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15,000 BCE
Cave paintings at Lascaux, France.
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3100 BCE
Earliest Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Pictographic writing on clay tablets -
2900 BCE
Cuneiform tablets using cuneiform script.
A logographic system where words represent concepts. -
2000 BCE
Full cuneiform scripts documented.
For communicating ideas and to represent abstract ideas like love, fear, betrayal, hope. -
2000 BCE
Angono Rizal petroglyphs.
A rock shelter with 127 human figures scattered on the wall, made by engraving lines using a piece of stone on the surface. -
1300 BCE
Early Book of the Dead papyrus scrolls.
The Egyptians are credited for creating the first major advancement in writing surfaces from the papyrus plant. -
700 BCE
Greek alphabet.
24 characters. The economy of the written word. -
105
China’s Ts'ai Lun invents paper.
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220
China’s wooden printing presses.
They were carving symbols on a wooden block which were pressed onto sheets of paper. -
300
Roman Alphabet or Latin Alphabet.
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300
Illuminated Manuscripts during the Roman Empire.
The title of the manuscript in the image is: "The Creation of Birds and Fishes." -
1002
The Butuan Ivory Seal
Earliest proof of the Philippines’ own writing system, the Baybayin. -
1040
China’s Pi Sheng invents movable type.
The thousand-character writing system kept movable type from prospering in China and Korea. -
1300
Rise of Secular Books and Public Libraries
Context: the Italian Renaissance. -
1450
Johann Gutenburg's printing press.
Developed from movable type, this made printing books possible and effectively replaced manuscripts. -
1455
Gutenberg and Fust complete 42-line Bible.
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1460
Albrecht Pfister: First printed book with illustrations
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1475
William Caxton's 1st English-language typographic book
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1st English newspaper: Weekly Newes
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Growth of Typography
Types: Caslon, Didot, Baskerville, Bodoni, and earlier in 1530, Garamond -
Alois Senefelder discovers lithography.
A cheaper way to do multiple copies of the scripts he was writing. -
First Fat-Face Type made by Robert Thorne.
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Vincent Figgins develops first Egyptian type.
Also called Slab Serif. -
Caslon's first sans-serif type.
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Claude Niépce develops what is considered as first photograph.
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Ottmar Mergenthaler invents the Linotype machine.
Technique of “line casting” placed entire lines of type for printing, rather than just individual letter typesetting. -
Tolbert Lanston invents the Monotype machine.
Forms individual letters using a keyboard on perforated paper. -
Eastman Kodak camera commercializes photography.
