The industrialization and the age of machines really gets started with the advent of the steam engine in the late 1760s, which makes it possible to have power virtually anywhere (as opposed to using the power of wind or water, which is dependent on location).

The changes for society brought on by the consequences of the industrialization were extreme, cities grew up around factories (or mines), living and working conditions were poor. Mass production and international trade were the new driving forces.

A larger availability of metal (due to better transport) and the advent of precision machine making sparked numerous inventions that fundamentally changed the way many industries worked.

A greater interest in product or cultural nationalism can be found in the new tradition of international exhibitions which started in London in 1851, and continued into the 1870s.

Many new industrial buildings were conceived and built on a grand (inhumanizing?) scale.

With a new volume of products, the need to promote these products arose. We see the rise of the sign painter and the beginnings of bold and even fat faces from the end of the 1700s and from the beginning of the 1800s. This of course marks a change in typography from more functional (legible) to more promotional.