate from printers’ marks. The design used by Venetian printer Aldus Manutius depicts a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. The printer’s mark used by French printer Robert Estienne shows a man standing by an olive tree, symbolising the tree of knowledge. Christophe Plantin, in Antwerp, used a pair of compasses held by a hand extending from a bank of clouds, the compass points signifying labour and constancy.” [1]
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