This chapter, Laws of the Letter, goes through the evolution of typography and explains and discusses why some changes occurred. The chapter poses a question straight away, “Is the history of letterforms a logical evolution toward perfect shapes, or a string of responses to the changing philosophy, technology, and social uses of writing?” (53). The latter, responses to a changing world, seems to be a more apt description of the history of letterforms and typography, in my opinion.
Typography began with Gutenberg’s fonts that were intended to simulate the variety and feeling of handwriting. They embodied a handwriting style because they were some of the first typefaces to be created and there was nothing else to copy the style of. During the sixteenth century, letter forms were distanced from handwriting and calligraphy in exchange for more mathematical styles. Letters were created using the tools of geometry, because “the letter form was no longer thought of as a sequence of manual pen strokes, but as a conceptual ideal bound to no particular technology” (55). Bodoni and Didot emerged and finished off the erasure of a connection to handwriting and calligraphy within typefaces and letter forms.
The previous examples and the rest of the ever changing history of typography prove, for me, that letter forms and typography change, as do many other things in our world, with the times. Technology, philosophies, art movements, social uses and many other things define what is needed and what can be accomplished in the creation of a typeface.



I chose this image because it organizes some of the main transitions in the evolution of typography into a handy little info graphic. Although it does not go into extreme detail and does not cover ever single transition and change in the typographic movement, I believe it's a helpful image. It can give someone an overview and a bit of background on the changes in style of typography over time.