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The link between typography and technology, and how the former is undisputedly linked to technological development, allows us to observe not only the way in which typography is one of the fundamental elements of visual culture, but also the way in which the process of cultural mediation takes place by using the technology that makes it possible.

The aim of this proposal is to reflect on the mediating aspect of typography, and to illustrate the cultural processes of visualisation modes in the digital era by showing the use of Blackletter characters during the Nazi period and the previous struggle between Blackletter and Roman-style characters during the Renaissance. The fact that certain content is associated with a sign, while understanding that the sign is at the same time form and content, implies the effort to explain the functioning of the elements of meaning: presence, intention and motivation, in the Barthesian perception. Through the analysis of these examples, it is a question of showing how three different but interrelated dimensions, such as visual-aesthetic strategies, the creation of an image, and configuration of a look, interact today in social mediation. Although we have not considered this topic, it must be kept in mind that typefaces, due to their visual characteristics, elaborate a communicative and aesthetic function, which in addition to allowing for the reading process can provide meanings that in a certain way favour the interpretation of a text.

The working hypothesis is that visual reality is neither innate nor inevitable. Everything we see may take a different form, so behind what is seen there are many other visible possibilities that have been rejected. The reasons for the choice of typefaces –a dialogue between presence and absence– tell us that the condition of the observable is arbitrary, and the ways of presenting that which exists and its representations are never complete, and they respond to symbolic processes of the production of meaning that generate aspects related to the social realm. Typography, then, is part of contemporary social imagery.

In order to develop the proposed objectives, and in accordance with the exploratory nature of this work, we have opted for a methodology based on a bibliographic review, on one hand, which due to the nature of an article cannot be exhaustive, but can be rigorous and meticulous. On the other hand, we have carried out an analysis of two typefaces, a selection that has made it possible to illustrate the theoretical considerations; concepts that in turn have been propitiated by these. This work reviews different theoretical perspectives that are framed within semiotics, not so much to sustain closed views as to make a rigorous reflection on the contributions made from different fields to our object of study. The assertion that typeface acts as an intermediary of ideas about the world, that they call the senses into action, and that they imply organization schemes of models and knowledge that represent “ideological guidelines”, or in other words, representations that shape a certain vision of the world, has lead us to adopt this perspective as a theoretical and methodological approach.

2. Typography as a grapheme

Typography is a polysemic term that refers to different aspects of graphic arts. Firstly, it can be understood as the complete design of a publication, the correct arrangement of the elements on the page, as well as the choice of fonts, as specified by Stanley Morison in his classic definition included in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in London and Chicago in 1929, and which continues to appear to this day: