THE ELEMENTS

TYPOGRAP HIC 67</(

version3.o

Robert Bringhurst

HARTLEY 0DUNVPublishers
Copyright© 1992, 1996,  Library 4congress Cataloguing in
by Robert Bringhurst Publication Data:

Version 3.0 ' 5 4 3 2 1 Bringhurst, Robert.

The elements of typographic style I
All rights reserved. No part of this Robert Bringhurst. - 3rd ed.
book may be reproduced in any form p. cm.
or by any means without permission Includes bibliographical references
from the publisher (or in the case of and index.
photocopying in Canada, without ISBN 0-88179-205-5 -
a licence from Access Copyright, ISBN 0-88179-206-3 (pbk.)
the Canadian Copyright Licensing 1. Graphic design (Typography)
Agency). Critics are welcome, of 2. Type and type-founding.
course, to quote brief passages by way 3. Book design.
of criticism and review. 1. Title.
z246.B74 2004
HARTLEY & MARKS, PUBLISHERS 686.2'24 - dc22
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Canada Bringhurst, Robert, 1946-
The elements of typographic style I
Designed & assembled in Canada; Robert Bringhurst. - 3rd ed.,
printed & bound in China. expanded and rev.
Includes bibliographical references
and index.
ISBN 0-88179-205-5 (bound) -
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 for my colleagues & friends

in the worlds of letters:

writers & editors,

type designers, typographers,

printers & publishers,

shepherding words and books

on their lethal and innocent ways

D D

ll
CONTENTS

Foreword 9

Historical Synopsis 12

1 The Grand Design 17

2 Rhythm & Proportion 25

3 Harmony & Counterpoint 45

4 Structural Forms & Devices 61

5 Analphabetic Symbols 75

6 Choosing & Combining Type 93

7 Historical Interlude 119

8 Shaping the 3DJH 143

9 The State of the Art 179

 Grooming the Font 198

11 3URZOLQJthe Specimen Books

APPENDIX A: TheWorkingAlphabet 288

APPENDIX B: GlossaryofCharacters 

$33(1',; c: GlossaryofTerms 321

$33(1',; D: Type Designers 333

App END Ix E: Typefoundries 346

Further Reading 357

Afterword to the Third Edition 365

Index 367
 - Everything written symbols can say has already passed
by. They are like tracks left by animals. That is why the masters
of meditation refuse to accept that writings are final. The aim is
to reach true being by means of those tracks, those letters, those
signs but reality itself is not a sign, and it leaves no tracks. It
doesn't come to us by way of letters or words. We can go toward
it, by following those words and letters back to what they came
from. But so long as we are preoccupied with symbols, theories
and opinions, we will fail to reach the principle.
- But when we give up symbols and opinions, aren't we left
in the utter nothingness of being?
-Yes.

KIMURA KYUHO, Kenjutsu Fushigi Hen

[On the Mysteries of Swordsmanship],
1768

A true revelation, it seems to me, will only emerge from stubborn

concentration on a solitary problem. I am not in league with in-
ventors or adventurers, nor with travelers to exotic destinations.
The surest - also the quickest - way to awake the sense of won-
der in ourselves is to look intently, undeterred, at a single object.
Suddenly, miraculously, it will reveal itself as something we have
never seen before.

CESARE PAVESE, Dialoghi con Leuco,

1947
FOREWORD

There are many books about typography, and some of them are
models of the art they teach. But when I set myself to compile a
simple list of working principles, one of the benchmarks I first
thought of was William Strunk and E.B. White's small master-
piece, The Elements of Style. Brevity, however, is the essence of
Strunk & White's manual of literary technique. This book is lon-
ger than theirs, and for that there is a cause.
Typography makes at least two kinds of sense, if it makes
any sense at all. It makes visual sense and historical sense. The
visual side of typography is always on display, and materials for
the study of its visual form are many and widespread. The history
of letterforms and their usage is visible too, to those with access
to manuscripts, inscriptions and old books, but from others it is
largely hidden. This book has therefore grown into something
more than a short manual of typographic etiquette. It is the fruit
of a lot oflong walks in the wilderness of letters: in part a pocket
field guide to the living wonders that are found there, and in part
a meditation on the ecological principles, survival techniques and
ethics that apply. The principles of typography as I understand
them are not a set of dead conventions but the tribal customs of
the magic forest, where ancient voices speak from all directions
and new ones move to unremembered forms.
One question, nevertheless, has been often in my mind. When
all right-thinking human beings are struggling to remember that
other men and women are free to be different, and free to become
more different still, how can one honestly write a rulebook? What
reason and authority exist for these commandments, suggestions
and instructions? Surely typographers, like others, ought to be at
liberty to follow or to blaze the trails they choose.
Typography thrives as a shared concern - and there are no
paths at all where there are no shared desires and directions. A
typographer determined to forge new routes must move, like
other solitary travelers, through uninhabited country and against
the grain of the land, crossing common thoroughfares in the si-
lence before dawn. The subject of this book is not typographic
solitude, but the old, well-traveled roads at the core of the tradi-
tion: paths that each of us is free to follow or not, and to enter
and leave when we choose - if only we know the paths are there

9
 and have a sense of where they lead. That freedom is denied us
if the tradition is concealed or left for dead. Originality is every-
where, but much originality is blocked if the way back to earlier
discoveries is cut or overgrown.
If you use this book as a guide, by all means leave the road
when you wish. That is precisely the use of a road: to reach indi-
Foreword vidually chosen points of departure. By all means break the rules,
and break them beautifully, deliberately and well. That is one of
the ends for which they exist.
Letterforms change constantly yet differ very little, because
they are alive. The principles of typographic clarity have also
scarcely altered since the second half of the fifteenth century,
when the first books were printed in roman type. Indeed, most of
the principles oflegibility and design explored in this book were
known and used by Egyptian scribes writing hieratic script with
reed pens on papyrus in 1000 BC. Samples of their work sit now
in museums in Cairo, London and New York, still lively, subtle and
perfectly legible thirty centuries after they were made.
Writing systems vary, but a good page is not hard to learn
to recognize, whether it comes from Tang Dynasty China, the
Egyptian New Kingdom or Renaissance Italy. The principles that
unite these distant schools of design are based on the structure
and scale of the human body - the eye, the hand and the fore-
arm in particular - and on the invisible but no less real, no less
demanding and no less sensuous anatomy of the human mind.
I don't like to call these principles universals, because they are
largely unique to our species. Dogs and ants, for example, read and
write by more chemical means. But the underlying principles of
typography are, at any rate, stable enough to weather any number
of human fashions and fads.
It is true that typographers' tools are presently changing with
considerable force and speed, but this is not a manual in the use
of any particular typesetting system or medium. I suppose that
most readers of this book will set most of their type in digital
form, using computers, but I have no preconceptions about which
brands of computers, or which versions of which proprietary soft-
ware, they may use. The essential elements of style have more to
do with the goals typographers set for themselves than with the
mutable eccentricities of their tools. Typography itself, in other
words, is far more device-independent than PostScript, which is
the computer language used to render these particular letters,
and the design of these pages, into typographic code. If I have

10
succeeded in my task, this book should be as useful to artists and
antiquarians setting foundry metal by hand and pulling proofs
on a flat-bed press, as to those who check their work on a screen
or laser printer, then ship it to high-resolution digital output de-
vices by optical disk or long-distance telephone line.
Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a
durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its Foreword
heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living,
speaking hand - and its roots reach into living soil, though its
branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as
the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true
knowledge, true surprise.
As a craft, typography shares a long common boundary and
many common concerns with writing and editing on the one
side and with graphic design on the other; yet typography itself
belongs to neither. This book in its turn is neither a manual of
editorial style nor a textbook on design, though it overlaps with
both of these concerns. The perspective throughout is first and
foremost typographic - and I hope the book will be useful for
that very reason to those whose work or interests may be centered
in adjacent fields.
This book owes much to the conversation and example, over
the years, of several friends and master craftsmen - Kay Amert,
Stan Bevington, Crispin Elsted, Glenn Galuska, Peter Koch, Vic
Marks, George Payerle and others - and to the practice of two
artists and exemplars: the late Adrian Wilson, and Hermann Zapf.
Artists and scholars around the world have shared their knowl-
edge freely. James Mosley, his staff and his successors at the St
Bride Printing Library, London, have been particularly helpful. I
am grateful to them all.
I have many others to thank as well for their contributions to
the second and now the third edition of the book. Their names
appear in the afterword, page 365.

R.B.

11
 Historical
Synopsis

aperrure: the RENAISSANCE (15th & 16th centuries): modulated stroke; humanist
opening in letters [oblique] axis; crisp, pen-formed terminals; large aperture ; italic equal to
such as a, c, e, s
and independent of roman.

These charts
show first and
foremost the
axis of the stroke,
which is the axis
of the pen that
makes the letter.
It is often very
different from
the axis of the
lettershape itself.
A pen that points
northwest can BAROQUE (17th century): modulated stroke; variable axis; modeled
make an upright serifs and terminals; moderate aperture; italic subsidiary to roman and
letter or a letter
that slopes to the closely linked with it. A secondary vertical axis often develops in Baroque
northeast. letters - but the primary axis of the penstroke is normally oblique.

12
 f<t>¢= Historical
Synopsis

N EOCLAS SI CAL (18th century): modulated stroke; rationalist( vertical] adnate· llowing
axis; refined. adnate serifs: lachrymal terminals; moderate aperture: italic into the stem;
lachrymal :
fully subjugated to roman. tear-drop shaped

1<t>¢=

ROM ANT IC (18th & 19th centuries): hypermodulated stroke; intensified

rationalist axis; abrupt, thin serifs; round terminals; small aperture; fully
subjugated italic. In Neoclassical and Romantic letters alike, the primary
axis is usually vertical and the secondary axis oblique.

13
Historical
Synopsis

REALIST (19th & early 20th centuries) : unmodulated stroke; implied

vertical axis ; s mall a pe rture; serifs absent or abrupt and of equ al weight
with main strokes; italic absent or replaced by sloped roman.

a ee~

a
GEOMETRIC M 0 DERN IST (20th century): unmodulated stroke; bowls
often c ircula r (no axi s); moderate aperture; serifs absent o r of equal weight
with main strokes; italic absent or replaced by sloped roman. The modeling,
however, is often much more subtle than 1t first appears.

14
 Historical
Synopsis

LYRICAL M 0 DERN IS T (20th century): rediscovery of Renaissance

form : modulated stroke; humanist axis; pen-formed serifs and terminals;
large aperture; 1tal1c partially liberated from roman.

fcp¢:

POSTM 0 DERN IST (late 20th & early 21st century): frequent parody
of Neoclassical, Romantic or Baroque form : rationalist or variable axis;
sharply modeled serifs and terminals; moderate aperture. (There are many
kinds of Postmodernist letter. This is one example.)

15
rigo Habraam numera
i a mofaica lege(feptim
r)Ced narural1 fuit ratio
idit enim Habraam de<
•
m quoq1 gent1um patr
~s oes gentes hoc mdeltc
m eft:cuius ille iuft1tia?
us eft:q ui pofr mulras'
1mum omnium diuin<
) nafceretur tradidic:u(
gnum:uel uthocquaf
ruos imitari conaref':au
um nobis modo eft.Po
Roman type cut in 1469 by Nicolas Jenson, a French typographer working
in Venice. The original is approximately 16 pt. The type is shown here as
Jenson printed it, but at twice actual size. This is the ancestor of the type
(Bruce Rogers's Centaur) shown at the top of page 12.

16
THE GRAND DESIGN

1.1 FIRST PRINCIPLES

1.1.1 Typography exists to honor content.

Like oratory, music, dance, calligraphy - like anything that lends

its grace to language - typography is an art that can be deliberately
1
misused. It is a craft by which the meanings of a text (or its absence
of meaning) can be clarified, honored and shared, or knowingly
disguised.
In a world rife with unsolicited messages, typography must
often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to
be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn. Typography
with anything to say therefore aspires to a kind of statuesque
transparency. Its other traditional goal is durability: not immunity
to change, but a clear superiority to fashion. Typography at its best
is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time.
One of the principles of durable typography is always leg-
ibility; another is something more than legibility: some earned or
unearned interest that gives its living energy to the page. It takes
various forms and goes by various names, including serenity,
liveliness, laughter, grace and joy.
These principles apply, in different ways, to the typography of
business cards, instruction sheets and postage stamps, as well as
to editions of religious scriptures, literary classics and other books
that aspire to join their ranks. Within limits, the same principles
apply even to stock market reports, airline schedules, milk cartons,
classified ads. But laughter, grace and joy, like legibility itself, all
feed on meaning, which the writer, the words and the subject, not
the typographer, must generally provide.
In 1770, a bill was introduced in the English Parliament with
the following provisions:

... all women of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, whether

virgins, maids, or widows, that shall ... impose upon, seduce, and
betray into matrimony, any of His Majesty's subjects, by the scents,
paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool,
iron stays, hoops, high heeled shoes [or] bolstered hips shall incur

17
 the penalty of the law in force against witchcraft ... and ... the
marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void.

The function of typography, as I understand it, is neither

to further the power of witches nor to bolster the defences of
those, like this unfortunate parliamentarian, who live in terror of
First being tempted and deceived. The satisfactions of the craft come
Principles from elucidating, and perhaps even ennobling, the text, not from
deluding the unwary reader by applying scents, paints and iron
stays to empty prose. But humble texts, such as classified ads
or the telephone directory, may profit as much as anything else
from a good typographical bath and a change of clothes. And
many a book, like many a warrior or dancer or priest of either
sex, may look well with some paint on its face, or indeed with a
bone in its nose.

