![]() ![]() ![]() Theodore De Vinne wrote of the style in 1902 that it was "in marked favour as a text letter for books intended to have more of legibility." It was also used to emulate the solid style of printing favoured by William Morris at his Kelmscott Press. (During the period many fonts once created were copied by other foundries, in some cases probably illegally by electrotyping, making the evolution of styles complicated to track.) Ovink describes the "Philadelphia" Oldstyle Antique as being different for being slightly less bold and having an 'a' with a rounded top and a 'T' with slight curves on top. These designs were then copied and bought up by a series of American type foundries, according to Ovink in a mixture of sizes based on the Philadelphia and Edinburgh designs. The course of development is difficult to trace." In the 1890s, when such faces as Caslon and Jenson had introduced the notion that all historic romans were bold, their colour and old-style basic forms made the old-style Antiques in the words of De Vinne.'now often used as fair substitutes for older styles of text types,' regardless of their unhistoric origin. The term 'Antique' probably refers less to historical forms than to the boldness and the stubby serifs of the Egyptians, which were also called antiques. This was indeed produced, almost simultaneously in Philadelphia and in Edinburgh in two distinct designs, both under the name of Old Style Antique. ![]() Willem Ovink, a historian of type, writes in his history of the style in 1971 that:Ī bold Old Style was needed. Although old-style antiques were bolder than the original old-style face, the difference was not great enough that they could not be used for body text. However, the oldstyle antique designs then became used for body text. "Antique" was a common name given to bolder typefaces of the time, now often called slab serifs, and identifies the aim of creating a complementary bolder design on the oldstyle model for uses such as emphasis. The direct ancestor of Bookmans were several fonts from around 1869 named "Old Style Antique" somewhat bolder than Miller & Richard's first old-styles. It became popular in the USA and one of a wide range of loose revivals and adaptations of the Caslon design, visible in the wide-spreading arms of the T and the sharp half-arrow serifs on many letters. Sometimes called a "modernised old style", it is a redesign of true old-style serif faces from the eighteenth century such as Caslon with a quite wide design and larger lower-case letters. The ancestor of Bookman Old Style is Miller & Richard's "Old Style" cut by Alexander Phemister. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |