It was on July 24, 1924, that a patent was filed for "phototypesetting", an epoch-making technology in the history of printing. The Japanese-language phototypesetting machine invented by Nobuo Morisawa and Mokichi Ishii spread throughout Japan, and became indispensable to the printing industry.
Since Japanese has many characters, movable type printing involved a complicated process of selecting and typesetting characters from an enormous number of typefaces. Phototypesetting, which replaced movable type printing, used photographic engineering principles to produce a variety of characters from a single letterpress, and its convenience brought about an improvement in the work environment. In addition, the technology made it possible to easily develop many beautiful typefaces, bringing a wide variety to the printed page.
Today, we print materials using computer-generated data in a process called DTP. Phototypesetting served as a bridge from movable types to digital fonts, and as such it is worth revisiting this technology.
This exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of the invention of phototypesetting by introducing its history, importance, mechanism, and typeface design.
In closing, I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who helped and supported us in organizing this exhibition and producing the catalog.