I believe in fiction—and non fiction too. I believe literature has value. As the most developed and lasting form of story telling, literature is a way to explore the human experience. Language is one of the first things we learn and train everyday. Language, and its role in communication, has the power to change our lives, to offer meaning and purpose.
Living in a high-tech age, it’s easy to forget that ‘technology’ didn’t always mean the latest gadget. It began with taking natural resources and converting them into simple tools. Technology is essentially the usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, systems or methods of organization.
If we think of language and letterforms as a technology then one might say that typography is a result of an evolution in technology. Acknowledging that a society interacts with and even shapes the technologies that it uses, it's also true that the uses made of technology are largely determined by the design of the technology itself. Function follows form. As a technology is developed, its design tends to influence a user’s behaviors. It’s hard to make the distinction whether a society determines a technology or vice versa but it’s clear that the two are equally interconnected and they both rely on each other for change.
The technology of typography has certainly evolved over the years. I wonder what communication processes in the past demanded the need for change and what types of technological advancements in typography enabled them to take place. The movable printing press was a great revolution in renaissance information technology. It arguably provides the closest parallel to the development of the Internet. I think its important to look at history as a means to understand the present and shape the future. If we are going to prepare to participate as active designers shaping the world of tomorrow, we must study the technology of communication at it’s most basic letterform and follow that process of it's evolution.
We must understand that the history of communication and the technologies that shaped typography didn’t just happen, they were created. And we have a place in making the choices that will determine the history of communication technology for the future.
Thoughts based on abstract paper I wrote on the "Philosophy of Technology" for an Advanced History of Design graduate course I took in 2011. In a recent endeavor to reflect on my own personal history in design, I pulled some of these thoughts and other thoughts from things I've read and ideas I've collected over time and applied them to the concept of Typography.