Arcades were in their heyday in the 80’s and 90’s because they were a fresh experience. The extreme fall of the arcade may have been like economic bubbles. After the giant arcade phase of the late 90’s proprietors began seeing decline in returns. Arcades may have experienced an over-saturation in the late 90’s. The resulting loss in business resulted in many arcades closing shop and business. Nolan Bushnell created the arcade would be overstating it. Coin-operated machines had been popular in America. For decades by the time Nolan Bushnell got his start in the early ’70s. The pinball arcade had a storied (and notorious) spot in American history. It is also undeniable, but, that the video game arcade would not have happened without him. The video game arcade had its roots in 1971. The first sold, coin-operated video game was designed by Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Though considered a failure at the time, the game was revolutionary. It formed the foundations of a new industry.

Atari 2600

The Atari 2600 came bundled with two joysticks. A pair of paddle controllers and a game cartridge – Combat, later Pac-Man. Fairchild’s Channel F was Atari’s main competitor at launch. A machine that pre-dated the 2600 and was capable of handling Pong clones. It marked beginning of a long, illustrious, and world-changing career for Nolan Bushnell. In 1971, Computer Space looked anything but illustrious. The idea Nolan Bushnell’s that there would soon be arcades dedicated to video games. Bushnell and his ilk injected themselves to create the modern video game. Arcade, dates back a lot farther than the 1970s. This is a comparison cost and arcades did begin to become more expensive in the late 90’s. While the relative cost of home console gaming fell. Arcade games are video games, electro-mechanical games, pinball machines, redemption games, and merchandisers. In 1972, Atari founded by Nolan Bushnell. The godfather of gaming became first gaming company. They set the benchmark for a large-scale gaming community. Personal computers got cheaper. The technology allotted to those machines was increasing as well.

Lynx and Jaguar

Atari changed hands many times due to commercial failure of the Lynx and Jaguar. Atari merged with disk drive-maker JTS in 1996. the company became little more than a license holder for its software properties. The Atari brand sold to Hasbro for $5 million in 1998. Hasbro was in turn acquired by French holding company Infogrames in 2000. They had big plans to revitalise the Atari brand. The firm’s US arm was soon renamed Atari, Inc. The business it purchased from Hasbro became the separate corporate entity Atari Interactive.

Atari’s financial turmoil

“Arcade game” term is also, in recent times, used to refer to a video game. Arcade game adopting an isometric view, 2D graphics, scores, lives. It released on platforms such as XBLA or PC. Arcade gaming during 1966 and 1967 released electro-mechanical games. Periscope and Crown Special Soccer realeased during that period. Despite this, arcades remain popular in many parts of Asia as late as the early 2010s. 1940s to 1970s Introduction of a new type of arcade game video game was one of continued controversy. Growing attraction of games for young people, and innovation for the machines. 1980’s Pac-Man, most successful video arcade game of all time, released by Midway in the United States. It had most lasting effects on industry and the American psyche. One reason is the technology of home consoles and computers caught up to arcades.

Atari achieved a great deal in the arcade sector in its early years. Kickstarting video gaming as a medium with the unprecedented success was 1973’s Pong. It brought the home market in the years that followed. Yet, its impact on the console market was of greater significance. Atari’s financial turmoil led to parent company downfall. Warner Communications offloading a significant part of its assets to Commodore. Founder Jack Tramiel’s Tramel Technology split the company into two. Warner retained Atari’s arcade business. Later offloaded it to Namco – and Tramiel’s slice of the firm became known as Atari Corporation

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Throughout history, typefaces have been influenced by technological advances, culture shifts, and just general boredom with the state of typography. Here’s how it all went down:

November 1440: Johann Gutenberg, the creator of the printing press was also known for inventing the first typeface, or font. His font, Gothic Blackletter was created in order to make his books look hand written yet from the press, it was dark, fairly practical, and intense, but not very legible. Guttenberg invented movable typefaces, giving the world a cheaper way to obtain the written word. Up until this point, all written materials were done by hand, and were very costly to purchase.

December 1460: As the printing press gained popularity and began to be used for a wide variety of texts, the need for more fitting typefaces emerged. Nicholas Jenson created the next font which was the first roman typeface. Roman typefaces are known for being more light weight and used in many formal occasions.

1470: Nicolas Jenson created Roman Type, inspired by the text on ancient roman buildings. It was far more readable than blackletter, and caught on quickly.

March 1500: Italic Font is born: Aldus Manutius and Francesco Griffo create the first italic style font influenced by the cursive handwritting popular in Italy.

1501: Aldus Manutius created italics – a way to fit more words onto a page, saving the printer money. Today, we use italics as a design detail or for emphasis when writing.

1734: William Caslon created a typeface which features straighter serifs and much more obvious contrasts between thin and bold strokes. Today, we call this type style ‘old style’.

March 1750: The first measurement system for typeface is created by Pierre Fournier le Jeune. The system measures font size in “picas” and this system still stands today.

