Changes in Letterforms Due to Technical Developments

Abstract

A brief historical survey traces the major technological influences on typography, beginning when Gutenberg transferred the handwritten letters of the medieval scribes into typographic forms, down through the development of machine composition, both in hot metal and photocomposition. Today new problems arise in connection with automated optical read ing machines. Not only must the tech ni cal requirements of computerized composition be mastered, but we also have to consider the demand for new alphabet designs as an expression of our time, departing from historicizing elements of past styles.