Gutenberg & Blackletter

During the 15th century, the first printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg. He could be considered the Father of modern day print. The introduction of the printing press meant that the manufacture of producing books was both economically viable for both producer and consumer. It allowed the mass distribution of educational works to be available to the masses. An economy that was fuelled by knowledge.

The Gutenberg bible was the first major book to printed using the new method of printing, the font used is now known as Gutenberg. A more generalised name for this font would be known as 'Black Letter'.

As you can see, there are several types of Black Letter, all of German origin. There are many modern equivalents that could be compared to these, although none of them stay entirely true to their originals. Partially because it's an outdated font type that has limited readability and partially due to the fact that there are many other more suited fonts for web and graphics design. Despite this many OS's still incorporate a Gothic style font inbuilt, the Microsoft equivalent being called 'Old English Text MT', although it's highly likely that it's not there for design purposes, but purely for variability.