1.1.2 Letters have a life and dignity of their own.

Letterforms that honor and elucidate what humans see and say
deserve to be honored in their turn. Well-chosen words deserve
well-chosen letters; these in their turn deserve to be set with affec-
tion, intelligence, knowledge and skill. Typography is a link, and
it ought, as a matter of honor, courtesy and pure delight, to be as
strong as the others in the chain.
Writing begins with the making of footprints, the leaving of
signs. Like speaking, it is a perfectly natural act which humans
have carried to complex extremes. The typographer's task has
always been to add a somewhat unnatural edge, a protective shell
of artificial order, to the power of the writing hand. The tools have
altered over the centuries, and the exact degree of unnaturalness
desired has varied from place to place and time to time, but the
character of the essential transformation between manuscript
and type has scarcely changed.
The original purpose of type was simply copying. The job of
the typographer was to imitate the scribal hand in a form that
permitted exact and fast replication. Dozens, then hundreds, then
thousands of copies were printed in less time than a scribe would
need to finish one. This excuse for setting texts in type has disap-
peared. In the age of photolithography, digital scanning and offset
printing, it is as easy to print directly from handwritten copy as
from text that is typographically composed. Yet the typographer's

18
task is little changed. It is still to give the illusion of superhuman
speed and stamina - and of superhuman patience and precision
- to the writing hand.
Typography is just that: idealized writing. Writers themselves
now rarely have the calligraphic skill of earlier scribes, but they
evoke countless versions of ideal script by their varying voices
and literary styles. To these blind and often invisible visions, the The
typographer must respond in visible terms. Grand
In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like Design
starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like
stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where
designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no mat-
ter how many thousands of lines and pages they must occupy, the
letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise
and dance in the margins and aisles.
Simple as it may sound, the task of creative non-interference
with letters is a rewarding and difficult calling. In ideal condi-
tions, it is all that typographers are really asked to do - and it
is enough.

1.1.3 There is a style beyond style.

Literary style, says Walter Benjamin, "is the power to move freely from part 2 of
in the length and breadth of linguistic thinking without slipping Benjamin's essay
on Karl Kraus, in
into banality:' Typographic style, in this large and intelligent sense ll/uminationen
of the word, does not mean any particular style - my style or your (fr.inkfurt, 1955).
style, or Neoclassical or Baroque style - but the power to move There is an Eng-
lish translation in
freely through the whole domain of typography, and to function Walter Benjamin,
at every step in a way that is graceful and vital instead of banal. It Reflections, ed.
means typography that can walk familiar ground without sliding Peter Demetz
(New York, 1978).
into platitudes, typography that responds to new conditions with
innovative solutions, and typography that does not vex the reader
with its own originality in a self-conscious search for praise.
Typography is to literature as musical performance is to
composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless
opportunities for insight or obtuseness. Much typography is far
removed from literature, for language has many uses, includ-
ing packaging and propaganda. Like music, it can be used to
manipulate behavior and emotions. But this is not where typog-
raphers, musicians or other human beings show us their finest
side. Typography at its best is a slow performing art, worthy of the

19
 same informed appreciation that we sometimes give to musical
performances, and capable of giving similar nourishment and
pleasure in return.
The same alphabets and page designs can be used for a bi-
ography of Mohandas Gandhi and for a manual on the use and
deployment of biological weapons. Writing can be used both for
First love letters and for hate mail, and love letters themselves can be
Principles used for manipulation and extortion as well as to bring delight
to body and soul. Evidently there is nothing inherently noble
and trustworthy in the written or printed word. Yet generations
of men and women have turned to writing and printing to house
and share their deepest hopes, perceptions, dreams and fears. It
is to them, not to the extortionist - nor to the opportunist or the
profiteer - that the typographer must answer.

1.2 TACTICS

1.2.1 Read the text before designing it.

The typographer's one essential task is to interpret and commu-

nicate the text. Its tone, its tempo, its logical structure, its physical
size, all determine the possibilities of its typographic form. The
typographer is to the text as the theatrical director to the script,
or the musician to the score.

1.2.2 Discover the outer logic of the typography in the inner logic
of the text.

A novel often purports to be a seamless river of words from be-

ginning to end, or a series of unnamed scenes. Research papers,
textbooks, cookbooks and other works of nonfiction rarely look
so smooth. They are often layered with chapter heads, section
heads, subheads, block quotations, footnotes, endnotes, lists and
illustrative examples. Such features may be obscure in the manu-
script, even if they are clear in the author's mind. For the sake of
the reader, each requires its own typographic identity and form.
Every layer and level of the text must be consistent, distinct, yet
(usually) harmonious in form.
The first task of the typographer is therefore to read and
understand the text; the second task is to analyze and map it.
Only then can typographic interpretation begin.
If the text has many layers or sections, it may need not only

20
heads and subheads but running heads as well, reappearing on
every page or two-page spread, to remind readers which intel-
lectual neighborhood they happen to be visiting.
Novels seldom need such signposts, but they often require
typographic markers of other kinds. Peter Matthiessen's novel
Far Tortuga (New York, 1975; designed by Kenneth Miyamoto)
uses two sizes of type, three different margins, free- floating block The
paragraphs and other typographic devices to separate thought, Grand
speech and action. Ken Kesey's novel Sometimes a Great Notion Design
(New York, 1964) seems to flow like conventional prose, yet it
shifts repeatedly in mid-sentence between roman and italic to
distinguish what characters say to each other from what they say
in silence to themselves.
In poetry and drama, a larger typographic palette is some- See for example
times required. Some of Douglass Parker's translations from Aristophanes,
Four Comedies
classical Greek and Dennis Tedlock's translations from Zuni use (Ann Arbor,
roman, italic, bold, small caps and full caps in various sizes to Michigan, 1969),
emulate the dynamic markings of music. Robert Massin's typo- Dennis Tedlock,
Finding the
graphic performances of Eugene Ionesco's plays use intersecting Center (New
lines of type, stretched and melted letters, inkblots, pictograms, York, 1972);
and a separate typeface for each person in the play. In the works Eugene Ionesco,
La Cantatrice
of other artists such as Guillaume Apollinaire and Guy Daven- chauve (Paris,
port, boundaries between author and designer sometimes vanish. 1964), and
Writing merges with typography, and the text becomes its own De/ire adeux
(Paris, 1966).
illustration. There are
The typographer must analyze and reveal the inner order of samples of
the text, as a musician must reveal the inner order of the music Massin's work in
Typographia n.s
he performs. But the reader, like the listener, should in retrospect 11 (1965).
be able to close her eyes and see what lies inside the words she
has been reading. The typographic performance must reveal, not
replace, the inner composition. Typographers, like other artists
and craftsmen - musicians, composers and authors as well - must
as a rule do their work and disappear.

1.2.3 Make the visible relationship between the text and other
elements (photographs, captions, tables, diagrams, notes)
a reflection of their real relationship.

If the text is tied to other elements, where do they belong? If

there are notes, do they go at the side of the page, the foot of the
page, the end of the chapter, the end of the book? If there are
photographs or other illustrations, should they be embedded in

21
 the text or should they form a special section of their own? And
if the photographs have captions or credits or labels, should these
sit close beside the photographs or should they be separately
housed?
If there is more than one text - as in countless publications
issued in Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and other multilingual
Tactics countries - how will the separate but equal texts be arrayed? Will
they run side by side to emphasize their equality (and perhaps to
share in a single set of illustrations), or will they be printed back-
to-back, to emphasize their distinctness?
No matter what their relation to the text, photos or maps
must sometimes be grouped apart from it because they require
a separate paper or different inks. If this is the case, what typo-
graphic cross-references will be required?
These and similar questions, which confront the working
typographer on a daily basis, must be answered case by case.
The typographic page is a map of the mind; it is frequently also
a map of the social order from which it comes. And for better or
for worse, minds and social orders change.

1.2-4 Choose a typeface or a group offaces that will honor and

elucidate the character of the text.

This is the beginning, middle and end of the practice of typog-

raphy: choose and use the type with sensitivity and intelligence.
aAa Aspects of this principle are explored throughout this book and
considered in detail in chapters 6, 7 and 11.
aaa Letterforms have tone, timbre, character, just as words and
sentences do. The moment a text and a typeface are chosen, two

aa a streams of thought, two rhythmical systems, two sets of habits, or

if you like, two personalities, intersect. They need not live together
contentedly forever, but they must not as a rule collide.
aaA The root metaphor of typesetting is that the alphabet (or in
Chinese, the entire lexicon) is a system of interchangeable parts.
aaa The word form can be surgically revised, instead of rewritten, to
become the word farm or firm or fort or fork or from, or with a little

aa more trouble, to become the word pineapple. The old compositor's

typecase is a partitioned wooden tray holding hundreds of such
interchangeable bits of information. These subsemantic particles,
aa these bits - called sorts by letterpress printers - are letters cast
on standardized bodies of metal, waiting to be assembled into
meaningful combinations, then dispersed and reassembled in a

22
different form. The compositor's typecase is one of the primary
ancestors of the computer - and it is no surprise that while type-
setting was one of the last crafts to be mechanized, it was one of
the first to be computerized.
But the bits of information handled by typographers differ
in one essential respect from the computer programmer's bits.
Whether the type is set in hard metal by hand, or in softer metal The
by machine, or in digital form with a computer, every comma, Grand
every parenthesis, every e, and in context, even every empty space, Design
has style as well as bald symbolic value. Letters are microscopic
works of art as well as useful symbols. They mean what they are
as well as what they say.
Typography is the art and craft of handling these doubly
meaningful bits of information. A good typographer handles
them in intelligent, coherent, sensitive ways. When the type is
poorly chosen, what the words say linguistically and what the
letters imply visually are disharmonious, dishonest, out of tune.

1.2.5 Shape the page and frame the textblock so that it honors
and reveals every element, every relationship between elements,
and every logical nuance of the text.

Selecting the shape of the page and placing the type upon it is
much like framing and hanging a painting. A cubist painting in
an eighteenth-century gilded frame, or a seventeenth-century
still-life in a slim chrome box, will look no sillier than a nine-
teenth-century text from England set in types that come from
seventeenth-century France, asymmetrically positioned on a
German Modernist page.
If the text is long or the space is short, or if the elements are
many, multiple columns may be required. If illustrations and text
march side by side, does one take precedence over the other? And
does the order or degree of prominence change? Does the text
suggest perpetual symmetry, perpetual asymmetry, or something
in between?
Again, does the text suggest the continuous unruffled flow of
justified prose, or the continued flirtation with order and chaos
evoked by flush-left ragged-right composition? (The running
heads and sidenotes on the recto (righthand) pages of this book
are set flush left, ragged right. On the verso (lefthand) pages,
they are ragged left. Leftward-reading alphabets, like Arabic
and Hebrew, are perfectly at home in ragged-left text, but with

23
 rightward-reading alphabets like Latin, Greek OJ Thai, ragged-left
setting emphasizes the end, not the beginning, of the line. This
makes it a poor choice for extended composition.)
Shaping the page goes hand in hand with choosing the type,
and both are permanent typographical preoccupations. The
subject of page shapes and proportions is addressed in greater
Tactics detail in chapter 8.

i.2.6 Give full typographic attention even to incidental details.

Some of what a typographer must set, like some of what any mu-
sician must play, is simply passage work. Even an edition of Plato
or Shakespeare will contain a certain amount of routine text: page
numbers, scene numbers, textual notes, the copyright claim, the
publisher's name and address, and the hyperbole on the jacket,
not to mention the passage work or background writing that is
implicit in the text itself. But just as a good musician can make
a heart-wrenching ballad from a few banal words and a trivial
tune, so the typographer can make poignant and lovely typog-
raphy from bibliographical paraphernalia and textual chaff. The
ability to do so rests on respect for the text as a whole, and on re-
spect for the letters themselves.
Perhaps the principle should read: Give full typographic at-
tention especially to incidental details.

1.3 SUMMARY

There are always exceptions, always excuses for stunts and sur-
prises. But perhaps we can agree that, as a rule, typography should
perform these services for the reader:
• invite the reader into the text;
• reveal the tenor and meaning of the text;
• clarify the structure and the order of the text;
• link the text with other existing elements;
• induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for
reading.
While serving the reader in this way, typography, like a musical
performance or a theatrical production, should serve two other
ends. It should honor the text for its own sake - always assuming
that the text is worth a typographer's trouble - and it should honor
and contribute to its own tradition: that of typography itself.

24
RHYTHM & PROPORTION

2
2.1 HORIZONTAL MOTION

An ancient metaphor: thought is a thread, and the raconteur is

a spinner of yarns - but the true storyteller, the poet, is a weaver.
The scribes made this old and audible abstraction into a new and
visible fact. After long practice, their work took on such an even,
flexible texture that they called the written page a textus, which
means cloth.
The typesetting device, whether it happens to be a computer
or a composing stick, functions like a loom. And the typogra-
pher, like the scribe, normally aims to weave the text as evenly
as possible. Good letterforms are designed to give a lively, even
texture, but careless spacing of letters, lines and words can tear
this fabric apart.
Another ancient metaphor: the density of texture in a written
or typeset page is called its color. This has nothing to do with red
or green ink; it refers only to the darkness or blackness of the
letterforms in mass. Once the demands of legibility and logical
order are satisfied, evenness of color is the typographer's normal
aim. And color depends on four things: the design of the type,
the spacing between the letters, the spacing between the words,
and the spacing between the lines. None is independent of the
others.

2.u De.fine the word space to suit the size and natural letter.fit
of the font.

Type is normally measured in picas and points (explained in

detail on pages 328-329), but horizontal spacing is measured in
ems, and the em is a sliding measure. One em is a distance equal
to the type size. In 6 point type, an em is 6 points; in 12 pt type it
is 12 points, and in 60 pt type it is 60 points. Thus a one-em space
is proportionately the same in any size.

