Movable type began in Song China, not only Mainz
Typography arranges type so written language stays legible—choosing typefaces, sizes, leading, tracking, and kerning. Bi Sheng cast ceramic movable type in eleventh-century Song China; Korea cast metal type around 1230. Gutenberg's lead alloy of 1439 then supercharged Europe's Printing Revolution.
Typography is the craft of arranging type for readable written language, and also the look of letters, numbers, and symbols. Type design is related but distinct: most typographers do not cut faces, and some designers refuse the typographer label. Until personal computers, it was a specialist trade; now anyone publishing on a screen practices it, often without the old guild habits. The English word blends Greek typos (form or impression) and graphein (to write).
Deep history is contested and wide. Mesopotamian brick stamps from the second millennium BCE reuse identical characters; the Phaistos Disc (about 1850–1600 BCE) and medieval letter punches show early modular impressions. Bi Sheng (990–1051) invented ceramic movable type in Song China; Wang Zhen pioneered wooden type; metal movable type appeared in Goryeo Korea around 1230, and Hua Sui brought bronze type to China in 1490, though East Asian systems did not diffuse globally like Europe's later press. Johannes Gutenberg's 1439 lead-alloy type and mechanical press produced the Gutenberg Bible and ignited Europe's Printing Revolution. Early European faces imitated blackletter scribal hands; Claude Garamond helped Roman faces displace Gothic in Renaissance France.
Twentieth-century gear—IBM Selectric systems, Letraset dry transfer, then Fontographer on personal computers—slashed development cost and was dubbed the democratization of type. Hundreds of thousands of faces now exist. Steve Jobs's 1984 habit of calling typefaces "fonts" stuck industry-wide, muddling a technical distinction. Traditional text typography aims for invisible clarity; experimental practitioners from Dada's Francis Picabia to David Carson's 1990s Ray Gun chased emotion over legibility. Swiss Style in the 1950s–60s and earlier International Typographic Style still shape how corporate and civic words look on everything from appliances to phone screens.
Source: Typography
