Google’s new typeface (screenshot via YouTube)
Type history is full of aesthetic changes that respond to evolutions in technology or the need to adapt to a new scale. One such change was the early-19th-century rise of the evocatively named “fat” or “Egyptian” typefaces, which were bold, ultra-thick letterforms that could be read with ease from a distance. The advent of the cylinder press in 1812 allowed advertisers to producer bigger posters than ever before, more quickly and in greater quantities, necessitating the development of a typeface that could capture the attention of passersby on a busy London street. This change, as in so many other fields, also marked the shift from handcraft to industry in print and type — part of a decades-long period during which these two impulses duked it out for cultural relevance, accessibility, and economic supremacy.