D
12 pt em
D
18 pt em
D
24 pt em
D
36 pt em

25
 Typesetting machines generally divide the em into units, Ems
of i8, 36 or 54 units, for example, are commonly found in the older
machines. In newer devices, the em is generally a thousand units.
Typographers are more likely to divide the em into simple frac-
tions: half an em, a third of an em, and so on, knowing that the
unit value of these fractions will vary from one machine to the
Horizontal next. Half an em is called an en.
Motion If text is set ragged right, the word space (the space between
words) can be fixed and unchanging. If the text is justified (set
flush left and right, like the text in this book), that space must
usually be elastic. In either case, the size of the ideal word space
varies from one circumstance to another, depending on factors
such as letterfit, type color, and size. A loosely fitted or bold face
will need a larger interval between the words. At larger sizes, when
letterfit is tightened, the spacing of words can be tightened as well.
For a normal text face in a normal text size, a typical value for the
word space is a quarter of an em, which can be written M/4. (A
quarter of an em is typically about the same as, or slightly more
than, the set-width of the letter t.)
Language has some effect on the word space as well. In
highly inflected languages, such as Latin, most word boundaries
are marked by grammatical tags, and a smaller space is therefore
sufficient. In English and other uninflected languages, good word
spacing makes the difference between a line that has to be deci-
phered and a line that can be efficiently read.
for example. the If the text is justified, a reasonable minimum word space is
word space na- a fifth of an em (M/5), and M/4 is a good average to aim for. A
tive to the font
w;ed here is 227
reasonable maximum in justified text is M/2. If it can be held to
units wide, or 227 M/3, so much the better. But for loosely fitted faces, or text set in
thousandths of a small size, M/3 is often a better average to aim for, and a better
an em. The type-
setting software
minimum is M/4. In a line of widely letterspaced capitals, a word
is instructed to space of M/2 or more may be required.
allow, in the main
text, a minimum
word space of
2.i.2 Choose a comfortable measure.
85%. That is 193
units: just under Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfac-
a fifth of an em.
The maximum
tory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text
word space is set face in a text size. The 66-character line (counting both letters and
to 150%, which spaces) is widely regarded as ideal. For multiple-column work, a
is 340 units: JUSt
over a third of better average is 40 to 50 characters.
an em. If the type is well set and printed, lines of 85 or 90 characters
will pose no problem in discontinuous texts, such as bibliogra-

26
phies, or, with generous leading, in footnotes. But even with gen-
erous leading, a line that averages more than 75 or So characters
is likely to be too long for continuous reading.
A reasonable working minimum for justified text in English
is the 40-character line. Shorter lines may compose perfectly well When the
with sufficient luck and patience, but in the long run, justified lines counters of
the letterforms
averaging less than 38 or 40 characters will lead to white acne themselves, not
or pig bristles: a rash of erratic and splotchy word spaces or an JUSt the spaces
between words,
epidemic of hyphenation. When the line is short, the text should
Jre elastic,
be set ragged right. In large doses, even ragged-right composi- justification can
tion may look anorexic if the line falls below 30 characters, but in be carried to
small and isolated patches - ragged marginal notes, for example greater extremes
See pp 190-192
- the minimum line (if the language is English) can be as little
as 12 or 15 characters.
These line lengths are in every case averages, and they include
empty spaces and punctuation as well as letters. The simplest
way of computing them is with a copyfitting table like the one
on page 29. Measure the length of the basic lowercase alphabet
- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz - in any face and size you are
considering, and the table will tell you the average number of
characters to expect on a given line. In most text faces, the 10 pt
roman alphabet will run between 120 and 140 points in length,
but a 10 pt italic alphabet might be 100 points long or even less,
while a 10 pt bold might run to 160. The 12 pt alphabet is, of
course, about i.2 times the length of the 10 pt alphabet - but not
exactly so unless it is generated from the same master design and
the letterfit is unchanged.
On a conventional book page, the measure, or length of line,
is usually around 30 times the size of the type, but lines as little as
20 or as much as 40 times the type size fall within the expectable
range. If, for example, the type size is 10 pt, the measure might
be around 30 x 10 = 300 pt, which is 300/12 = 25 picas. A typical
lowercase alphabet length for a 10 pt text font is 118 pt, and the
copyfitting table tells us that such a font set to a 25-pica measure
will yield roughly 65 characters per line.

2.i.3 Set ragged if ragged setting suits the text and the page.
In justified text, there is always a trade-off between evenness of
spacing and frequency of hyphenation. The best available com-
promise will depend on the nature of the text as well as on the
specifics of the design. Good compositors like to avoid consecu-

27
 tive hyphenated line-ends, but frequent hyphens are better than
sloppy spacing, and ragged setting is better yet.
Narrow measures - which make good justification extremely
difficult - are commonly used when the text is set in multiple
columns. Setting ragged right under these conditions will lighten
the page and decrease its stiffness, as well as preventing an out-
Horizonta/ break of hyphenation.
Motion Many unserifed faces look best when set ragged no matter
what the length of the measure. And monospaced fonts, which are
common on typewriters, always look better set ragged, in standard
typewriter style. A typewriter (or a computer-driven printer of
similar quality) that justifies its lines in imitation of typesetting
is a presumptuous, uneducated machine, mimicking the outward
form instead of the inner truth of typography.

/.,When setting ragged text with a computer, take a moment

to refine your software's understanding of what constitutes
an honest rag. Software is often predisposed to invoke a
minimum as well as a maximum line. If permitted to do so, it
will hyphenate words and adjust the word spaces regardless
of whether it is ragging or justifying the text. Ragged setting
with these parameters tends to produce an orderly ripple
down the righthand side, making the text look like a neatly
pinched piecrust. If that is what you want, fine; but it may not
be. Unless the measure is excruciatingly narrow, you may
prefer the greater variations of a hard rag. This means fixed
word spaces, no minimum line, no letterspacing, and no
hyphenation beyond what is inherent in the text. In a hard
rag, hyphenated linebreaks may occur in words like self
consciousness, which are hyphenated anyway, but they
cannot occur without manual intervention in words like
hyphenation or pseudosophisticated, which aren't.

2.i.4 Use a single word space between sentences.

In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary

age in typography and type design, many compositors were
encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations
of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by
hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as
your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian
habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required
 AVERAGE CHARACTER COUNT PER LINE

10 12 14 16 IS 20 22 24 26 2S 30 32 34 36 3S 40

So 40 4S 56 64 72 So 88 96 104 112 120 12S 136 144 152 160 Read down,
S5 38 45 53 60 6S 76 S3 91 98 106 113 121 129 136 144 151 1n the left
90 36 43 50 57 64 72 79 86 93 100 107 115 122 129 136 143 column:
95 34 41 4S 55 62 69 75 S2 89 96 103 110 117 123 130 137 lowercase
100 33 40 46 53 59 66 73 79 86 92 99 106 112 119 125 132 alphabet length
105 )2 38 44 51 57 63 70 76 S2 89 95 101 108 114 120 127 1n points.
110 30 37 43 49 55 61 67 73 79 S5 92 98 104 110 11 6 122 Read across,
115 29 35 41 47 53 59 64 70 76 S2 88 94 100 105 Ill 11 7 1n the top row:
120 28 34 39 45 50 56 62 67 73 7S S4 90 95 101 106 112 line length
125 27 32 )8 43 4S 54 59 65 70 75 SI 86 91 97 102 108 in picas.
130 26 31 36 41 47 52 57 62 67 73 7S S3 88 93 98 104
135 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 So S5 90 95 100
140 24 29 34 39 44 4S 53 5S 63 6S 73 77 S2 87 92 97
145 23 28 33 37 42 47 51 56 61 66 70 75 So S4 89 94
150 23 28 32 .l7 41 46 51 55 60 64 69 74 7S S3 87 92
155 22 27 31 36 40 45 49 54 5S 63 67 72 76 SI 85 90
160 22 26 30 35 39 43 48 52 56 61 65 69 74 78 82 87
165 21 25 30 34 38 42 46 51 55 59 63 68 72 76 So 84
170 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 62 66 70 74 78 82
175 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 So
180 20 23 27 31 35 39 43 47 51 55 59 62 66 70 74 78
185 19 23 27 30 34 38 42 46 49 53 57 61 65 6S 72 76
190 19 22 26 _lO 33 37 41 44 48 52 56 59 63 67 70 74
195 18 22 25 29 32 36 40 43 47 50 54 58 61 65 68 72
200 18 21 25 28 32 35 39 42 46 49 53 56 60 63 67 70
210 17 20 23 27 30 33 37 40 43 47 50 53 57 60 63 67
220 16 19 22 25 29 32 35 38 41 45 48 51 54 57 60 64
230 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61
240 15 17 20 2_l 26 29 32 35 38 41 44 46 49 52 55 5S
250 14 17 20 22 25 28 31 34 36 39 42 45 4S 50 53 56
260 14 16 19 22 24 27 30 32 35 )8 41 43 46 49 51 54
270 13 16 18 21 23 26 29 31 34 36 39 42 44 47 49 52
2So 13 15 18 20 23 25 28 30 33 35 38 40 43 45 48 50
290 12 15 17 20 22 24 27 29 32 34 37 39 41 44 46 49
300 12 14 17 19 21 24 26 28 31 33 35 38 40 42 45 47
320 II 13 16 18 20 22 25 27 29 3 1 34 36 38 40 43 45
340 10 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 32 34 36 38 40 42
360 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 JO 32 34 36 38 40

29
 after a period, a colon or any other mark of punctuation. Larger
spaces (e.g., en spaces) are themselves punctuation.
The rule is sometimes altered, however, when setting classical
Latin and Greek, romanized Sanskrit, phonetics or other kinds
of texts in which sentences begin with lowercase letters. In the
absence of a capital, a full en space (M/2) between sentences may
Horizontal be welcome.
Motion
2.I.5 Add little or no space within strings of initials.

Names such as W.B. Yeats and J.C.L. Prillwitz need hair spaces,
thin spaces or no spaces at all after the intermediary periods. A
normal word space follows the last period in the string.

2.I.6 Letterspace all strings of capitals and small caps, and all
long strings of digits.

Acronyms such as CIA and PLO are frequent in some texts. So

are abbreviations such as CE and BCE or AD and BC. The normal
value for letterspacing these sequences of small or full caps is
5% to 10% of the type size. If your software sees the em as 1000
PostScript units, that means 50 to 100 units of letterspacing.
With digital fonts, it is a simple matter to assign extra width
to all small capitals, so that letterspacing occurs automatically. The
width values of full caps are normally based on the assumption
that they will be used in conjunction with the lower case, but
letterspacing can still be automated through the use of kerning
tables (see pages 33-34).
In titles and headings, extra letterspacing is often desirable.
Justified lines of letterspaced capitals are generally set by insert-
ing a normal word space (M/5 to M/4) between letters. This cor-
responds to letterspacing of 20% to 25% of the type size. But the
extra space between letters will also require more space between
lines. A Renaissance typographer setting a multi-line head in let-
terspaced text-size capitals would normally set blanks between the
lines: the hand compositor's equivalent of the keyboard operator's
extra hard return, or double spacing.
There is no generalized optimum value for letterspacing
capitals in titles or display lines. The effective letterspacing of
caps in good classical inscriptions and later manuscripts ranges
from 5% to 100% of the nominal type size. The quantity of space
is far less important than its balance. Sequences like LA or A VA

30
may need no extra space at all, while sequences like N N and H 1H
beg to be pried open.

WAVADOPATTIMMILTL
WAVADOPATTIMMILTL
Rhythm
Letterspaced caps, above: kerned but unletterspaced. below. and
Proportion
Many typographers like to letterspace all strings of numbers
as well. Spacing is essential for rapid reading oflong, fundamen-
tally meaningless strings, such as serial numbers, and it is help-
ful even for shorter strings such as phone numbers and dates.
Numbers set in pairs need not be letterspaced; strings of three
or more may need a little air. This is the rationale behind the old
European habit of setting phone numbers in the form oo oo oo
instead of 000-0000.

2.1.7 Don't letterspace the lower case without a reason.

A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep,

Frederic Goudy liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is
chiefly to add that a woman who would letterspace lower case
would steal sheep as well.
Nevertheless, like every rule, this one extends only as far as
its rationale. The reason for not letterspaLing lower case is that
it hampers legibility. But there are some lowercase alphabets to
which this principle doesn't apply.
Headings set in exaggeratedly letterspaced, condensed, un-
serifed capitals are now a hallmark, if not a cliche, of postmodern
typography. In th is context, secondary display can be set perfectly
well in more modestly letterspaced, condensed, unserifed lower
case. Moderate letterspacing can make a face such as lowercase
Univers bold condensed more legible rather than less. Inessential
ligatures are, of course, omitted from letterspaced text.

wharves and wharfingers

Lowercase Univers bold condensed, letterspaced 10%.

It would be possible, in fact, to make a detailed chart oflower-

case letterforms, plotting their inherent resistance to letterspacing.

31
 Near the top of the list (most unsuitable for letterspacing) would
be Renaissance italics, such as Arrighi, whose structure strongly
implies an actual linkage between one letter and the next. A little
farther along would be Renaissance romans. Still farther along,
we would find faces like Syntax, which echo the forms of Renais-
sance roman but lack the serifs. Around the middle of the list,
Horizontal we would find other unserifed faces, such as Helvetica, in which
Motion nothing more than wishful thinking bonds the letters to each
other. Bold condensed sanserifs would appear at the bottom of
the list. Letterspacing will always sabotage a Renaissance roman
or italic. But when we come to the other extreme, the faces with no
calligraphic flow, letterspacing oflowercase letters can sometimes
be of genuine benefit.
Because it isolates the individual elements, letterspacing has
a role to play where words have ceased to matter and letters are
what count. Where letters function one by one (as in acronyms,
web-site and e-mail addresses) letterspacing is likely to help, no
matter whether the letters are caps, small caps or lower case.
Outside the domain of roman and italic type, the letterspacing
of text has other traditional functions. Blackletter faces have, as a
rule, no companion italic or bold, and no small caps. The simplest
methods of emphasis available are underlining and letterspacing.
The former was the usual method of the scribes, but letterspacing
is easier for letterpress printers. In digitial typography, however,
underlining is just as easy as letterspacing and sometimes does
less damage to the page.
In Cyrillic, the difference between lower case and small caps is
more subtle than in the Latin or Greek alphabets, but small caps are
)l(l1 nonetheless important to skilled Cyrillic typographers. In former
days, when Cyrillic cursive type was scarce and small caps almost
nonexistent, Cyrillic was routinely set like fraktur, with letterspaced
)/(U upright (roman) lower case where the small caps and the cursive
(italic) would have been. Improved Cyrillic types have made that
practice obsolete.

