Typography: A History of Machines

Carl Shank • March 12, 2023

Typography: A History of Machines. Several years ago, Alexander Lawson wrote a series of articles on the history of typographic machines and typography, Typographic Journey—Craft to Computer (Typeworld, July 1, 1992 – September 2, 1992). He did a masterful job of outlining the major eras of typographic printing equipment. I was inspired to draft a pictorial history from those articles, noted in the graphic below.


Rather than merely a look back at the machinery and utility of typography, Lawson as well as many other typographers, and printers, for that matter, look upon typography and printing as a "fine art" — "Is it any wonder . . . if the printer, or lover of printing, who is sensitively alert to all this multi-form variability of the apparently inelastic and static medium, should wax enthusiastic over it, and claim for it a place among the fine arts?" (Will Bradley, "Is Printing A Fine Art?") Starting with Johann Gutenberg and working his way through the centuries and developments of printing and printers, Lawson with a taste for the art as well as the science of printing and typography, traces the major hallmarks of the machines that actually produced the printed page.


Printing for the masses actually began with Gutenberg in 1455 with his 42-line Bible. The sketch used in the graphical representation below comes from the free stock hosted by Dreamstime — "This sculpture of Johannes Gutenberg was made by David Angers in 1839 and was unveiled June 24, 1840. It can be seen in Strasbourg, where Gutenberg lived between 1434 and 1444, after being exiled from Mainz. At this time, he had already begun to work on his printing press, although trying to keep his projects secret as much as was possible. The inscription on the page he is holding reads: And light was made. (92145700 © CCOimages | Dreamstime.com)" Lawson notes that rather than Gutenberg inventing printing, he merely mechanized it — "In fact, he should be credited with the origination of interchangeable parts with his concept of single type letters." (Lawson, July 1, 1992) Gutenberg studiously followed his scribal predecessors in printing the Bible for popular use.


With the Foundrinier paper making machine in 1803 came the taste for and development of typographic machines, printing presses, capable of printing newspapers, like The Times of London in 1814. Printing plates followed allowing printers to mass produce thousands of copies in the lates 1800s. The Mergenthaler (called the "Merg") was a keyboard operated input machine and Linotype began their historic operation.


Interestingly, in the history of typesetting and printing, I came into the scene when the IBM Electric Ball strike-on typesetting was the rage. I worked for a small printing outfit in the Sterling, VA area that had a couple of these strike-on machines clacking away on a daily, and sometimes a 24/7 basis. We did ads and posters and especially Christian-based books, all typeset on the IBM. However, the larger display print had in the early days to be hand-set from scratch on letters that took many hours of careful labor.


We moved to the Itek Phototypesetting machine which produced display type that the printer could then make a camera-ready layout for the press. We never quite moved beyond the IBM machines and the Itek since the business went under at that time. However, I learned a lot about fast turnaround typesetting and printing. I got my hands dirty, literally, as I learned the ropes.


My next typesetting stint occurred in Schenectady, NY where in 1984 I bought an Apple Laserwriter that could take computer generated type and print at a then amazing 300 dpi (dots per inch). My Apple computers ranged from the entry level Macintosh 128K to the SE to the Classic to the PowerMac to the iMac to the Mac Cube to the Mac Mini (various iterations) to the present day Mac Studio M1. Originally designed for personal and home use, the creation of PageMaker layout program allowed people like myself to start layout and typesetting businesses that rivaled our IBM business computers. Apple computers just got faster, better, and software programming developed so that Mac-made software was also made for the IBM PC.


To see the development of typesetting machines is a rush for me. I hope you can join me in my love for the "fine art" of typography and its machines.

Successful Layout & Design

Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase”

By Carl Shank • June 13, 2026
Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase” Carl Shank, CARE Typography Most everyone knows what “uppercase” and “lowercase” letters are. They refer, of course, to our “capital” letters and our “regular” small print. But not many know why or how they came to be known by such terminology. The answer is found in the history and development of typography and printing. “Case” here doesn’t refer to “circumstance” or “condition.” It refers to the wooden trays used to store metal letters, the top case for capital letters (“uppercase”) and the lower case for small letters. Each tray was divided into compartments to hold the type. The lower case also held the punctuation marks and other pieces of type, like “spacers.” The type case was a shallow wooden tray divided into compartments of various sizes. There were about thirty styles of type cases, and some of these were made in different sizes.[1] The most common, or standard, size was 32¼ by 16 inches, outside dimensions, and ⅛ inches deep, inside. One of three traditional plans or schemes for such type cases involved (1) all characters in one case; (2) capitals, small capitals and a few other characters in one case; or (3) the small letters, figures, points, spaces and quads in another case. The two latter cases formed a pair and would nearly always be used together.(See Images) Hand compositors (or “swifts”) would take individual letters, spaces and punctuation marks or other characters from the type case and place them in what was called a composing “stick” in such a manner that when the type characters are properly assembled, they form words, sentences and paragraphs. The work of the press room compositor was divided into two fundamental operations — the “setting” of type and the “unsetting” of type. The former was called composition and the latter, distribution. A visual example of such typesetting can be seen in some of the episodes of The Waltons, an American historical dramatelevision series about a family in rural western Virginia in the Appalachian/Blue Ridge mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemployment of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the subsequent United State home front during World War II in the 1940s. The series aired from 1972 to 1981. John-Boy, a leading character of the series, opened a print shop in a shed by the family home with an old-fashioned mechanical printer that required setting cold metal type from a type case. His brother was the compositor while John-Boy ran the printing machine.

Vanity Type

By Carl Shank • June 6, 2026
Reading through an old volume of Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc, Type Faces:With Which We 'Prove It With Proofs' in Typography for Advertisements (New York, 1924), I came across some type that falls outside of the standard typography models, called "vanity type." The term “vanity typography” is not a formal category in typographic history like Old Style, Transitional, Modern, or Sans Serif. Designers typically use the phrase informally to describe typography that draws attention primarily to itself rather than serving the text or reader. Vanity typography occurs when type is used as a display of the designer's skill, fashion, or personal taste rather than to improve communication. Readability is sometimes sacrificed for self-expression and artistic flair. Such type styles use excessive ornamentation, decorative letterforms, overuse of effects like shadows, outlines, gradients and distortions, unusual spacing, and generally typography used to impress rather than inform. Notice in the sample by Phillips, the different "A's," "F's,", "G's," "H's," "L's," "M's," "S's," T's" and "W's." This is not calligraphy lettering, but rather type that could have been used for verses or opening letters to paragraphs or stories.
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