"The spoken word disappears... the written word endures"
Neil Postman
The origins of writing are in Mesopotamia around 3200BC. Writing allowed language to achieve longevity and travel widely and accurately over distance and time. 'True Alphabets' assign letters as both consonants and vowels. The first of these was the Greek Alphabet which was adapted form the Phoenician. Latin is the most widely used alphabet and is a further development of the Greek,
Typography is based on the arrangement and printing of moveable type which with the invention of the Gutenburg printing press in 1440 allowed written language to be printed and distributed in large quantities. A single renaissance press could print 3600 pages every prompted mass production of books for the first time in history. Printing started in Mainz, Germany and within 2 decades spread to over 200 cities in a dozen European countries. Printing went on to have a huge impact on society as a hole as information spread relatively unrestricted crossing borders and challenging the power of political and religious authorities. The increase in literacy prompted to emergence of the middle class as the monopoly on education was broken.
In 1990 Apple Macintosh released the first of its computers to sell for less than $1000. this computer allowed people to work with vectors and create their own type. the general public have access to programs that are capable of producing fonts to an industry standard.
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