As little as 40 years ago, metal type was still commonplace in the design and printing industries around the world, and typography was still hand-rendered by designers and layout artists, painstakingly marked up and handed over to a typesetter to be made up from wood and metal. This is a far cry from the rather clinical environments most of us work in today: typographic decisions can be made at the click of a mouse, with type being positioned to the hundredth of a millimetre in the very 'virtual' world of InDesign or QuarkXpress.
Although the technology has changed beyond recognition, the principle of typography remains the same: using a combination of factors such as type size, leading and kerning to achieve legibility. Granted, typography can transcend pure legibility, with modern type blurring the lines between communication and art, but, for the most part, type should be used to deliver content in the most efficient way possible.
