The art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible and appealing. The style and appearance of printed matter.
From Greek 'typos' meaning 'impression, figure, type' and 'graphein' meaning 'to write.' Coined in the 17th century as printing technology developed. The word literally means 'type-writing' and reflects the mechanical process of creating text through movable type.
Typography was revolutionized by Gutenberg's printing press around 1440, but the word itself didn't appear until almost 200 years later. This delay shows how technological innovations often precede the vocabulary needed to discuss them - we had to live with printing long enough to develop specialized language about it.
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