– extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes Note the thin, straight serifs vertical axis and sharp contrast from thick to thin strokes. *The typefaces designed by Giambattista Bodoni in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are radically abstract. Modern types are named Didone after Didot and Bodoni. Modern typefaces arose with the distribution of copper and steel engraving techniques in the 17th and 18th Century. When the fonts of John Baskerville were introduced in the mid-eighteenth century, their sharp forms and high contrast were considered shocking. * These typefaces have sharper serifs and a more vertical axis than humanist letters. The thick-to -thin relationships were exaggerated, and the brackets were lightened. With the change from the woodcut to copperplate engravings in the 17th Century, the lines of the letters became more fine and rich in contrast. – scooped serifs, sturdy without being heavyīembo, Caslon, Garamond, Jenson, PalatinoĪ refinement of Old Style forms, this style forms the transition between Renaissance Old Style and Modern typefaces. – contrast between thick and thin strokes is more pronounced Sabon was designed by Jan Tschichold in 1966, based on the sixteenth-century typefaces of Claude Garamond. *The roman typefaces of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries emulated classical calligraphy. The main characteristics of old style typefaces are low contrast with diagonal stress, and cove or 'bracketed' serifs (serifs with a rounded join to the stem of the letter). Old style type is generally considered 'warm' or friendly, thanks to its origins in Renaissance humanism. Designers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have continued to create new typefaces based on historic characteristics.* These three main groups correspond roughly to the Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment periods in art and literature. Transitional and modern typefaces are more abstract and less organic. Humanist letterforms are closely connected to calligraphy and the movement of the hand. Once again, you can see the evolution of type from Garamond to Baskerville, to Bodoni this was followed by the return of the heavy serif in Serifa and the elimination of the serif in Univers.Ī basic system for classifying typefaces was devised in the nineteenth century, when printers sought to identify a heritage for their own craft analogous to that of art history. Serifs also vary from one face to the next in their weight and in the way they are bracketed that is the way in which the serif meets the vertical stroke of the letter. In Univers there is an absence of any noticeable thick and thin strokes there is a uniformity of strokes (mono-weight). With Serifa there is a return to very little contrast (almost mono-weight). Bodoni has maximum contrast in these strokes (extreme contrast of thick and thins, hairline serifs). In Transitional faces there is a tendency toward refinement and greater contrast between thick and thins. In Garamond you can see a prominent characteristic of little contrast between thick and thin strokes of a letter. | example |įaces also vary in degree of contrast between thick and thin strokes of the letters. In Univers you will find no noticeable stress. As type evolved and the designer was no longer influenced by handwriting, the stress became more vertical as in Baskerville and later totally vertical with Bodoni. It was this characteristic that the early typefaces tried to imitate. The letter O is a good example to study the distribution of weight which creates a vertical stress through the thinnest part of the letterform.

Many of the fonts designed in the 20th Century are difficult to classify.Īs early typefaces were based on the written letterforms the scribes, it was important that the type designer tries to capture as much as the written form as possible. In search of new forms of typographic expression, designers began to borrow features from one period and add them to another. The ultimate refinement was attained in the late 1700’s when Bodoni reduced the thin strokes and serifs to fine hairline strokes.Īfter Bodoni, type design became eclectic.

This refinement was possible because of the development of smoother papers, better links, and more advanced printing methods. Over the centuries type became more and more refined that is, the contrast between thick and thin strokes became greater and the serifs became finer. Garamond did not think of himself as an Old Style designer any more than John Baskerville could realize that some day he would be considered a Transitional designer. :: email: andrea herstowski :: email: tim hossler : syllabus :: project 1 :: project 2 :: project 3 :: project 4 :: herstowski blog ::

Origin of baskerville typeface