Research Guides: History of Text Technologies: Typography

Typeface Creation

Linotype Production

Examples from the Collection of FSU Special Collections & Archives

The works of Geoffrey Chaucer, now newly imprinted by Geoffrey Chaucer
Call Number: Vault (Double Oversize) ; PR1850 1896
Publication Date: 1896
The Kelmscott Press edition of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales set a high bar for book design and typography during the late 19th century. Produced by artist and fabric designer William Morris as well as typography expert Emery Walker, the book was developed as a high point of the creators' interest in design and book history. Morris was particularly inspired by 15th-century Venetian type.
The English Bible : containing the Old Testament & the New
Call Number: Vault (Oversize) ; BS185 1903 .H3
Publication Date: 1903-1905
The Doves Press, publisher of this Bible, was responsible for producing notable examples of 20th-century typography. This Bible uses a specially-commissioned typeface called Doves Type which was inspired by Venetian types during the Renaissance period. In fact, the type became the basis of a bitter dispute between the owners of the Press who fought over the rights to own and use the type.
Essay on Typography by Eric Gill; Christopher Skelton (Introduction by)
Call Number: Z116.A3 G54 1988
ISBN: 9780879237622
Publication Date: 1989-04-01
Eric Gill was an artist and letter carver. In 1925, he started drawing alphabets and printing books, and composed this volume in 1931, as an argument for common sense in design, composed for those interested in the subtle and evolving challenge of the typographic arts.

Large Format Type

Roberts Brothers Circus
Collection: Harrison Sayre Circus Collection
Identifier: MSS 2010-007

Glossary of Terms

Chase: the iron frame in which the text and illustrations for one side of a sheet were placed, along with wooden sticks and blocks known as furniture and quoins, before being locked up and printed.

Compositor: the person who set the type

Font: The collection of sorts that make up a complete set of type designed to work together, usually including capitols, small letters, numbers, and symbols.

Forme: the locked-up group of typeset pages inside a chase that prints one side of a sheet of paper; the side that prints the first page pf a gathering is known as the "outer forme" and the other is the "inner forme."

Imposition: how pages of set type are arranged in a chase to create different formats; while some formats have one dominant imposition that's used, others have multiple impositions.

Sort: the pieces of type that represent a single typographical mark; a single glyph is a sort.

Typeface: a group of fonts all of the same style, but usually in different sizes; Times New Roman, for example, is a typeface

External Sources for Typography

Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
ISBN: 0881791334
Publication Date: 2000-07-28