The Dawn of Digital Type
Technologies that replace or modify human labor inspire fears that are fascinating in retrospect. Were anxieties about the industrial and digital revolutions too pessimistic?
Type provides a way to think about this question. Since the disruptive invention of moveable type in the fifteenth century, the need for type has remained constant, so its history is valuable evidence. Type production and use has evolved, perhaps no more dramatically than in the late twentieth century. It has been thirty years since the first Apple Macintosh was released; what did designers and typographers think about digital type as it was developing, what predictions did they make, and how accurate were they? At the library at the Type Directors Club, it is possible to sample opinions about typesetting technology in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
The delivery of an IBM computer in season 7 of Mad Men frightened some employees.
1967
A dense survey of the printing business from 1967 entitled The Printing Industry describes “computerized” composition, or typesetting, that, at that time, was data saved on punched paper tapes, not the digital type we are familiar with now. Despite the book’s emphasis on technology, the author, Victor Strauss, defends the importance of design over the unsophisticated preferences of what he calls “computer men.” He also warns designers to become involved in technological developments or risk having their work wrenched from them. Strauss accurately predicts the coming revolution in graphic production crafts:
“Systems analysis is in its beginning in the printing industry, and the composing room has become the first testing ground. If systems analysis will show results, and there is no doubt in the mind of the present writer that it will, the camera department, the platemaking department, and the pressroom will be subject to the same searching methods. Computerized composition is but the first step in a thorough transformation of the whole printing industry.”
Strauss describes an early example of computerized type and image making by Fortune magazine. Fortune’s July 1965 cover was the first in its 35-year history that was created completely by machine, a PDP-1 computer manufactured by Digital Equipment Corp. This story of innovation has been long forgotten:
“Fortune’s art director, Walter Allner, specified what he wanted; a program was written to Allner’s specifications and punched into an eight-channel paper tape by Sanford Libman and John Price whose interest in art and electronic developed at MIT. Generating the design on an oscilloscope and photographing it required about three hours of computer time and occupied Price, Allner, and Libman until four one morning. Multiple exposure through to filters added color to the electron tube’s glow.”
1977
By 1977, “word processing” already existed, before the first Mac was released. That year, type pioneer John W. Seybold published Fundamentals of Modern Composition, a guide to computers and typesetting. He celebrates computers:
“There is no escape, nor is there any need – nor should there be any desire – for escape. We are confronted with many challenges. In terms of technology, we are suffering from an ‘embarrassment of riches.’ Let us hope that we make the most of them!”
… yet he can’t help but ponder the effects of desktop publishing on writing itself, and foresees disputes about the ease and speed of communicating through computers:
“On one hand it may be contended that if the process of recording one’s thoughts becomes much more simple, thus facilitating spontaneity, the written product will be much more slapdash in character – more poorly organized and perhaps less cogently phrased – because the author will not have to labor so much at his writing task.”
Seybold also describes the varied reactions to technology. Some designers, out of pride, fear, or weariness, refused to adapt to computers:
“To some people, in some situations, a new way of looking at, and of doing, many things, will emerge. Some will bury their heads in the sand; others will gallop into the fray only to be hoisted upon their own petard. The rest of us, more sensibly, will try to strike a happy medium.”
1985
In 1985 the Mac was still very new, but digital type had already become a subject of study in a few design schools. In its Spring 1985 issue, the heady journal of language and literacy Visible Language analyzed the role of computers in design education and asked prescient questions that are still in dispute. Editor Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl interviewed three educators (Chuck Owen from the Illinois Institute of Technology Institute of Design, Roger Remington from RIT, and Michael Twyman from the University of Reading) about their use of computers. The three made some accurate predictions, including:
“…within five years we will see a great deal of design done with computer assistance.” (Chuck Owen)
“The authority / control / influence of the producers and distributors of graphic language (traditionally the publisher and printer) will therefore lessen or disappear. This will have all sorts of interesting social implications…” (Michael Twyman)
On the fate of hand skills, there was less agreement:
“I do not believe … that traditional handwriting or drawing skills will disappear. Apart from anything else, there will be the very natural human desire for variety and, rather less worthy, a nostalgia factor.” (Michael Twyman)
“Hand skills will be diminished. … We admire the craftsperson for what he is able to accomplish within the limitations of his tools. We admire the designer for what he is able to accomplish, period.” (Chuck Owen)
“…I find it hard to imagine a world in which computer costs will come down to such an extent as to be competitive with pencil and paper.” (Michael Twyman)
Smart phones are certainly not as cheap as pencils, but now they may be more widely used than pencils. Changes in the way type is designed and used have happened more quickly and thoroughly than was predicted. Who imagined Robofont, myfonts.com, or the ability to carry hundreds of books on a telephone? Perhaps only science fiction can imagine the typography of the future.
Doug Clouse