How did large wooden type change the look of 19th-century posters?

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Graphic design Scene from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The invention of the lateral router by Darius Wells allowed for the economical mass production of large wooden type, which significantly transformed 19th-century poster design. Because these wooden types were less than half the cost of large metal versions, they enabled designers to create bold, large-scale announcements for transportation, entertainment, and goods.1

This innovation fundamentally changed the visual aesthetic of posters in several ways:

Visual Variety: Posters began to feature a mixture of diverse typefaces, including sans serif, slab serif, decorative, outlined, and drop-shadowed designs, often combining extremely wide and narrow styles within a single piece.1
Layout Structure: These posters typically utilized vertical formats where lines of text in varying sizes and styles were arranged with a left-and-right alignment to establish visual unity.1
Accessibility: By lowering the cost of printing, large wooden type allowed graphic design to reach a much wider audience, turning city walls into spaces for commercial and public communication.1

These developments marked a shift toward more expressive and commercially driven graphic design during the Industrial Revolution.1