Chapter 10. There is no bad type

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FROM MEDITERRANEAN MERCHANTS making notes on clay tablets, to Roman masons chiseling letters into stone, to medieval monks moving quills across parchment – the look of letters has always been influenced by the tools used to make them. Two hundred years ago, copperplate engraving changed the look of typefaces, as did all subsequent technologies: the pantograph, Monotype and Linotype machines, phototypesetting, digital bitmaps, and outline fonts.

Most of these technologies are no longer viable, but some of the typefaces they engendered now represent particular categories of typefaces. Once again, the ...

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