Typography is the study, design and skillful usage of type and typefaces, and its origins can be found from the invention of 'movable', printable and specifically designed type.

The earliest known movable type was invented in China in the 9th century, with the type pieces being made of wood and the eventual plate cast in baked clay. Unfortunately the fragile clay could only withstand a few impressions.

The next advancement of movable metal type occurred slightly further from home, in Korea in the 13th century, and was developed very much to meet the heavy demand for religious books (often attributed to one Choe Yun-ui, and an excellent Korea move for him).

Whilst we must give credit to the Chinese and the Koreans for these early inventions (and the Japanese did their bit) the movable metal printing fonts really took off in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries with the development of the modern printing press and 'typefounders' (printers who were really the first 'typographers' and designed specific typefaces) such as Claude Garamond and Johannes Gutenberg.

The earliest versions of these type designs were reproductions of the scripts of calligraphers and, taking a printed leaf out of the earlier Korean's books, were used mainly for reproducing religious texts, often with the added flourish of colourful illustration and ornament, and so were perhaps one of the earliest forms of large scale printed propaganda.

Over the next couple of centuries there was an explosion of typefounders and tens of thousands of type styles were designed, all originating from the 3 major families of type; Roman, Italic and Black (or Gothic) which all, in turn, derived from those beautiful, calligrapher's scripts whose astonishing skills were ultimately replaced by the printing press.

Today however, in our computerised world, everything is digital and we can now produce a piece of work in an hour that would take a 15th century printer a week, or a calligrapher a year and with the super fast techniques of line feed, tracking, kerning, condensing and expanding plus the added bonus of knowing that every character will be identical every time.