From Hot Metal to HTML: The Story of Typography
summary
A fast, example-led history from clay tablets to web fonts that names tools and surprises: movable type appears in China c.1040 (Bi Sheng) and Gutenberg prints ~200 Bibles, linotype powers mass newspapers later (1970: ~100,000 machines → fewer than 1,000 survive), and desktop publishing hinges on PostScript + LaserWriter. Covers TeX, TrueType hinting, ClearType subpixel trick, Web Open Font Format (c.2009), tiny 5x3 pixel fonts (256 bytes), icon fonts/fontawesome, Wingdings quirks, and a FontForge prank of renaming a downloaded face to Helvetica Noi.
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chapters (21)
- 0:00Typography's impact
- 1:48Fonts shape perception
- 3:12Mesopotamia's writing birth
- 7:48Pictograms to alphabets
- 13:29Paper and codex invented
- 14:56Gutenberg's movable type
- 18:31Linotype machines' golden age
- 22:39Fonts' printing legacy
- 25:05Computer typography early
- 28:59PostScript and desktop publishing
- 31:08Macintosh digital fonts
- 35:24TrueType scalable fonts
- 37:52Comic Sans origin
- 40:01ClearType rendering
- 43:35CD-ROM fonts and web limits
- 45:00Web typography dilemma
- 48:49Web design vs typography
- 50:16Web fonts and iconography
- 53:43E-ink reading future
- 55:51Typography's four stories
- 57:16Q&A
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