Throughout history our number five used to look like a 4. Here’s a history of our numerals from Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. It wasn’t until the 16th century that the 5 finally stuck as five.
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wow. for a recent class [typography”> assignment, i had to design a 27th character of the alphabet. one of my sketches looked exactly like the original 4! good thing i didn’t use it, it wouldn’t have really been a new character.