French tax notification

This tax form—which seems antiquated to the modern eye—was quite advanced for its time (1834), but represents only one stage in the long process of what we now call information design that marked office document production in the nineteenth century. 

in the course of the nineteenth century the manner of reading administrative documents became less continuous as different types of information came to be organised in a visual hierarchy intended to help the user focus quickly on the key information. An arsenal of spatial and typographical devices were developed: variations in type size and style (roman, italic and bold, capitals and lower case); differentiating continuous text and tables; headings and side notes; leader points and braces, etc. The reading of certain documents became vertical as well as horizontal as the user identified and navigated through the key items, differentiating standard elements such as the identity of the sender from variable information, demands, instructions, etc.