2012.03.03 History

When i first looking for font, i found i should learn more about history, letters and their font. A famous font designer Hermann Zapf said, every font we designed, it should be based on the former designs, because they should be related to each other.

Firstly, the following flow chart i made is about the origin and development of letters.

• Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic

                       ↓↓

• Greek Letters, rudiment of Latinbased alphabet
•  

       

• Roman Empire, went to practical and aesthetic

          

• Roman Empire, 26 letters came out

                      
    

• The 4th - 7th century, a period of lowercase letters, until the 8th century, they completed.

       


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Secondly, after the letters formed, font starting to be changed.

• The 1st - 2nd century, Roman Upper Case

                                 

• The 15th century, by the time font is in full due to typography, then Roman Upper Case mixed with Caroline lowercase, came out some circle and square font style.

                               

• The 18th century, people at that time were popular in classicism, replace circle script with straight lines. 

           Here an example:
      from Firmin Dodot

•  In 1980s, high technology, computer came out, lots of beautiful and special styles fonts were using.