Class 1.20

Evolution of Written Communication - key points

• Earliest forms of writing were cave drawings

• Petroglyphs/ideographs carved into stone gave the idea of shapes representing concepts

• Earliest alphabets: Egyptians, Sumerians, Minoans

• Sumerian people arrive in Mesopotamia in 3500 B.C. (words and pics put together)

• Hieroglyphics = sacred carving

• Asian contribution of printing, paper, and typography (esp. Chinese)
o First relief printing
o System for movable type
o Invention of paper in 105 AD

• Chinese invented printing

• Greeks brought geometric structure and order to the cockeyed Phoenician characters

• Latin alphabet came to Romans from Greece by way of ancient Etruscans

• Insular script – uncial and half-uncial brought to Ireland by missionaries then subtley redesigned (did not occur any place else!)

• Knowledge production (the creation and consensual standardization of human thought) becomes the main focus of printing books, instead of religious reasons

The main idea of tonight's lecture was the evolution of typography starting from the very beginning. I learned about how serifs were first introduced and then when they were taken away by Caslon. The main categories of type that we discussed were old style roman, italic/cursive, transitional, modern, slab serif, and sans serif.

Today's class was the first real lecture we have had this semester so it was good to get a feel for what the pace is like in the lecture. I recall learning about certain aspects of the history of type from last semester's typography class, though tonight we got into a lot more detail about the whole evolution of typography in general.