2.1.8 Kern consistently and modestly or not at all.

Inconsistencies in letterfit are inescapable, given the forms of the

Latin alphabet, and small irregularities are after all essential to
the legibility of roman type. Kerning - altering the space between
selected pairs of letters - can increase consistency of spacing in
a word like Washington or Toronto, where the combinations Wa

32
and To are kerned. But names like Wisconsin, Ttibingen, Tbilisi
and Los Alamos, as well as common words like The and This, remain
more or less immune to alteration.
Hand compositors rarely kern text sizes, because their kern-
ing pairs must be manually fitted, one at a time. Computerized
typesetting makes extensive kerning easy, but judgment is still
required, and the computer does not make good judgment any Rhythm
easier to come by. Too little kerning is preferable to too much, and
and inconsistent kerning is worse than none. Proportion
In digital type, as in foundry type, each letter has a standard
width of its own. But computerized typesetting systems can mod-
ify these widths in many ways. Digital fonts are generally kerned
through the use of kerning tables, which can specify a reduction There is more
or increase in spacing for every possible pair of letters, numbers or about kerning
tables on pp
symbols. By this means, space can be automatically added to com- 203-207.
binations like HH and removed from combinations like Ty. Prefab-
ricated kerning tables are now routine components of well-made
digital fonts, but they still sometimes require extensive editing to
suit individual styles and requirements. If you use an automatic
kerning program, test it thoroughly before trusting its decisions,
and take the time to repair its inevitable shortcomings.
Kerning tables generally subtract space from combinations
such as Av, Aw, Ay, 'A, 'A, L, and all combinations in which the first
element is T, V, W or Y and the second element is anything other
than b, h, k or I. Not all such combinations occur in English, but a
Top
good kerning table will accommodate names such as Tchaikovsky,
Tmolos, Tsimshian, Vazquez, Chateau d'Yquem and Ysaye.
The table also normally adds space to sequences like f', f), f],
f?, f!, (j, [j, (J and [J. In some italics, space must also be added
Topf
to gg and gy. If your text includes them, other sequences - gf, gj,
qf, qj, for instance - may need attention as well.
Especially at larger sizes, it is common to kern combinations (j")
involving commas and periods, such as r, I r. Iv, Iv. I w, I w. I y, I y.
But use care in kerning combinations such as F. IP. IT. IV Capitals
need their space, and some combinations are easy to misread.
P.F. Didot may be misread as R E Didot if too enthusiastically w, f'
kerned.
Numbers are often omitted from kerning tables, but numbers
often need more kerning than letters do. Most fonts, both metal
and digital, are equipped with tabular figures - figures that all have
identical set-width, so columns of typeset figures will align. If you
are forced to use such a font, heavy kerning will be required. A

33
 good text font will give you proportional figures instead. A digital
font in the OpenType format may offer you four choices: propor-
tional and tabular lining (titling) figures, and proportional and
tabular old-style (text) figures. No matter how the figures are cut,
when used in text, they are likely to need some kerning, to each
other and to the en dash.
Horizontal
Motion

Unkerned Sabon numerals, left, and well-kerned numerals, right

Whatever kerning you do, make sure it does not result in col-
lisions with diacritics. Wolf can be kerned more than Wolfilin in
many faces, and Tennyson more than Tete-a-tete. Also beware the
composite effect of sequential kerns. The apostrophes in L'Hotel
and D'A rtagnan can be brought up fairly close, but in L'Anse aux
Meadows, two close kerns in a row will produce a collision.
A kerning table written expressly for one language will need
subtle alteration before it can do justice to another. In English,
's for example, it is normal to kern the combinations 'd 'm 'r's 't,
which appear in common contractions. In French, 'a 'a'e 'e 'e 'e 'o 'o
are kerned instead, because these appear in elisions. In Native
'
aa American texts, apostrophes can appear in many other contexts.
For Spanish, one kerns the combinations 't and "t· For German,

". a careful typographer will take space out of the combinations

,T ,,T ,V ,,V ,W ,,W and may add some space to ,J and ,,J.
l The letter c is not a full-fledged member of the German al-
phabet, and in former times it was always restricted, in German, to
ck the ligatures ch and ck. English-speaking readers often find these
combinations kerned too close for comfort in German-made fonts
- or they find the right sidebearing of the c too close-cut to begin
IJ with. In fonts from the Netherlands, unusually tight kerning is
common in the sequence ij instead.
Binomial kerning tables are powerful and useful typographic
tools, but they eliminate neither the need nor the pleasure of
making final adjustments by hand. Names like T. V. R. Murti and
T. R.V. Murti, for example, pose microscopic typographic prob-
lems that no binomial kerning table can solve. Fonts with poly-
nomial kerning tables - able to kern a given pair of letters in dif-
ferent ways according to context - have existed for a decade and
may someday be the norm. For now, they are a rarity.

34
2.1.9 Don't alter the widths or shapes of letters without cause.

Type design is an art practiced by few and mastered by fewer

- but font-editing software makes it possible for anyone to alter
in a moment the widths and shapes of letters to which an artist
may have devoted decades of study, years of inspiration and a rare
concentration of skill. The power to destroy such a type designer's Rhythm
work should be used with caution. And arbitrarily condensing and
or expanding letterforms is the poorest of all methods for fitting Proportion
uneditable copy into unalterable space.
In many fonts, the exclamation mark, question mark, semico-
lon and colon need a wider left sidebearing than manufacturers
have given them, but the width of any character should be altered
for one purpose only: to improve the set of the type.
Typographic letters are made legible not only by their forms
and by the color of the ink that prints them but also by the
sculpted empty space between and around them. When type is
cast and set by hand, that space is physically defined by blocks
of metal. When the type is reduced to a face, photographically or
digitally stored, the letter still has a room of its own, defined by
its stated body height and width, but it is a virtual room. In the
world of digital type, it is very easy for a designer or compositor
with no regard for letters to squish them into cattle trains and
ship them to the slaughter.

letterfit letterfit
When letters are maltreated in this way, their reserve ofleg-
ibility is sapped. They can do little in their turn except shortchange
and brutalize the reader.

2 .1.10 Don't stretch the space until it breaks.

Lists, such as contents pages and recipes, are opportunities to

build architectural structures in which the space between the
elements both separates and binds. The two favorite ways of de-
stroying such an opportunity are setting great chasms of space
that the eye cannot leap without help from the hand, and setting
unenlightening rows of dots (dot leaders, they are called) that
force the eye to walk the width of the page like a prisoner being
escorted back to its cell.
The following examples show two among many ways of han-

35
 dling a list. Splitting titles and numbers apart, setting one flush
left and the other flush right, with or without dot leaders, would
only muffle the information:

Introduction 7
Chapter 1 The Sex of Centaurs 11
Horizontal Chapter 2 Poliphilo's Dream 43
Motion

Prologue . pages
Points of Possible Agreement . page 9
Irreconcilable Differences . page 11
Conclusion . page 163
Index . page 164

2.2 VERTICAL MOTION

2.2.1 Choose a basic leading that suits the typeface, text and
measure.

Time is divisible into any number of increments. So is space.

But for working purposes, time in music is divided into a few
proportional intervals: halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths and so
on. And time in most music is measured. Add a quarter note to a
bar whose time is already accounted for and, somewhere nearby,
the equivalent of that quarter note must come out. Phrasing and
rhythm can move in and out of phase - as they do in the singing
of Billie Holiday and the trumpet solos of Miles Davis - but the
force of blues phrasing and syncopation vanishes if the beat is
actually lost.
Space in typography is like time in music. It is infinitely divis-
ible, but a few proportional intervals can be much more useful
than a limitless choice of arbitrary quantities.
The metering of horizontal space is accomplished almost
unconsciously in typography. You choose and prepare a font, and
you choose a measure (the width of the column). When you set
the type, the measure fills with the varied rhythm of repeating
letter shapes, which are music to the eye.
Vertical space is metered in a different way. You must choose
not only the overall measure - the depth of the column or page
- but also a basic rhythmical unit. This unit is the leading, which
is the distance from one baseline to the next.
 Eleven-point type set solid is described as 11/11. The theo-
retical face of the type is 11 points high (from the top of d to
the bottom of p, if the type is full on the body), and the distance
from the baseline of line one to the baseline of line two is also
11 points. Add two points of lead (interlinear space), and the type
is set 11/13. The type size has not changed, but the distance from
baseline to baseline has increased to 13 points, and the type has Rhythm
more room to breathe. and
The text of the book you are reading, to take an example, is Proportion
set 10/12 x 21. This means that the type size is 10 pt, the added
lead is 2 pt, giving a total leading of 12 pt, and the line length is
21 picas.
A short burst of advertising copy or a title might be set with
negative leading (18/15, for example), so long as the ascenders and
descenders don't collide:

this is an example
of negative leading
Continuous text is very rarely set with negative leading, and
only a few text faces read well when set solid. Most text requires
positive leading. Settings such as 9/11, 10/12, 11/13 and 12/15 are
routine. Longer measures need more lead than short ones. Dark
faces need more lead than light ones. Large-bodied faces need
more lead than smaller-bodied ones. Faces like Bauer Bodoni,
with substantial color and a rigid vertical axis, need much more
brj
lead than faces like Bembo, whose color is light and whose axis is
based on the writing hand. And unserifed faces often need more
lead (or a shorter line) than their serifed counterparts.
Extra leading is also generally welcome where the text is
erf
thickened by superscripts, subscripts, mathematical expressions,
or the frequent use of full capitals. A text in German would ide-
ally have a little more lead than the same text in Latin or French,
brj
purely because of the increased frequency of capitals.

2.2.2 Add and delete vertical space in measured intervals.

erf
Bauer Badoni
For the same reason that the tempo must not change arbitrarily and Bembo, both
set 40/42.
in music, leading must not change arbitrarily in type.
Pages and columns are set most often to uniform depth, but
ragged depths are better in some situations. A collection of short

37
 texts, such as catalogue entries, set in multiple-column pages, is
likely to look better and read more easily if the text is not sawed
into columns of uniform depth. A collection of short poems is
bound to generate pages of varying depth as well - and so much
the better.
Continuous prose offers no such excuse for variation. It is
Vertical therefore usually set in pages of uniform depth, designed in sym-
Motion metrical pairs. The lines and blocks of text on facing pages in this
format should align, and the lines on the front and back of the leaf
(the recto and verso pages) should align as well. Typographers
check their reproduction proofs by holding them up to the light
in pairs, to see that the text and crop marks match from page to
page. Press proofs are checked in the same way, by holding them
up to the light to see that textblocks back each other up when the
sheet is printed on both sides.
Headings, subheads, block quotations, footnotes, illustrations,
captions and other intrusions into the text create syncopations
and variations against the base rhythm of regularly leaded lines.
These variations can and should add life to the page, but the
main text should also return after each variation precisely on
beat and in phase. This means that the total amount of vertical
space consumed by each departure from the main text should be
an even multiple of the basic leading. If the main text runs 11/13,
intrusions to the text should equal some multiple of 13 points:
26, 39, 52, 65, 78, 91, 104 and so on.
Subheads in this book are leaded in the simplest possible way,
with a white line (that is, in keyboard terms, a hard return) before
and after. They could just as well be leaded asymmetrically, with
more space above than below, so long as the total additional lead
is equivalent to an even number of text lines.
If you happen to be setting a text 11/13, subhead possibilities
include the following:

• subheads in 11/13 small caps, with 13 pt above the head and

13 pt below;
• subheads in 11/13 bold u&lc (upper and lower case), with 8 pt
above the head and 5 pt below, since 8 + 5 = 13;
• subheads in 11/13 caps with 26 pt above and 13 pt below;
• one-line subheads in 14/13 italic u&lc, with 16 pt above the
head and 10 pt below. (The negative leading is merely to
minimize coding in this case. If the heads are one line long,
no cramping will occur.)
2.2.3 Don't suffocate the page.

Most books now printed in the Latin alphabet carry from 30 to 45

lines per page. The average length of line in most of those books
is 60 to 66 characters. In English and the Romance languages, a
word is typically assumed to average five letters plus a space. Ten
or eleven such words fit on a line of 60 to 66 characters, and the Rhythm
page, if it is full, holds from 300 to 500 words. and
Outside these conventional boundaries lie many interesting Proportion
typographic problems. If the text deserves the honor, a handsome
page can be made with very few words. A page with 17 lines of
36 characters each, as an example, will carry only 100 words. At
the other extreme, a page with 45 lines of 70 characters each will
carry 525 words. If you want more than 500 words to the page, it is
time to consider multiple columns. A two-column book page will
comfortably carry 750 words. If it must, it can carry a thousand.
However empty or full it may be, the page must breathe, and in
a book - that is, in a long text fit for the reader to live in - the page
must breathe in both directions. The longer the line, the more space
necessary between lines. Two columns of short lines are therefore
more compact than a single column oflong lines.

2.3 BLOCKS & PARAGRAPHS

2.3.1 Set opening paragraphs flush left.

The function of a paragraph indent is to mark a pause, setting the

paragraph apart from what precedes it. If a paragraph is preceded
by a title or subhead, the indent is superfluous and can therefore
be omitted, as it is here.

2.3.2 In continuous text, mark all paragraphs after the first with
an indent of at least one en.

Typography like other arts, from cooking to choreography, in-

volves a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the de-
pendably consistent and the unforeseen. Typographers generally
take pleasure in the unpredictable length of the paragraph while
accepting the simple and reassuring consistency of the paragraph
indent. The prose paragraph and its verse counterpart, the stanza,
are basic units of linguistic thought and literary style. The typog-
rapher must articulate them enough to make them clear, yet not

39
 so strongly that the form instead of the content steals the show.
If the units of thought, or the boundaries between thoughts, look
more important than the thoughts themselves, the typographer
has failed.
/., Ornaments can be placed in the paragraph indents, but few
texts actually profit from ornamentation.
Blocks Paragraphs can also
and be marked, as this one is, by drop lines, but dropline paragraphs
Paragraphs grow tiresome in long texts. They also increase the labor of revi-
sions and corrections. ~ Pilcrows, boxes and bullets can be used
to mark the breaks in a stream of continuous text, sometimes
with excellent results. This format is more economical of space
than conventional indented paragraphs, but again, extra labor and
expense may arise with emendations and corrections.
Outdented paragraphs and indented paragraphs are the two most
obvious possibilities that remain. And outdented paragraphs
bring with them other possibilities, such as the use of enlarged
marginal letters.
All these variants, and others, have their uses, but the plainest, most
unmistakable yet unobtrusive way of marking paragraphs is the
simple indent: a white square.
How much indent is enough? The most common paragraph
indent is one em. Another standard value is one lead. If your text
is set 11/13, the indent would then be either 11 pt (one em) or 13 pt
(one lead). One en (half an em) is the practical minimum.
Where the line is long and margins are ample, an indent of
1 \/2 or 2 ems may look more luxurious than one em, but paragraph
indents larger than three ems are generally counterproductive.
Short last lines followed by new lines with large indents produce
a tattered page.
Block paragraphs open flush left and are separated vertically
from their neighbors by extra lead, usually a white line. Block
paragraphs are common in business letters and memos, and
because they suggest precision, crispness and speed, they can be
useful in short documents of other kinds. In longer sequences,
they may seem soulless and uninviting.

