The area of development of the alphabet is nowadays assumed to be located in the southeast of the Mediterranean region. Historical traditions show that the alphabet was fully developed in the era of the Phoenicians (about 1,500 BC).

This writing consisted only of consonants. Vowels were pronounced but not written down. It consisted of only 22 characters (consonants), so it was much easier to learn than cuneiform writing, its precursor, which consisted of 800 characters.

With this consonant alphabet, the foundation was laid for today's alphabet.

However, the Phoenicians themselves had taken over parts of egyptian cultural assets, so it remains questionable if they are to be solely attributed to the development of our modern sound-character-array.

Later on, the Greek inherited the Phoenician characters and passed them on to the Romans. In every culture, these characters' forms and meanings advanced in small steps.

In ancient Greece, for example, the alphabet was extended from 22 to 24 letters.

In Eastern and Western Europe, Greek writing was the base for many writings - amongst others also for the latin characters that we use nowadays.

It was around 600 BC when the Romans added their phonograms (Roman Capitalis) to the greek alphabet. The strict image of the Capitalis, with its noble arches and cuneiform beam endings, still points at the use of a chisel.

A variation of the Capitalis is the Rustica. It seemed rather rural and raw and was more like a handwriting. It developed in the 2nd and 3rd century, and was mostly written on papyrus with a reed pen.

The next type of writing shows clearly what a strong influence the used tools and materials had on the form of the writing.Runic writing, a Germanic modification of the Capitalis, was "scratched" into wood, stone and bones. Runes are a special form of writing - their origin has not been clearly resolved.

The typeface has changed noticeably through the different methods of writing: carving characters into wax boards, writing onto walls with brushes, using pens on vellum etc.

The strict shapes of the carved writings (majuscule writings) slowly evolved into minuscule writings with ascenders and descenders.

The writings now developed very individual lineaments.