Typography History on AI

Carl Shank • February 23, 2023

Typography and Artificial Intelligence

A new way to retrieve information about most any topic, including typography, is offered through AI – artificial intelligence. More precisely, through ChatGPT, which allows the user to ask a question to an AI generated interface, a user can freely investigate topics that once took hours of painstaking research. Two models I have used, one which is free to the user (openai.com) and another service (ai-pro, which costs about $20 per month but is much more sophisticated) allow the user to get decent and mostly accurate information about most any topic. I typed into the chat box "history of typography" and "modern typography" and received the following AI generated answers:


"Typography is an artform that has evolved since the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Its evolution has been driven by the technological advancements in typesetting and printing. During the 15th and 16th centuries, type design was largely influenced by the Gothic style. This style featured the use of slab serifs, intricate patterns, and large decorative flourishes. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, new typefaces emerged based on the Romanesque style, a style of lettering developed by Italian priests in the Vatican as a response to the Gothic style. This style is more simplified and is often used in book typesetting today. The late 19th century saw the emergence of the Art Deco style, which featured strong contrast and geometric typefaces. This style was the source of most of the typefaces used throughout the twentieth century. The mid-twentieth century was an important period in typography, as it was during this time that the sans-serif style began to increase its prevalence. Sans-serif fonts such as Helvetica, Futura, and Arial became popular, largely replacing the Art Deco typefaces of earlier decades. Today, typography has become a specialized artform. It is used in almost every aspect of visual arts and design and continues to evolve as new technologies emerge. Computers and digital printing have allowed typographers to create intricate and complex typefaces and forms unlike anything seen before. Computers have also changed the way that typefaces are delivered, allowing designers to manipulate them in a variety of ways to create visual effects and combinations."


"The history of typography is a story of technological progress and aesthetic trends. It begins in the 15th century with the invention of the printing press and the spread of movable type. In this period, traditional calligraphic letterforms were adapted for print, leading to a variety of typefaces with elaborate serifs, ornaments and flourishes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the typewriter and the photograph led to increased speed in typesetting, and the industrial revolution brought with it a fascination for the mechanized application of type. Late 19th and 20th century saw revolutions in type design with the appearance of sans-serif typefaces and the development of new technologies such as linotype and phototypesetting. These new technologies gave typographers more control over the design of typefaces and increased the speed of typesetting and printing. New typefaces designed in the last decades of the 20th century, such as Helvetica, Univers and Frutiger, are still widely used today. The early 21st century saw an explosion of digital technology, with the birth of desktop publishing, the World Wide Web, and digital font applications. This digital revolution made typefaces more widely available, and ushered in a new era of typographic exploration. Fonts that were once only available to professional designers and printers are now at the fingertips of everyone with a computer and an internet connection. As the digital age continues to evolve, typography will surely continue its fascinating journey."


When I asked the AI Chat about "modern typography," I got the following response: "Modern typography is the practice of arranging and designing type in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and enhances the readability and legibility of written language. It emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century as a response to the changing technological and cultural landscape of the time, particularly the rise of industrialization, mass media, and global communication.


Some of the most important writers and inventors of modern typography include:


Jan Tschichold: A German typographer and designer who played a significant role in the development of modern typography. He was a proponent of asymmetrical typography and advocated for the use of sans-serif fonts in printed materials.


Eric Gill: A British sculptor, typeface designer, and printmaker who is best known for his typeface designs, including Gill Sans and Perpetua. He was a leading figure in the Arts and Crafts movement and his work had a significant influence on modern typography.


Paul Renner: A German typographer and typeface designer who is best known for creating the iconic Futura typeface. Futura became one of the most popular and widely used typefaces of the 20th century and had a significant impact on modern typography.


Adrian Frutiger: A Swiss typeface designer who created some of the most widely used typefaces of the 20th century, including Univers, Frutiger, and Avenir. His work was characterized by a focus on clarity, legibility, and simplicity.


Herb Lubalin: An American graphic designer and typographer who is best known for his work on magazines such as Avant Garde and Eros. He was a pioneer of expressive typography and used type as a visual element in his designs.


These and other writers and inventors of modern typography have had a profound influence on the field of graphic design and continue to inspire new generations of designers today."


A couple of things to note. First, these answers are quite general, but mostly accurate for generalized information. They fail to elucidate what standard typographical texts say about typography. They give summary statements. You can drill down in the Chat and ask more specific questions and the AI will usually cooperate, but this is different than reading a typographical history book on the subject. However, the AI Chat does give enough information, as a starting point, to the study of typography.


Try it out for yourself!




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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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