2.3.3 Add extra lead before and after block quotations.

Block quotations (like the one on pp 17-18 of this book) can be

distinguished from the main text in many ways. For instance: by

40
a change of face (usually from roman to italic), by a change in size
(as from 11 pt down to 10 pt or 9 pt), or by indention.
Combinations of these methods are often used, but one de-
vice is enough. If your paragraph indent is modest, you may for
consistency's sake want to use the same indent for quotations.
And even if your block quotations are set in a size smaller than
normal text, you may want to leave the leading unchanged. If the Rhythm
main text runs 10/12, the block quotations might run 10/12 italic and
or 9/12 roman. If you prefer greater density or are eager to save Proportion
space, you might set them 9/11 or 9/10\li.
However the block quotations are set, there must be a visible
distinction between main text and quotation, and again between
the quotation and subsequent text. This usually means a white line
or half-line at the beginning and end of the block. But if the leading
within the block quotation differs from the leading of the main text,
these blanks before and after the quotation must be elastic. They
afford the only opportunity for bringing the text back into phase.
Suppose your main text is 11/13 and a five-line block quota-
tion set 10/12 intervenes. The depth of the quotation is 5 x 12 =
60. This must be bulked up to a multiple of 13 to bring the text
back into phase. The nearest multiple of 13 is 5 x 13 = 65. The re-
maining space is 65 - 60 = 5, and 5/2 = 2.5, which is not enough.
Adding 2.5 points before and after the quotation will not give
adequate separation. The next multiple of 13 is 6 x 13 = 78, which
is better: 78 - 60 = 18, and 18/2 = 9. Add 9 pt lead before and after
the quotation, and the text will realign.

2.3-4 Indent or center verse quotations.

Verse is usually set flush left and ragged right, and verse quota-
tions within prose should not be deprived of their chosen form.
But to distinguish verse quotations from surrounding prose, they
should be indented or centered on the longest line. Centering is
preferable when the prose measure is substantially longer than
the verse line. The following passage, for example, is centered on
the first and longest line.

God guard me from those thoughts men think William Butler

In the mind alone; Yeats, "A Prayer
for Old Age."
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow bone.

41
 Suppose your main text is set on a 24-pica measure and
you have decided to set verse quotations in italic at the text
size. Suppose that the longest line in your quotation measures
269 points. The indent for this quotation might be computed
as follows: 24 x 12 = 2SS pt, which is the full prose measure, and
2SS - 269 = 19 pt, which is the difference between the measure
Blocks and the longest verse line. The theoretically perfect left indent for
and the verse quotation is 19/2 = 9.5 pt. But if another indent close to
Paragraphs 9.5 pt is already in use, either for block quotations in prose, or as
a paragraph indent, then the verse quotation might just as well
be indented to match.
Suppose however that the longest line in the verse is 12S
points. The measure, again, is 2SS points, and 2SS - 12S = 160.
Half of 160 is So points. No other indent in the vicinity of So
points is likely to be in use. The verse quotation would then be
indented by precisely that amount.

2.4 ETIQUETTE OF HYPHENATION & PAGINATION

The rules listed below are traditional craft practice for the setting
of justified text. Except for the last rule, they are all programmable,
but the operation of these rules necessarily affects the spacing
of words and thus the texture and color of the page. If decisions
are left to the software, they should be checked by a trained eye
- and no typesetting software should be permitted to compress,
expand or letterspace the text automatically and arbitrarily as a
means of fitting the copy. Copyfitting problems should be solved
by creative design, not fobbed off on the reader and the text nor
cast like pearls before machines.
For a brief discussion of software justification engines, which
now do most of the work, see §9-4, page 190.

2-4.I At hyphenated line-ends, leave at least two characters

behind and take at least three forward.

Fi-nally is conventionally acceptable line-end hyphenation, but

final-ly is not, because it takes too little of the word ahead to the
next line.

2-4.2 Avoid leaving the stub-end of a hyphenated word, or any

word shorter than four letters, as the last line of a paragraph.

42
2-4·3 Avoid more than three consecutive hyphenated lines.

2-4-4 Hyphenate proper names only as a last resort unless they

occur with the frequency of common nouns.

245 Hyphenate according to the conventions of the language. Hart's Rules for
Compositors
(39th ed, 1983)
In English we hyphenate cab-ri-o-let but in French ca-brio-let. The includes a good,
old German rule which hyphenated Glockenspiel as Glok-kenspiel brief guide to
was changed by law in i998, but when ossze is broken in Hungar- hyphenation
and punctuation
ian, it still turns into osz-sze. In Spanish the double consonants 11 rules for sev-
and rr are never divided. (The only permissible hyphenation in eral European
the phrase arroz con polio is thus arroz con po-llo.) The conven- languages. Its
fat successor,
tions of each language are a part of its typographic heritage and Ritter's Oxford
should normally be followed, even when setting single foreign Guide to Style
words or brief quotations. (2002) is more
thorough but
much less handy.
246 Link short numerical and mathematical expressions with It is always worth-
hard spaces. while, however,
to consult a
style manual
All you may see on the keyboard is a space bar, but typographers written in and
use several invisible characters: the word space, fixed spaces of for the language
at issue - e.g.,
various sizes (em space, en space, thin space, figure space, etc) and for French, the
a hard space or no-break space. The hard space will stretch, like a Lexique des reg/es
normal word space, when the line is justified, but it will not convert typographiques
a
en usage l'impri-
to a linebreak. Hard spaces are useful for preventing linebreaks merie nationale
within phrases such as 6.2 mm, 3 in., 4 x 4, or in phrases like page 3 (Paris, 1990).
and chapter 5.
When it is necessary to break longer algebraic or numerical
expressions, such as a + b = c, the break should come at the equal
sign or another clear logical pause.

247 Avoid beginning more than two consecutive lines with the
same word.

248 Never begin a page with the last line of a multi-line

paragraph.

The typographic terminology is telling. Isolated lines created

when paragraphs begin on the last line of a page are known as
orphans. They have no past, but they do have a future, and they

43
 need not trouble the typographer. The stub-ends left when para-
graphs end on the first line of a page are called widows. They have
a past but not a future, and they look foreshortened and forlorn.
It is the custom - in most, if not in all, the world's typographic
cultures - to give them one additional line for company. This rule
is applied in close conjunction with the next.
Etiquette of
Hyphenation 2-4.9 Balance facing pages by moving single lines.
and
Pagination Pages with more than two columns often look best with the col-
umns set to varying depths. This is the vertical equivalent of
ragged-right composition. Where there are only one or two main
text columns per page, paired columns and facing pages (ex-
cept at the end of a chapter or section) are usually set to a uni-
form depth.
Balance facing pages not by adding extra lead or puffing up
the word space, but by exporting or importing single lines to and
from the preceding or following spreads. The same technique is
used to avoid widows, and to extend or shorten any chapters that
would otherwise end with a meager few lines on the final page.
But this balancing should be performed with a gentle hand. In
the end, no spread of continuous text should have to run more
than a single line short or a single line long.

2410 Avoid hyphenated breaks where the text is interrupted.

Style books sometimes insist that both parts of a hyphenated

word must occur on the same page: in other words, that the last
line on a page must never end with a hyphen. But turning the
page is not, in itself, an interruption of the reading process. It is
far more important to avoid breaking words in those locations
where the reader is likely to be distracted by other information.
That is, whenever a map, a chart, a photograph, a pull-quote, a
sidebar or other interruption intervenes.

2-4.11 Abandon any and all rules of hyphenation and

pagination that Jail to serve the needs of the text.

44
HARMONY & COUNTERPOINT

3.1 SIZE

3.u Don't compose without a scale.

The simplest scale is a single note, and sticking with a single note
draws more attention to other parameters, such as rhythm and
inflection. The early Renaissance typographers set each book in a
single font - that is, one face in one size - supplemented by hand-
3
drawn or specially engraved large initial letters for the openings
of chapters. Their pages show what sensuous evenness of texture
and variety of rhythm can be attained with a single font of type:
very much greater than on a typewriter, where letters have, more
often than not, a single width and a single stroke-weight as well
as a single size.
In the sixteenth century, a series of common sizes developed
among European typographers, and the series survived with lit- A few examples
tle change and few additions for 400 years. In the early days, the of the many older
names for type
sizes had names rather than numbers, but measured in points, sizes:
the traditional series is this: 6 pt: nonpareil
7pt:minion
8 pt: brevier or
small text

aaaaaaaaaaaa
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 18 21 24
aaaa 60 72
9 pt:bourgeois or
galliard
wpt:longprimer
or garamond
11 pt:small pica or
philosophy
12 pt: pica
This is the typographic equivalent of the diatonic scale. But 14 pt:english or
modern equipment makes it possible to set, in addition to these augustin
18 pt:great primer
sizes, all the sharps and flats and microtonal intervals between.
Twenty-point, 22-point, 23-point, and 10Vi-point type are all avail-
able for the asking. The designer can now choose a new scale or
tone-row for every piece of work.
These new resources are useful, but rarely all at once. Use the
old familiar scale, or use new scales of your own devising, but limit
yourself, at first, to a modest set of distinct and related intervals.
Start with one size and work slowly from there. In time, the scales
you choose, like the faces you choose, will become recognizable
features of personal style.

45
 3.2 NUMERALS, CAPITALS & SMALL CAPS

3.2.1 Use titling figures with full caps, and text figures in all other
circumstances.

So the date is 23 August 1832; it could be 3:00 AM in Apartment

Numerals, 6-B, 213-A Beacon Street; it is 27° c or 81° F; the price is $47,000
Capitals uso or £28,200; the postal codes are NL 1034 WR Amsterdam,
and SF 00170 Helsinki 17, Honolulu 96814, London wc1 2NN, New
Small Caps Delhi no 003, Toronto M5S 2G5, and Dublin 2.

BUT IT IS 1832 AND 81° IN FULL CAPITALS.

Arabic numerals - known in Arabic as Indian numerals,

arqam hindiyya, because the Arabs obtained them from India
- entered the scribal tradition of Europe in the thirteenth century.
Before that (and for many purposes afterward) European scribes
used roman numerals, written in capitals when they occurred
A °' . in the midst of other capitals, and in lowercase in the midst of
lowercase letters. Typographers have naturally inherited this
The arabic custom of setting roman numerals so that they harmonize with
numerals of
Latin script are the words:
derived from
the Indian Number xiii lowercase AND XI I I UPPERCASE
numerals of
Arabic script AND THE NUMBER XIII IN SMALL CAPITALS
(above) and the roman numeral xiii in italic

When arabic numerals joined the roman alphabet, they too

were given both lowercase and uppercase forms. Typographers
call the former text figures, hanging figures, lowercase figures, or
old-style figures (osF for short) and make a point of using them
whenever the surrounding text is set in lowercase letters or small
caps. The alternative forms are called titlingfigures, rangingfigures
or liningfigures, because they range or align with one another and
with the upper case.

Text 1234567890 figures

TITLING 1234567890 FIGURES
FIGURES 1234567890 WITH SMALL CAPS

Italic text 12 3 4 s 67 8 9 o figures

 Text figures were the common form in European typography
between 1540 and 1800. But in the mid-eighteenth century, when
European shopkeepers and merchants were apt to write more
numbers than letters, handwritten numerals developed propor-
tions of their own. These quite literally middle-class figures en-
tered the realm of typography in 1788, when a British punchcutter
named Richard Austin cut a font of three-quarter-height lining Harmony
.figures for the founder John Bell. and
Counterpoint
Bell letters and 1234567890 figures
in roman and 1234567890 in italic
In the nineteenth century, which was not a great age for
typography, founders stretched these figures up to cap height,
and titling figures became the norm in commercial typography.
Renaissance letterforms were revived in the early twentieth cen-
tury, and text figures found their way back into books. But in
news and advertising work, titling figures remained routine. In
the 1960s, phototypesetting machines with their truncated fonts
once again made text figures difficult to find. The better digital
foundries now offer a wide selection of fonts with text figures
and small caps. These are often sold separately and involve extra
expense, but they are essential to good typography. It is better to
have one good face with all its parts, including text figures and
small caps, than fifty faces without.
It is true that text figures are rarely useful in classified ads,
but they are useful for setting almost everything else, including
good magazine and newspaper copy. They are basic parts of ty-
pographic speech, and they are a sign of civilization: a sign that
dollars are not really twice as important as ideas, and numbers
are not afraid to consort on an equal footing with words.
It is also true that a number of excellent text faces, both serifed
and unserifed, were originally issued without text figures. Exam-
ples include Adrian Frutiger's Mfridien, Eric Gill's Gill Sans, Paul
Renner's Futura, Hans Eduard Meier's Syntax, Hermann Zapf's
Comenius and Optima, and Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse's Carmina.
In several of these cases, text figures were part of the original
conception or even the finished design but were scuttled by the
foundry. Many such missing components have belatedly been is-
sued in digital form. With any text face that is missing text figures,
it is reasonable to enquire whether commercial intimidation or, in
effect, commercial censorship may not have played a role.

47
 During most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, lin-
ing figures were widely known as 'modern' and text figures as
'old-style: Modernism was preached as a sacred duty, and num-
bers, in a sense, were actually deified. Modernism is nothing if
not complex, but its gospel was radical simplicity. Many efforts
were made to reduce the Latin alphabet back to a single case. (The
Numerals, telegraph and teletype, with their unicameral alphabets, are also
Capitals products of that time.) These efforts failed to make much head-
and way where letters were concerned. With numbers, the campaign
Small Caps had considerable success. Typewriters soon came to have letters
in both upper and lower case but numbers in upper case alone.
And from typewriters have come computer keyboards.
Typographic civilization seems, nonetheless, determined to
proceed. Text figures are again a normal part of type design - and
have thus been retroactively supplied for faces that were earlier
denied them. However common it may be, the use of titling fig-
ures in running text is illiterate: it spurns the truth of letters.

