Almost 100 years ago, in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, typographer Eric Gill 1 wrote “An Essay on Typography” and addressed the tension between art and industrialization:

“But tho’ industrialism has now won an almost complete victory, the handicrafts are not killed, & they cannot be quite killed because they meet an inherent, indestructible, permanent need in human nature.”

I’ve been thinking about this as the internet fills with AI-generated garbage and popular social media sites are monetized by hate.

Inherent. Indestructible. Permanent.

While Eric Gill never imagined the internet, I think his statement applies just as much to our modern world as it did in the Industrial Revolution. Much of the internet might become cheaply-produced, AI-generated, SEO-approved content, but people all over the world who care about creativity and writing will still produce great work and share it.

I’m probably being naive, but I’m still hopeful that the human need for creativity will overwhelm the capitalistic urge to industrialize content.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.

  1. Eric Gill was insightful about human nature, but was, himself, an awful human. ↩︎