By 1040 CE, the Chinese had invented a technique for printing characters from individual carved blocks, but the Chinese language had so many different characters that storing the blocks and retrieving the right one quickly was not very practical. The Roman alphabet included only 26 letters, and as the need for books increased in the 1400s, the pressure to produce them more quickly became intense.

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In about 1450, after years of experimentation, a German metalworker named Johann Gutenberg perfected a printing process that used metal letters set in individual wooden blocks. When the blocks were assembled into words and sentences, Gutenberg applied ink to the letters and a heavy plate pressed a piece of paper onto the inked letters with great force. This printing process would be used almost unchanged for the next 400 years.

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The invention of this new printing method meant that messages could be printed and sent out to many people, rather than just the elite few. But it took many years for graphic design to become the profession it is today; one that offers a variety of creative solutions to the basic human need to communicate a message.