6 days ago
How Steve Jobs helped us write
With all the tributes paid to Steve Jobs over the years, one vital contribution is often overlooked: his profound influence on how we write — not just the act, but the way we express ourselves through the beauty of type. Into a digital world once dominated by cold, clunky pixels, Steve brought elegance and emotion.
As Simon Garfield, author of Just My Type, notes, 'Jobs was the first to give us a real choice of fonts, and thus the ability to express ourselves digitally with emotion, clarity and variety. He made Type Gods of us all.'
Steve didn't invent fonts. What he did was something far more radical: he made typography matter, reminded us that words are visual experiences. As he narrated in his famous 2005 Stanford commencement address, a calligraphy class at Reed College, taught by Professor Robert Palladino, introduced him to the artistry of letters, spacing, and line forms.
Years later, those lessons in pen and ink found their way into the original Macintosh, which became the first personal computer to offer a suite of typefaces.
To appreciate the scale of this transformation, we must go back — way back. Fonts have been an integral part of human communication since the dawn of writing. In ancient Sumeria, cuneiform characters were etched into clay to document trade, laws, and stories. The Egyptians brought hieroglyphs — a typographic system both artistic and functional. Movable type was made possible by Gutenberg's printing press in the 15th century; his iconic Bible marked the beginning of mass communication, and he designed the blackletter font marking the transition from hand copying to efficient mass production.
As technology advanced, so did our fonts. Didot designed by Fermin Didot in the 18th century is a timeless high contrast typeface that exudes elegance, and is used by luxury brands such as Vogue and Bazaar.
Serif fonts, with their graceful tails, became synonymous with elegance, while sans serif fonts signalled modernity and simplicity. But the real revolution came with the digital age.
In the 1960s, digital fonts were generated through algorithms, but although they were functional they lacked character. That changed in the 1980s when Jobs, in collaboration with designer Susan Kare, introduced distinctive fonts such as Chicago, Geneva, and Monaco on the Macintosh.
With TrueType technology in the 1990s, fonts became scalable, cross-platform, and truly universal. From websites to mobile apps, branding to memes, type design is everywhere. Thousands of fonts are at our fingertips, and yet many designers return to tradition. Letterpress printing, movable type, and hand-lettering are enjoying a renaissance, perhaps because in a world of instant digital output, we crave the texture and imperfection of the handmade.
The book 'A Tally of Types', by Stanley Morison, reminds us of the discipline and craftsmanship that once defined type design. Morison famously created Times New Roman for the British newspaper the Times, now one of the most widely used typefaces, and installed on most personal computers.
'The Elements of Typographic Style' by Robert Bringhurst guides us through the deeper poetics of typography. One of the most comprehensive and beautiful books on typography is published by Taschen — Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles, which provides an overview of typeface designs from 1628 to the mid-20th century.
Typography is about shaping text in ways that connect more deeply with the reader. A typeface is more than a set of letters; it's a philosophy, a form of design that speaks before words do.
It can whisper or shout, soothe or provoke. It can be timeless like Garamond or defiant like Futura. It teaches restraint, encourages curiosity, and honours tradition while inviting innovation.
Steve was a curator of beauty in a digital world. His vision helped bridge art and engineering, intuition and interface. By championing typography, he gave us tools not just to compute, but to communicate. In doing so, he made us all a little more human.
(The writer's views are personal)
