The Bauer Type Foundry, founded in 1837, celebrated their 100 year anniversary with the release of this beautifully illustrated “Bauer’s Family Tree of Printing.” The company designed linotype typefaces for letterpress printers, so their designs dictated the font of media text centuries ago. The phylogenetic map traces visual history of the foundry’s evolution of text.
If you’d like your own print copy of the visual, you can purchase the “Bauer’s Family Tree of Printing Types” (in German) at Lehmanns Media.
In today’s digital world, there is not much need for a type foundry. There were 42 letterpresses in Downtown LA in 1929 and today Aardvark Letterpress is the only one remaining. To see this antiquated method in action, check out the short documentary, “Ink & Paper,” after the jump.
