This book draws together the development of type and type design from its inception to the present day. It examines the influences that prompted men of letters to apply their minds to mechanical writing and how printing and type production was adopted as a craft, a trade, and later a giant industry.

Huge cultural, social, and economic changes have occurred over the centuries since Gutenberg and in parallel to these, together with art, architecture and fashion, can be traced the evolution of typeforms and graphic expression.

Despite the great strides taken in recent years to digitally liberate our typeforms, and the growth of new and exciting fonts, the historical references remain very strong.

From the beginnings of mechanical type and through the development of the typographic artform, it may be that we have completed a full circle - from the free handwriting of manuscripts to the free expression of digital letterforms, computer generated and customised type.