3.2.2 For abbreviations and acronyms in the midst of normal

text, use spaced small caps.

This is a good rule for just about everything except two-letter

geographical acronyms and acronyms that stand for personal
names. Thus: 3:00 AM, 3:00 PM, the ninth century CE, 450 BC to
AD 450, the OAS and NATO; World War II or WWII; but JFK and
Fr J.A.S. O'Brien, OMI; HMS Hypothesis and uss Ticonderoga;
Washington, DC, and Mexico, DF; J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue
in B~ minor, swv 867.
Many typographers prefer to use small caps for postal abbre-
viations (San Francisco, CA 94119 ), and for geographical acronyms
longer than two letters. Thus, the USA, or in Spanish, las EEUU,
and Sydney, NSW. But the need for consistency intervenes when
long and short abbreviations fall together. From the viewpoint
of the typographer, small caps are preferable in faces with fine
features and small x-height, full caps in faces with large x-height
and robust form.
Genuine small caps are not simply shrunken versions of the
full caps. They differ from large caps in stroke weight, letterfit,
and internal proportions as well as in height. Any good set of
small caps is designed as such from the ground up. Thickening,
shrinking and squashing the full caps with digital modification
routines will only produce a parody.
 Sloped small capitals - AB c DEF G - have been designed and
cut for relatively few faces in the history of type design. They can
be faked with digital machinery, by sloping the roman small caps,
but it is better to choose a face (such as this one, Robert Slimbach's
Minion) which includes them, or to live without. Sloped (italic)
text figures, on the other hand, are part of the basic requirement
and are available for most good text fonts. Harmony
and
3.2.3 Refer typographic disputes to the higher courts of speech Counterpoint
and thinking.

Type is idealized writing, and its normal function is to record

idealized speech. Acronyms such as co and TV or USA and UFO
are set in caps because that is the way we pronounce them. Acro-
nyms like UNESCO, ASCII and FORTRAN, which are pronounced
not as letters but as words, are in the process of becoming pre-
cisely that. When a writer accepts them fully into her speech and
urges readers to do likewise, it is time for the typographer to ac-
cept them into the common speech of typography by setting
them in lower case: Unesco, Ascii (or ascii) and Fortran. Other
acronymic words, such as laser and radar, have long since trav-
eled the same road.
Logograms pose a more difficult question. An increasing
number of persons and institutions, from e.e. cummings to
WordPerfect, now come to the typographer in search of special
treatment. In earlier days it was kings and deities whose agents
demanded that their names be written in a larger size or set in a
specially ornate typeface; now it is business firms and mass-mar-
ket products demanding an extra helping of capitals, or a pro-
prietary face, and poets pleading, by contrast, to be left entirely
in the vernacular lower case. But type is visible speech, in which
gods and men, saints and sinners, poets and business executives
are treated fundamentally alike. Typographers, in keeping with
the virtue of their trade, honor the stewardship of texts and im-
plicitly oppose private ownership of words.
Logotypes and logograms push typography in the direction of
hieroglyphics, which tend to be looked at rather than read. They
also push it toward the realm of candy and drugs, which tend to
provoke dependent responses, and away from the realm of food,
which tends to promote autonomous being. Good typography is
like bread: ready to be admired, appraised and dissected before
it is consumed.

49
 3.3 LIGATURES

3.3.1 Use the ligatures required by the font, and the characters
required by the language, in which you are setting type.
I

In most roman faces the letter f reaches into the space beyond it.

ffi In most italics, thef reaches into the space on both sides. Typogra-
phers call these overlaps kerns. Only a few kerns, like those in the
arm of the f and the tail of the j, are implicit in a normal typefont,
f+f +i->Jfi
while others, like the overlap in the combination To, are optional
refinements, independent of the letterforms.
Reaching into the space in front of it, the arm of the f will
~<-I+ J collide with certain letters - b, f, h, i, j, k, 1 - and with question
marks, quotation marks or parentheses, if these are in its way.
Most of the early European fonts were designed primarily
for setting Latin, in which the sequences fb, fh, fj, fk do not oc-
cur, but the sequences ff, fi, fl, ffi, ff! are frequent. The same set of
The lam-a/if ligatures was once sufficient for English, and these five ligatures
ligature above
is from Nabih
are standard in traditional roman and italic fonts. As the craft
Jaroudi's Yakout of typography spread through Europe, new regional ligatures
Arabic. The pi- were added. An fj and re were needed in Norway and Denmark
tau, chi-rho and
mu-alpha-iota
for words such as fjeld and fjord and mer. In France an ce, and
ligatures below in Germany an 13 (eszett or double-s) were required, along with
are from Mat- accented and umlauted vowels. Double letters which are read as
thew Carter's
Wilson Greek.
one - // in Spanish, ij in Dutch, and ch in German, for example
- were cast as single sorts for regional markets. An ffj was needed
in Iceland. New individual letters were added, like the Polish l, the
Spanish fi, and the Danish and Norwegian 0. Purely decorative
ligatures were added to many fonts as well.
English continues to absorb and create new words - fjord,
gajfhook, halfback, hors d'reuvre - that call for ligatures beyond
the Latin list. As an international language, English must also
accommodate names like Youngfox, al-Hajji and Asdzqq Yolgai.
These sometimes make demands on the roman alphabet which
earlier designers didn't foresee. In the digital world, some of these
compound characters and ligatures can, in effect, take care of
µ, + (1, +' themselves. In text work, there is no burning need for a specially
---> f-(S!1
crafted fb or th ligature when the digital forms can be cleanly
superimposed, but in display work, such ligatures can be crucial.
Recent type designers, alive to these polylingual demands on the
alphabet, have often simplified the problem further by designing
faces in which no sequence of letters involves a collision.

50
 fiffiJjlfiflfr
£(£ M fh [f
yu UCJ? fff ChjhJiflj}jJflj/iJjlflft m
1E CE re re te ce Bfl ff fi fl ffi ffiiftifl
a sr a fl £h fi fl ff fr fh Jiflfffl Harmony
and
Top two lines: Ligatures from an italic font cut in the 1650s by Christoffel Counterpoint
van Dijck. Lower two lines: Ligatures from Adobe Caslon, a digital face
by Carol Twombly, after William Caslon, dating from about 1750. These
are Baroque typefaces. As such, they include a set of ligatures withf and
a second set formed with the longs (f,f). Long s and its ligatures were
normal in European typography until late in the eighteenth century, though
fonts designed to do without them were cut as early as the 1640s.

Separation of the lettersf and i is sometimes crucial. In Turk-

ish, i with a dot and 1 without - or in capitals, i and I - are two
different letters. To set Turkish well, you need a face whose f is
designed so it does not disguise the difference.
This does not do away with the question of the five Latin liga-
tures. Older typefaces - Bembo, Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville
Decorative
and other distinguished creations - are, thankfully, still with us, in ligatures such
metal and in digital revivals. Many new faces also perpetuate the as SI and Th are
now deservedly
spirit of these earlier designs. These faces are routinely supplied
rare. The ligature
with the five basic ligatures because they require them. And for jjJl is rarer, but
digital typographers, software is available that will automatically it has been cut
for at least one
insert them.
typeface (Jona-
than Hoefler's
Requiem italic)

ff fi fl ffi ffi
and can be used
in at least two
words: German
SauerSlojfjlasche

ff fi fl ffi ffl
(oxygen bottle)
and SauerSloff-
flaschenSf>Uler
(oxygen bottle
washer).
Bembo, set with ligatures (above) and without (below)

If your software is inserting ligatures automatically, take·a

moment to verify two things: (1) that the software is inserting all
the ligatures you want and none that you do not want; (2) that all
these ligatures are staying where they're put.

51
 Good OpenType digital fonts usually include the five Latin
ligatures (ff, ffi, ffi, fi, fl), and many include the two Scandinavian
ligatures (ffj, fj). There may also be a set of ornamentals and archa-
ics (ct, sp, st, Th; fi, fk, fl, ffi, ill, etc) - and sometimes there are more
of these special-purpose ligatures (quaints, as typographers call
them) in italic than in roman. Where such a feast of ligatures is

iJj present, they are usually divided into classes: basic and discretion-
ary. If your software is conversant with OpenType fonts, it can be
told to use the ligatures from either class or from both. But the
classes are not always well defined. For now at least, fonts in the
'Adobe Originals' series all have the Th ligature misclassified as
basic, not discretionary. Unless you edit the font to fix this error,

1h you cannot get fi, fj, ff and ffi without getting Th also. If you want
the Th ligature, this is fine. But Th has a different pedigree than
fi and its brethren. Stylistically, it belongs to a different register.
These two registers can certainly be paired; they should not be
arbitrarily blurred together.
Some software that inserts Jigs automatically will also strip
them out again as soon as the type is letterspaced. If you let such
software justify a text by adding space between the letters, you
may find ligatures present in one line and missing in the next. The
solution for this is twofold: (1) good software and (2) intelligent
justification. Ligatures should go where they are needed and then
stay no matter what.

3.3.2 If you wish to avoid ligatures altogether, restrict yourself to

faces that don't require them.

It is quite possible to avoid the use of ligatures completely and still

set beautiful type. All that is required is a face with non-kerning
roman and italic f - and some of the finest twentieth-century
faces have been deliberately equipped with just this feature. Aldus,
Melior, Mendoza, Palatino, Sabon, Trajanus and Trump Mediaval,
for example, all set handsomely without ligatures. Full or partial
ligatures do exist for these faces, and the ligatures may add a touch

fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi
Ligatured and unligatured combinations 1n Sabon (left) and Trump Med1-
aval (right). In faces such as these.fligatures are optional - and 1n most
such faces, only a partial set of ligatures exists.

52
of refinement - but when ligatures are omitted from these faces,
no unsightly collisions occur.
The choice is wider still among sanserifs. Ligatures are impor-
tant to the design of Eric Gill's Gill Sans, Ronald Arnholm's Legacy
Sans, Martin Majoor's Scala Sans and Seria Sans but irrelevant to
many unserifed faces. (Dummy ligatures, consisting of separate
letters, are usually present on digital versions of those fonts, but Harmony
using these dummies has no visible effect.) and
Counterpoint
3.4 TRIBAL ALLIANCES & FAMILIES

3-4·1 To the marriage of type and text, both parties bring their
cultural presumptions, dreams and family obligations. Accept
them.

Each text, each manuscript (and naturally, each language and

each alphabet) has its own requirements and expectations. Some
types are more adaptable than others in meeting these demands.
But typefaces too have their individual habits and presumptions.
Many of them, for instance, are rich with historical and regional
connections - a subject pursued at greater length in chapter 7.
For the moment, consider just the sociology of typefaces. What
kinds of families and alliances do they form?
The union of uppercase and lowercase roman letters - in
which the upper case has seniority but the lower case has the
power - has held firm for twelve centuries. This constitutional
Aa
monarchy of the alphabet is one of the most durable of European
cultural institutions.
Ornamental initials, small caps and arabic figures were early
BbB
additions to the roman union. Italics were a separate tribe at first,
refusing to associate with roman lower case, but forming an alli-
ance of their own with roman (not italic) capitals and small caps.
ccC
Sloped caps developed only in the sixteenth century. Roman, italic
and small caps formed an enlarged tribal alliance at that time,
and most text families continue to include them.
Dd
Bold and condensed faces became a fashion in the nineteenth
century, partially displacing italics and small caps. Bold weights
and titling figures have been added retroactively to many earlier
Ee Ee
faces (Bembo and Centaur for example), though they lack any
historical justification. Older text faces, converted from metal to
digital form, are usually available in two fundamentally different
Ff
versions. The better digital foundries supply authentic reconstruc-

53
 Primary: roman lower case 1.1
Secondary: Roman Upper Case 2.1
ROMAN SMALL CAPS 2.2
roman text figures: 123 2.3
italic lower case 2.4
Tribal Tertiary: 'True 1talic (Cursive) Vpper Case-- & Swash 3.1
Alliances italic text figures: 123 3.2
and SLOPED SMALL CAPS 3.3
Families Roman Titling Figures: 123 3.4
bold lower case 3.5
Quaternary: False Italic (Sloped) Upper Case 4.1
Bold Upper Case 4.2
BOLD SMALL CAPS 4.3
bold text figures: 123 4-4
bold italic lower case 4.5
Quintary: Italic Titling Figures: 123 5.1
Bold False Italic (Sloped) Upper Case 5.2
bold italic text figures: 123 5.3
Bold Titling Figures: 123 5-4
Sextary: Bold Italic Titling Figures: 123 6.1

tions; others supply the fonts without small caps, text figures and
other essential components, and usually burden them instead
with an inauthentic bold.
Among recent text faces, two basic family structures are now
common. The simplified model consists only of roman, italic and
titling figures, in a range of weights - light, medium, bold and
black, for example. The more elaborate family structure includes
small caps and text figures, though these are sometimes present
only in the lighter weights.
A family with all these elements forms a hierarchical series,
based not on historical seniority but on general adaptability and
frequency of use. And the series works the way it does not so
much from force of custom as from the force of physiology. The
monumentality of the capitals, the loudness of the bold face, the
calligraphic flow and (most of the time) slope of italic, stand
out effectively against a peaceful, largely perpendicular, roman
ground. Reverse the order and the text not only looks peculiar, it
causes the reader physical strain.

54
 roman
The chart at left
lower case
is a grammatical
road map of a
conventional
large family of

~I.-----. SLOPED
type. (The heavy
rules show the
extent of the
SMALL FULL italic SMALL basic nuclear
CAPS family.) The
bold typographer can
lower move directly
along any of the
case lines - e.g., from
roman lower case
to bold lower
case or to small
or full caps. A
BOLD sudden shift from
CAPS
I.__________.
roman lower
case to bold caps
or sloped caps
short-circuits
II the conventions
of typographic
BOLD SLOPED grammar.
CAPS

Fonts in each of these categories are called into use, through a

surprisingly complex grammar of editorial and typographic rules, The standard
by fonts in the category above. The typographer can intervene North American
reference on the
in this process at will, and alter it to any degree. But good type is editorial tradition
good because it has natural strength and beauty. The best results is the Chicago
come, as a rule, from finding the best type for the work and then Manual of Style,
now in its 15th
guiding it with the gentlest possible hand. edition (2003).

