Typography Prints For Sale

Rebecca Mason combines text with neon lights to create striking images which comment on life’s big issues. Mason injects dry humour and wit into her pieces through topics such as love, money or culture, to create thought provoking works.

Ursula Hitz creates maps of world cities using place names and her own fonts. The words jostle together to create visually mesmerising pieces which appear to grow and move in the same way as cities do.

About Typography

Since the invention of mechanic movable type printing by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, typography has served both a functional and artistic purpose. Its functional definition is simply the style and appearance of printed matter. Yet, as an art form, the procedure of selecting, arranging and printing type allows artists to play with space, form and meaning.

The art of typography flourished during the industrial revolution and continues to evolve throughout the digital revolution. Typography and graphic design are closely related, yet the original design of typefaces was once considered an art form of its own.

History of Typography

Typography is the art of creating the letters which make up a font and which result in the overall typeface. Since Guttenberg created the first typeface, Blackletter, in the 1400s, font styles have evolved with cultural trends.

William Morris, a pioneer of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, was an advocate of craftsmanship and rejected mass-production. As a reaction to the poor quality of modern printing he set up his own printing press in 1888. His Kelmscott Press used an old hand press and popularised his decorative and sinuous style typeface.

Additionally, one of the most popular typefaces which is still used today is Helvetica and was designed by Max Miedinger in 1957, as a return to minimalism. With increased access to a vast variety of typefaces, the art of typography shifted towards the art of composition.

Modern Typography

Typography has been popular in many modern art movements, such as Dada, Futurism and Pop Art. Typography allowed artists to take words from everyday life and manipulate their meaning through the art of arrangement.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the chief proponent for the Futurist movement. His Futurist Manifesto called for a revolution ‘directed against what is known as typographic harmony of the page’. In turn, he deconstructed traditional linear writing by scattering only nouns across the page and conveying meaning through size, weight and placement.