First printed edition of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Drawing on his time Flanders, the type Caxton used to print this volume was modelled on the handwriting of the best Flemish scribes.
Lithography, invented by Aloys Senefelder (1771–1834) in the 1790s, offered an alternative printing method. He devised techniques for writing on a surface (originally a very smooth stone) using a tool that was slightly waxy or greasy. The stone was wetted. Next, ink was rolled out across its surface: it would not stick to the dampened areas (which remained un-inked) but would adhere to those parts that had been covered by the waxy writing or drawing, and from this, a print could now be taken.
As a result, handwriting and drawings could be reproduced directly, and this became a popular method of reproduction for cursive (joined-up) and non-Latin scripts such as Arabic, as well as musical manuscripts and colourful advertising that combined text with illustration.
During the 20th century, a large number of different printing and copying systems were introduced into workplaces. Automated composing systems and many propriety methods for copying documents were supplemented in the 1950s with photocomposition, using projected images as a means of composing a page of type that could then be printed using lithographic plates.
Typing
The other development in the later part of the 19th century was the introduction of the typewriter. In Europe ideas for the improved mechanisation of writing had been experimented with since the beginning of the 1700s but it was the Remington typewriter, released in the USA in 1872, that established the standard model.
For the English language it was the QWERTY keyboard that remained the most influential and is still in use today. The randomisation of keys scattered the most popular letters across the keyboard and prevented jamming of adjacent keys. This allowed the operator to press a key and send an individual hammer, carved with a letter, towards an ink-impregnated ribbon that marked the paper. This paper was fed through the machine line by line.
Typewriters allowed the operator to write up to about 150 words a minute as opposed to 30 with pen and paper. Carbon paper enabled several copies of a document to be made simultaneously. Typewriters were developed for many different writing systems.
Double Pigeon Chinese Typewriter
The Double Pigeon Chinese typewriter became iconic in Maoist China (1949–76).
The big leap forward to our present-day technology began in the 1960s and ’70s. From shortly after World War II, computers had screens and keyboards attached to them for programming purposes. By the mid-1970s it was clear that this configuration could be used for writing itself: word-processing, as it came to be called.
Eventually it became possible to think of these tools as playing a role in shaping the layout of documents as well.
Apple IIe computer
Apple II computers were among the first microcomputers to be produced.
In the course of a couple of decades, computers – which had once been thought of as giant calculating machines that planned national economies or placed men on the moon – were reconceived as new writing tools, in succession to the quill pen and the typewriter.
Electronic technologies have proved highly significant for writing. Today they cover SMS or text messages on mobile devices, as well as internet protocol-based messaging services, such as Apple’s iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat (China) and many others.
New formats challenge our creativity (the character limit on messages, for instance) resulting in new spellings (c u 2night), acronyms (LOL) and the arrival of emoticons and emojis: figures that can disambiguate short texts and stand for a variety of feelings.
New digital designs for letterforms have also become necessary because messages must work across multiple devices, using different resolutions and formats. Type design and publication in digital media is flourishing.
Written by Ewan Clayton Ewan is Professor in Design at the University of Sunderland and external advisor to the British Library's 2019 exhibition Writing: Making Your Mark. He is a core faculty member of the Royal School of Drawing and is a calligrapher.
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