342 Don't use a font you don't need.

The marriage of type and text requires courtesy to the in-laws,

but it does not mean that all of them ought to move in, nor even
that all must come to visit.
Boldface roman type did not exist until the nineteenth cen-
tury. Bold italic is even more recent. Generations of good typog-
raphers were quite content 'without such variations. Font manu-
facturers nevertheless now often sell these extra weights as part
of a basic package, thereby encouraging typographers - begin-

55
 ners especially - to use bold roman and italic whether they need
them or not.
Bold and semibold faces do have their value. They can be
used, for instance, to flag items in a list, to set titles and subheads
u&lc in small sizes, to mark the opening of the text on a complex
page, or to thicken the texture of lines that will be printed in pale
Tribal ink or as dropouts (negative images) in a colored field. Sparingly
Alliances used, they can effectively emphasize numbers or words, such as
and the headwords, keywords and definition numbers in a dictionary.
Families They can also be used (as they often are) to shout at readers, putting
them on edge and driving them away; or to destroy the historical
integrity of a typeface designed before boldface roman was born;
or to create unintentional anachronisms, something like adding a
steam engine or a fax machine to the stage set for King Lear.

3.4.3 Use sloped romans sparingly and artificially sloped romans

more sparingly still.

It is true that most romans are upright and most italics slope to
the right - but flow, not slope, is what really differentiates the two.
Italics have a more cursive structure than romans, which is to say
that italic is closer to longhand or continuous script. Italic serifs
are usually transitive; they are direct entry and exit strokes, depict-
ing the pen's arrival from the previous letter and its departure for
the next. Roman serifs, by contrast, are generally reflexive. They
show the pen doubling back onto itself, emphasizing the end of
the stroke. Italic serifs therefore tend to slope at a natural writing
angle, tracing the path from one letter to another. Roman serifs,
especially at the baseline, tend to be level, tying the letters not to
each other but to an invisible common line.
Some italics are more cursive than others; so are some ro-
mans. But any given italic is routinely more cursive than the
roman with which it is paired.

e e 1 l m mu u
Baskerville roman and italic. Baskerville has less calligraphic flow than
most earlier typefaces, but the italic serifs are, like their predecessors,
transitive and oblique, showing the path of the pen from letter to letter. The
roman serifs are reflexive and level, tying letters to a common line.
 Early italic fonts had only modest slope and were designed
to be used with upright roman capitals. There are some beautiful
fifteenth-century manuscript italics with no slope whatsoever, and
some excellent typographic versions, old and new, that slope as
little as 2° or 3°. Yet others slope as much as 25°.
Italic and roman lived quite separate lives until the middle
of the sixteenth century. Before that date, books were set in Harmony
either roman or italic, but not in both. In the late Renaissance, and
typographers began to use the two for different features in the Counterpoint
same book. Typically, roman was used for the main text and italic
for the preface, headnotes, sidenotes and for verse or block quo-
tations. The custom of combining italic and roman in the same
line, using italic to emphasize individual words and mark specific
classes of information, developed in the sixteenth century and
flowered in the seventeenth. Baroque typographers liked the extra
activity this mixing of fonts gave to the page, and the convention
proved so useful to editors and authors that no subsequent change
of typographic taste has ever driven it entirely away. Modulation
between roman and italic is now a basic and routine typographic
technique, much the same as modulation in music between major In addition to
families consist-
and minor keys. (The system of linked major and minor keys in ing of upright and
music is, of course, another Baroque invention.) sloped roman,
Since the seventeenth century, many attempts have been there are now sev-
eral families con-
made to curb the cursive, fluid nature of italic and to refashion sisting of upright
it on the roman model. Many so-called italics designed in the (or nearly upright)
last two hundred years are actually not italics at all, but sloped and sloped italic.
Hermann Zapf's
romans - otherwise known as obliques. And many are hybrids Zapf Chancery
between the two. (ITC, 1979) is an
As lowercase italic letterforms mutated toward sloped roman, example. The
'roman' is an italic
their proportions changed as well. Most italics (though not all) with a slope of 4°;
are 5% to 10% narrower than their roman counterparts. But most the 'italic' is also
sloped romans (unless designed by Eric Gill) are as wide or wider an italic, but with
swash caps and a
than their upright roman companions. slope of 14°. An-
Renaissance italics were designed for continuous reading, and other example is
modern italics based on similar principles tend to have similar Eaglefeather Infor-
mal (seep 271), in
virtues. Baroque and Neoclassical italics were designed to serve as which the 'roman'
secondary faces only, and are best left in that role. Sloped romans, is an italic with a
as a general rule, are even more devotedly subsidiary faces. They slope of 0° and the
'italic' is in essence
have been with us for ten centuries or more, but have rarely suc- the same design
ceeded in rising above the status of calligraphic stunts or short- with a slope of 10°.
term perturbations of the upright roman.

57
 1 adefmpru adefmpru (19 pt]

2 adefmpru adefmpru [18 pt]

3 adefmpru adefmpru (24 pt]

Tribal
Alliances 4 adefmpru adefmpru [18 pt]

and
Families 5 adefmpru adefmpru (21 pt]

1 Adrian Frutiger's Meridien roman and italic; 2 Lucida Sans roman and
italic, by Kris Holmes & Charles Bigelow; 3 Perpetua roman and its italic
- actually a hybridized sloped roman - by Eric Gill; 4 Univers roman and
its oblique (a pure sloped roman), by Adrian Frutiger; 5 Romulus roman
and oblique (again a pure sloped roman), by Jan van Krimpen.

Typesetting software is capable of distorting letters in many

different ways: condensing, expanding, outlining, shadowing,
sloping, and so on. If the only difference between a roman and
its companion font were slope, the roman font alone would be
enough for the computer. Sloped versions could be generated at
will. But italic is not sloped roman, and even a good sloped roman
is more than simply roman with a slope.
Direct electronic sloping of letterforms changes the weight
of vertical and sloped strokes, while the weight of the horizontal
strokes remains the same. Strokes that run northwest-southeast
in the parent form - like the right leg of the A or the upper right
and lower left corners of the 0 - are rotated toward the vertical
when the letter is given a slope. Rotation toward the vertical causes
these strokes to thicken. But strokes running northeast-southwest,
like the left leg of the A, and the other corners of the 0, are rotated
farther away from the vertical. Rotation away from the vertical
thins them down. Stroke curvature is altered in this translation
process as well. The natural inclinations of a calligrapher drawing
a sloped roman differ from what is convenient for the machine.
Even 'italic' capitals - which nowadays are rarely anything except
sloped roman - require individual shaping and editing to reach
a durable form.
Through the collaborative efforts of calligraphers, typogra-
phers and engineers, software for the design and editing of typo-
graphic letterforms continues to improve. As it does, it continues

58
to mimic more and more closely those subtle and primitive tools
that lie at the root of all typography: the stick, the brush, the
chisel and the broadnib pen. Rules for transforming roman into
good sloped roman forms, instead of into parodies, can surely be
derived through close analysis of what the best scribes do. When
parts of the procedure can be stated with mechanical precision,
they can also be entrusted to machines. But rules for translating Harmony
roman into italic cannot be stated clearly because no such rules and
exist. The two kinds of letterform have different genealogies, like Counterpoint
apples and bananas. They form a common heritage and share an
evolutionary source, yet neither one is a direct modification of
the other.

AAA 0 0 0
Adobe Caslon roman, the same roman sloped electronically, and the true
'italic' capitals as drawn. Caslon ita lics have an average slope of 20°.

aaa oo o
Palatino roman, the same roman s loped electronically, and the genuine
italic, whose average slope is 9°.

True italic ca pitals: the swash forms from Robert Slimbach's Minion italic.
It is the structure, not the slope, of the letters that marks them as italic.

Once in a while, nevertheless, a typographer will pine for

a sloped version of a font such as Haas Clarendon or Andre
Gi.irtler's Egyptian 505, for which no italic, nor even a sloped
roman, has been drawn. On such occasions, a sloped roman
generated by computer may suffice as a temporary solution. But
the slope should be modest (perhaps 10° maximum), because less
slope yields less distortion.

59
 3.5 CONTRAST

3.5.1 Change one parameter at a time.

When your text is set in a 12 pt medium roman, it should not be

necessary to set the heads or titles in 24 pt bold italic capitals. If
Contrast boldface appeals to you, begin by trying the bold weight of the
text face, u&lc, in the text size. As alternatives, try u&lc italic,
or letterspaced small caps, or letterspaced full caps in the text
weight and size. If you want a larger size, experiment first with a
larger size of the text face, u&lc in the text weight. For a balanced
page, the weight should decrease slightly, not increase, as the size
increases.

3.5.2 Don't clutter the foreground.

When boldface is used to emphasize words, it is usually best to

leave the punctuation in the background, which is to say, in the
basic text font. It is the words, not the punctuation, that merit
emphasis in a sequence such as the following:

... on the islands of Lombok, Bali, Flores,

Timor and Sulawesi, the same textiles ...

But if the same names are emphasized by setting them in italic

rather than bold, there is no advantage in leaving the punctuation
in roman. With italic text, italic punctuation normally gives better
letterfit and thus looks less obtrusive:

... on the islands of Lombok, Bali, Flores,

Timar and Sulawesi, the same textiles ...

If spaced small caps are used for emphasis - changing the

stature and form of the letters instead of their weight or slope,
and thereby minimizing the surface disturbance on the page - the
question of punctuation does not arise. The punctuation used
with small caps is (except for question and exclamation marks)
usually the same as roman punctuation; it is only necessary to
check it for accurate spacing:

... on the islands ofLOMBOK, BALI, FLORES,

TIMOR and SULAWESI, the same textiles ...

60
STRUCTURAL FORMS & DEVICES

4.1 OPENINGS

4.u Make the title page a symbol of the dignity and presence of
the text.

If the text has immense reserve and dignity, the title page should
have these properties as well - and if the text is devoid of dignity,
the title page should in honesty be the same.
4
Think of the blank page as alpine meadow, or as the purity
of undifferentiated being. The typographer enters this space and
must change it. The reader will enter it later, to see what the typog-
rapher has done. The underlying truth of the blank page must be
infringed, but it must never altogether disappear - and whatever
displaces it might well aim to be as lively and peaceful as it is. It is
not enough, when building a title page, merely to unload some big,
prefabricated letters into the center of the space, nor to dig a few
holes in the silence with typographic heavy machinery and then
move on. Big type, even huge type, can be beautiful and useful. But
poise is usually far more important than size - and poise consists
primarily of emptiness. Typographically, poise is made of white
space. Many fine title pages consist of a modest line or two near
the top, and a line or two near the bottom, with little or nothing
more than taut, balanced white space in between.

4.1.2 Don't permit the titles to oppress the text.

In books, spaced capitals of the text size and weight are often
perfectly adequate for titles. At the other extreme, there is a fine
magazine design by Bradbury Thompson, in which the title, the For examples
single word Boo M, is set in gigantic bold condensed caps that of Thompson's
work, see
fill the entire two-page spread. The text is set in a tall narrow Bradbury
column inside the stem of the big B. The title has swallowed the Thompson,
text - yet the text has been reborn, alive and talkative, like Jonah The Art of
Graphic Design
from the whale. (1988)
Most unsuccessful attempts at titling fall between these two
extremes, and their problem is often that the title throws its weight
around, unbalancing and discoloring the page. If the title is set in
a larger size than the text, it is often best to set it u&lc in a light

61
 titling font or a lightened version of the text font. Inline capitals
(like the Castellar initials on pages 64 and 160) are another device
that typographers have used since the fifteenth century to get
large size without excessive weight.
There are other ways of creating large letters of light weight,
but some of these are printerly instead of typographic. First of all,
Openings if the budget permits, the typographer can design the work to be
printed in two or even in twenty different colors. An inexpensive
alternative is the same one your monochrome desktop printer
uses to render that colorful file: screening the type: breaking
up the solid image with an electronic filter. (Note however that
screened text always looks different on screen than on paper.)

20 30 40 50
60 70 So 90 100
Screened text. The numbers indicate the percentage of ink coverage
permitted by the screen.

4.1.3 Set titles and openings in a form that contributes to the

overall design.

Renaissance books, with their long titles and ample margins,

generally left no extra space at the heads of chapters. In modern
books, where the titles are shorter and the margins have been
eaten by inflationary pressure, a third of a page sometimes lies
vacant just to celebrate the fact that the chapter begins. But space
alone is not enough to achieve the sense of richness and celebra-
tion, nor is absence of space necessarily a sign of typographic
poverty.
Narrow row houses flush with the street are found not only in
urban slums but in the loveliest of the old Italian hill towns and
Mediterranean villages. A page full of letters presents the same
possibilities. It can lapse into a typographic slum, or grow into
a model of architectural grace, skilled engineering and simple
economy. Broad suburban lawns and wide typographical front
yards can also be uninspiringly empty or welcoming and graceful.
They can display real treasure, including the treasure of empty

62
space, or they can be filled with souvenirs of wishful thinking.
Neoclassical birdbaths and effigies of liveried slaves, stable boys
and faded pink flamingoes all have counterparts in the typo-
graphic world.

4.i.4 Mark each beginning and resumption of the text.