December 1757: John Baskerville created what we now call Transitional type, a Roman-style type, with very sharp serifs and lots of drastic contrast between thick and thin lines. This font was the first to take into consideration leading, margins and strokes. He created a variety of thing and thick strokes and adjustable width and leading.

1780: Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni created the first ‘modern’ Roman typefaces (Didot, and Bodoni). The contrasts were more extreme than ever before, and created a very cool, fresh look.

September 1800: Steam Powered printing press: Lord Stanhope created the first steam powered printing press to take the place of Johann Gutenberg’s manual press. This press allowed for 480 pages per hour to be printed and doubled the size of the printing space. This iron press would have an impact on typography everywhere.

1815: Vincent Figgins created Egyptian, or Slab Serif – the first time a typeface had serifs that were squares or boxes.

1816: William Caslon IV created the first typeface without any serifs at all. It was widely rebuked at the time. This was the start of what we now consider Sans Serif typefaces. During this time, type exploded, and many, many variations were being created to accommodate advertising.

August 1896: Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and Ingalls Kimball created a typeface for their own use at a New York publishing company and name it Cheltenham.

April 1901: American typeface founders: The American Typeface Founders began with the copperplate font created by Frederic W. Goudy. This font was influenced by both the Victorian Age and the stone carving look.

1920’s: Frederic Goudy became the world’s first full time type designer, developing numerous groundbreaking typefaces, such as Copperplate Gothic, Kennerly, and Goudy Old Style.

November 1932: An iconic font: Times New Roman is a serif font created by Victor Larden for the British newspaper, The Times. Times New Roman is the go to font for nearly all essays, books, web-pages, and almost all business related texts.

April 1950: Brush Font: The first brush font collection was created.

1957: Swiss designer Max Miedinger created Helvetica, the most loved typeface of our time. This was a return to minimalism, and many other simplistic typefaces such as Futura surfaced around this time period.

December 1962: Eurostile: Aldo Novarese creates the typeface labeled as Eurostile a font collection created for and used mostly by Europe.

February 1974: American typewriter: Joel Kaden and Tony Stan invent and create the first American Typewriter for the International Typeface Corporation.

March 1982: Adobe Software: Programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator are created by Adobe and begin making the need for typography in the design world known. Gone digital typefaces of all sorts are made available for download on PC’s around the US.

December 1985: 300 DPI Printer: The first 300 dots per inch printer is invented for home use.

Presently with the internet, we have such a vast variety of old and new typefaces available for us to peruse and use. All these typefaces give us an abundance of options and looks for our designs today, and we’re not limited by just one or two typefaces like we would have been a few hundred years ago.

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A typeface is a set of one or more fonts each composed of glyphs that share familiar design features. Typography is the art of creating the letters we use on a daily basis. It’s designing them and creating them and making them real. A font is a collection or set of letters – they’re the mechanism you use to get your message across to your reader. Every letter and dash and semi colon would be considered part of a specific font. A typeface is the design the style and look of a specific font.

The History of Typography – Animated Short

Created by Ben Barrett-Forrest

Ancient cave paintings that date back to 20,000 B.C. are perhaps the very first recorded written communication. However, formal writing is said to have been developed by the Sumerians at around 3,500 B.C.

Cave paintings, Lascaux (15,000-10,000 BC)

Discovered in 1940 by teenagers the Lascaux cave paintings are the best example of paleolithic cave paintings. The paintings contain imagery that represents animals, human figures and abstract signs.

Early Sumerian pictographs (3100 BC)

The Sumerians used pictographs created on clay tablets using a “wedge” shaped tool. The pictographs are the earliest form of writing and the first alphabet to be discovered.

1800 BC

The typographical principle, that is the creation of a complete text by reusing identical characters, is first realized in the Phaistos Disc, an enigmatic Minoan print item from Crete, Greece

Law Code of Hammurabi 1750 BC

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1700 BC (short chronology). The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets.

Book of the Dead 1300 BC

The text consists of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person’s journey through the underworld, and into the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts.

Rosetta Stone 197 BC

The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences between them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Trajan’s Column constructed 114 AD

Trajan’s Column is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, which commemorates Roman emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars. At the base of the column the letterforms represent perhaps the most elegant, and certainly the most celebrated, example of the Roman letter. The inscription has served as the model Roman alphabet for almost two millennia.

Book of Kells 800 AD

The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and represents the pinnacle of Insular illumination. It is also widely regarded as Ireland’s finest national treasure.

Chinese invent movable type 1040 AD

Wooden movable type was first developed around 1040 AD by Bi Sheng (990–1051), as described by the Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (1031–1095), but was abandoned in favour of clay movable types due to the presence of wood grains and the unevenness of the wooden type after being soaked in ink.

Woodblock printing in Europe 1400 AD

In Europe, Woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about 1400, by using on paper existing techniques for printing on cloth. The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular prints were very crude.

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