The early Writing Masters of the 15th and 16th century gave us the first principles and rules about how written language should look like. With their directives they built the foundation for a long history of writing and later the design of type. This evolution perfectly shows the development from a written script to the design of single letters in an alphabet.

Some of the old principles are even still alive in contemporary type design and one may be surprised by the intriguing similarities between now and then.