Alessandro Segalini

There was a typographic explosion at the beginning of the nineteenth century… Sweeping changes occur red in printing as a result of the industrial revolution. With the diversification of manufactured goods, advertising and packaging raised their infant cries for attention. The press, geared to a full-scale consumer war, played a pivotal role in the purveying of goods and services to the populace. The devising, cutting and casting of new typefaces accelerated at a staggering rate. The book types that previously had sufficed for poster work were replaced by bolder versions for less-sophisticated readers. There were, in addition, new eye-catching inventions: the slab-serif, sans serif, and shaded and decorated types. Their introduction led, in turn, to changes in reading, not only in scale and pace, but in the readers’ understanding of emphasis through type weight & color. With the arrival of display types, the specimen books became the playground of the compositor.