Letters part 8: How William Caxton turned patronage into a business, and became the first English printer.
Letters
Letters is the story of type. Our fonts are cutting-edge digital, hand-crafted analogue—their heritage is written in the intertwining histories of design, technology, literacy, and everything else. This is where we pay our respects. To read the series from the beginning, click here. Find our latest issues below.
Letters part 7: In which the potential of a machine created to print perfect bibles disrupts the religious order it sought to celebrate.
Letters part 6: The reason fonts are made in foundries, the etymological clues that guide us towards the font of all wisdom, and an introduction to the foundational role a font foundry played in founding the Modern Era.
Letters part 5: How increasing literacy in the Middle Ages spurred demand for new script, new writing material, and a whole new way of reproducing books a page at a time.
Letters part 4: In which islands of literacy fostered the written word through the collapse of one empire, leading to the creation of the typeface that would secure the survival of another.
