A general overview of both the history of type design and typography (the use and arrangement of type) in the West from the birth of printing with moveable type in the mid-15th century until the advent of digital fonts in the 1980s. This class will explore the influence of scribal styles of writing on early typographic forms; the development of the ‘modern’ typographic book in 16th century France; changes and challenges to that format in the 19th and 20th centuries; the impact of technology (of typefounding, typesetting and printing) on the form and use of typefaces since 1800; and the shift from the book as the locus of typographic development to posters and otherephemera since the early 19th century.