Structural
The simplest way of beginning any block of prose is to start from Forms
the margin, flush left, as this paragraph does. On a peaceful page, and
where the text is announced by a head or subhead, this is enough. Devices
But if the text, or a new section of text, begins at the top of a
page with no heading to mark it, a little fanfare will probably be
required. The same is true if the opening page is busy. If there
is a chapter title, an epigraph, a sidenote, and a photograph and
caption, the opening of the text will need a banner, a ten-gallon
hat or a bright red dress to draw the eye.
Fleurons (typographic ornaments) are often used to flag text
openings, and are often printed in red, the typographer's habitual
second color. The opening phrase, or entire first line, can also
be set in small caps or in bold u&lc. Another excellent method
of marking the start of the text, inherited from ancient scribal
practice, is a large initial capital: a versal or lettrine. Versals can
be treated in many ways. Indented or centered, they can stick up
from the text. Flush left, they can be nested into the text (typog-
raphers call these drop caps, as opposed to elevated or stick-up
caps). If there is room, they can hang in the left margin. They can
be set in the same face as the text or in something outlandishly
different. In scribal and typographic tradition alike, where the
budget permits, versals too are generally red or another color in
preference to black.
Elevated caps are easier to set well from a keyboard, but drop
caps have closer links with the scribal and letterpress tradition.
And the tooling and fitting of drop caps is something typog-
raphers do for fun, to test their skill and visual intuition. It is
common practice to set the first word or phrase after the versal
in caps, small caps or boldface, as a bridge between versal and
normal text. Examples are shown on the following page.
In English, if the initial letter is A, I or 0, a question can arise:
is the initial letter itself a word? The answer to this question must
come in the spacing of the text in relation to the versal. If the first
word of the text is Ahead, for example, excessive space betwen the
initial A and the rest of the word is bound to cause confusion.
 dilectam, quoadusque

o>CUUTU' V:
me osculo oris sui; quia
ipsa velit."
OX DILECTI MEI;
ecce iste venit, saliens
meliora sunt ubera tua n montibus, transiliens
Openings vino, <t fragantia unguentis colles. <t Similis est dilectus
optimis. Oleum effusum meus capreae, hinnuloque
nomen tu um; ideo adoles- cervorum. En ipse stat post
centulae dilexerunt te. parietem nostrum, respi-

T RAHE ME,postte
curremus in odorem
unguentorum tuorum.
ciens per fenestras, pro-
spiciens per cancellos. En
dilectus meus loquitur mihi.
Introduxit me rex in
cellaria sua; exsultabimus et
laetabimur in te, memores
S u Rc E, propera, amica
mea, columba mea,
formosa mea, et veni.
uberum tuorum super <t lam enim hiems transiit;
vinum. Recti diligunt te. imber abiit, et recessit.

N «
IGRA SUM,sed
formosa, filiae
lerusalem, sicut
<t Flores apparuerunt in
terra nostra ....
VI PEDES MEOS,
tabernacula Cedar, sicut [ quomodo inquinabo
pelles Salomonis. Nolite me illos? <t Dilectus meus
considerare quod fusca sim, misit manum suam per
quia decoloravit me sol. Filii foramen, et venter meus
Passages from matris meae pugnaverunt intremuit ad tactum eius.
the Song of contra me .... » <t Surrexit ut aperirem
Songs, set in

~
Aldus 10/12 x 10 DIURO vos,filiae dilecto meo; manus meae
RR. Elevated cap: Ierusalem, per stillaverunt myrrham, et
Castellar 54 pt. capreas cervosque digiti mei pleni myrrha
Drop caps: Aldus
42 pt, mortised camporum, ne suscitetis, probatissima. Pessulum
line by line. neque evigilare faciatis ostii mei ....

4.1.5 If the text begins with a quotation, include the initial

quotation mark.

Quotation marks have a long scribal history as editorial signs

added after the fact to other people's texts, but they did not come
into routine typographic use until late in the sixteenth century.
Then, because they interfered with established habits for position-
ing large initials, they were commonly omitted from the open-
ings of texts. Some style books still prescribe this concession to
convenience as a fixed procedural rule. But digital typography
makes it simple to control the size and placement of the opening
quotation mark, whether or not the text begins with a versa!. For
the reader's sake, it should be there.

4.2 HEADINGS & SUBHEADS Structural

Forms
4.2.1Set headings in a form that contributes to the style of the and
whole. Devices

Headings can take many forms, but one of the first choices to
make is whether they will be symmetrical or asymmetrical. Sym-
metrical heads, which are centered on the measure, are known
to typographers as crossheads. Asymmetrical heads usually take
the form of left sideheads, which is to say they are set flush left, These principles
or modestly indented or outdented from the left. Right sideheads are reversed,
of course,
work well in certain contexts, but more often as main heads when setting
than as subheads. A short, one-line head set flush right needs leftward-reading
substantial size or weight to prevent the reader from missing it alphabets
such as Arabic
altogether. and Hebrew.
One way to make heads prominent without making them
large is to set them entirely in the margin, like the running
heads (in typographic terms, they are running shoulderheads)
used throughout this book.

4.2.2 Use as many levels of headings as you need: no more and

no fewer.

As a rule it is best to choose a predominantly symmetrical or

asymmetrical form for subheads. Mixing the two haphazardly
leads to stylistic as well as logical confusion. But the number of
levels available can be slightly increased, if necessary, by judi-
cious combinations. If symmetrical heads are added to a basically
asymmetrical series, or vice versa, it is usually better to put the
visiting foreigners at the top or bottom of the hierarchical pile.
Two six-level series of subheads are shown, by way of example,
on the following pages.
In marking copy for typesetting, the various levels of subheads
are generally given letters rather than names: A-heads, B-heads,
c-heads, and so on. Using this terminology, the heads on the fol-
lowing pages run from A through F.
 "'-' Main Section Title "'-'

Headings
I F A MAN walk in the woods for love of them half of each
day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if
he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those
and woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an
Subheads industrious and enterprising citizen.

MAIN CROSSHEAD

II! The ways by which you may get money almost without excep-
tion lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned
money merely is to have been truly idle or worse.... If you would
get money as a writer or lecurer, you must be popular, which is
to go down perpendicularly....

Heavy Crosshead

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly

and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the
poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number ofletters
... has not heard from himself this long while.

M E DIUM CROSS HE AD

~I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week.

I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have
not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the
trees say not so much to me. ...

Light Crosshead

~ You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's

devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.... Really
to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to
a universal fact, would preserve us sane forever.

hypethral: RUN-IN SIDEHEAD Shall the mind be a public arena ... ? Or

from Greek
Ev unai6pC:J. shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, an hypethral temple, con-
'in the open air' secrated to the service of the gods?

66
 Main Section
Title
@ IF I AM TO BE a thoroughfare, I prefer that it
be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the
town sewers .... I believe that the mind can be permanently pro- Structural
faned by attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall Forms
be tinged with triviality. and
Devices
MAIN CROSSHEAD

Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were: its foundation The texts on
broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; and this and the
facing page are
if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, excerpts from
surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have HENRY DAVID
THOREAU'S
only to look into some of our minds ....
"Life Without
Principle;· c. 1854,
lf'6\ ORNAMENTED CROSSHEAD lf'6\ first published
in 1863. The type
on the facing
Read not the Times. Read the Eternities .... Even the facts of page is Adobe
science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a Caslon 10/12 x 21,
sense effaced each morning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews and on this page,
recut Monotype
of fresh and living truth. Centaur & Arrighi
11/12 x 21.

INDENTED SIDEHEAD

Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light

from heaven. Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps
to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets
of Pompeii, evince how much it has been used.

Secondary Indented Sidehead

When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more

than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and
drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is not slaves, nor
operatives, but ... saints, poets, philosophers ....

Run-in Sidehead In short, as a snowdrift is formed where there is a

lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an
institution springs up....
 4.3 NOTES

4.3.1 If the text includes notes, choose the optimum form.

If notes are used for subordinate details, it is right that they be
set in a smaller size than the main text. But the academic habit of
Notes relegating notes to the foot of the page or the end of the book is
a mirror of Victorian social and domestic practice, in which the
kitchen was kept out of sight and the servants were kept below
stairs. If the notes are permitted to move around in the margins
- as they were in Renaissance books - they can be present where
needed and at the same time enrich the life of the page.
Footnotes are the very emblem of fussiness, but they have
their uses. If they are short and infrequent, they can be made
economical of space, easy to find when wanted and, when not
wanted, easy to ignore. Long footnotes are inevitably a distraction:
tedious to read and wearying to look at. Footnotes that extend to
a second page (as some long footnotes are bound to do) are an
abject failure of design.
Endnotes can be just as economical of space, less trouble to
design and less expensive to set, and they can comfortably run
to any length. They also leave the text page clean except for a
peppering of superscripts. They do, however, require the serious
reader to use two bookmarks and to read with both hands as well
as both eyes, swapping back and forth between the popular and
the persnickety parts of the text.
Sidenotes give more life and variety to the page and are the
easiest of all to find and read. If carefully designed, they need not
enlarge either the page or the cost of printing it.
Footnotes rarely need to be larger than 8 or 9 pt. Endnotes
are typically set in small text sizes: 9 or 10 pt. Sidenotes can be
set in anything up to the same size as the main text, depending
on their frequency and importance, and on the overall format
of the page.

4.3.2 Check the weight and spacing of superscripts.

If they are not too frequent, sidenotes can be set with no super-
scripts at all (as in this book), or with the same symbol (normally
an asterisk) constantly reused, even when several notes appear
on a single page. For endnotes, superscript numbers are standard.
For footnotes, symbols can be used if the notes are few. (The

68
traditional order is * t :j: § II '"· But beyond the asterisk, dagger
and double dagger, this order is not familiar to most readers, and
never was.) Numbers are more transparent, and their order is
much less easy to confuse.
Many fonts include sets of superscript numbers, but these
are not always of satisfactory size and design. Text numerals set
at a reduced size and elevated baseline are sometimes the best Structural
or only choice. Establishing the best size, weight and spacing for Forms
superscripts will, however, require some care. In many faces, and
smaller numbers in semibold look better than larger numbers Devices
of regular weight. And the smaller the superscripts are, the more
likely they are to need increased character space.
Superscripts frequently come at the ends of phrases or sen-
tences. If they are high above the line, they can be kerned over a
comma or period, but this may endanger readability, especially
if the text is set in a modest size.

4.3.3 Use superscripts in the text but full-size numbers in the

notes themselves.

In the main text, superscript numbers are used to indicate notes

because superscript numbers minimize interruption. They are
typographic asides: small because that is an expression of their
relative importance, and raised for two reasons: to keep them out
of the flow of the main text, and to make them easier to find. In
the note itself, the number is not an aside but a target. Therefore
the number in the note should be full size. 1
1. Ba
To make them easy to find, the numbers of footnotes or end-
notes can be hung to the left (like the marginal numbers on the
following two pages and the footnote number below). Punctua-
tion, apart from empty space, is not normally needed between
the number and text of the note.

4.3.4 Avoid ambiguity in the numbering and placement of

endnotes.

Readers should never be forced to hunt for the endnotes. As a

rule, this means the endnotes should not appear in small clumps

This footnote is flagged by a superscript in the text, but the note itself is introduced
by an outdented figure of the same size used for the text of the note. The main
text on this page is set 10/12 x 21, and the note is 8/11.
 at the end of each chapter. It is better to place them together at
the end of the book. Wherever possible, they should also be
numbered sequentially from the beginning to end of the book,
and the notes themselves should be designed so the numbers are
readily visible. If the notes are numbered anew for each section
or chapter or essay, running heads will be needed along with the
Notes notes to point the way. If the running heads accompanying the
notes say, for instance, "Notes to Pages 44-62;' readers will know
their way. But if the running heads say something like "Notes to
Chapter s:' then chapters must be identified as such by running
heads of its own.

4.4 TABLES & LISTS

4.4.1 Edit tables with the same attention given to text, and set
them as text to be read.

For graphic Tables are notoriously time-consuming to typeset, but the prob-
alternatives to lems posed are often editorial as much as typographic. If the table
typographic ta-
bles, see Edward is not planned in a readable form to begin with, the typographer
R. Tufte, The can render it readable only by rewriting or redesigning it from
Visual Display scratch.
of Quantitative
Information Tables, like text, go awry when approached on a purely tech-
(2nd ed., 2001) nical basis. Good typographic answers are not elicited by asking
and Envisioning questions such as "How can I cram this number of characters
Information
(1990). into that amount of space?"
If the table is approached as merely one more form of text,
which must be made both good to read and good to look at,
several principles will be clear:
I All text should be horizontal, or in rare cases oblique. Setting
column heads vertically as a space-saving measure is quite fea-
sible if the text is in Japanese or Chinese, but not if it is written
in the Latin alphabet.
2 Letterforms too small or too condensed for comfortable reading
are not part of the solution.
3 There should be a minimum amount of furniture (rules, boxes,
dots and other guiderails for traveling through typographic space)
and a maximum amount of information.
4 Rules, tint blocks or other guides and dividers, where they are
necessary at all, should run in the predominant reading direction:
vertically in the case of lists, indices and some numerical tables,
and horizontally otherwise.

70
5 A rule located at the edge of a table, separating the first or final
column from the adjacent empty space, ordinarily serves no
function.
6 A table, like any other text in multiple columns, must contain
within itself an adequate amount of white space.

442 Avoid overpunctuating lists. Structural

Forms
A list is an inherently spatial and numerical arrangement. Speak- and
ers reciting lists often enumerate on their fingers, and lists set in Devices
type often call for equivalent typographic gestures. This means
that the list should be clarified as much as possible through spatial
positioning and pointing, usually done with bullets, dashes or
numerals. (Examples occur on these two pages and throughout
this book.) If the numbers are made visible either through posi-
tion (e.g., by hanging them in the margin) or through prominence
(e.g., by setting them in a contrasting face), additional punctua-
tion - extra periods, parentheses or the like - should rarely be
required.
Dot leaders (lines of dots leading the eye from one word or
number to another) are rarely beneficial in tables.

443 Set lists and columns offigures to align flush right or on

the decimal.

The numerals in many fonts are all of equal width, though there
is sometimes an alternative, narrower form of the numeral one. 100
This fitted one is generally used when setting figures in the midst
of text, while the unfitted one (of standard numeral width) is
often used when setting figures in columns. The font itself or the 111
composition software will also include a figure space - a fixed
blank space corresponding to the width of a standard, unkerned
numeral. This makes it a simple matter to compose lists and col- 100
umns of figures in rigorous mechanical alignment.
If you use proportionally fitted numerals (always the best
choice for text), or kern the numeral permutations in a font with 111
tabular figures, the individual figures will not align in columns or
lists, but columns of figures can still be aligned. For much tabular
matter (e.g., the first table overleaf) this is sufficient. If notes are
required in a table with flush-right columns, the superscripts
should be hung to the right (as in column 3, line 2 of the first
example overleaf) so they will not disrupt the alignment.

71
 8 98 998 9.75
9 99 999* 10
10 100 1000 10.25
11 101 1001 10.5

Above: aligning columns of nonaligning figures, with a hanging asterisk.

Tables Below: columns in mixed alignment.
and Lists
Aster 2: 3 24 x 36 0.667 a = 2b
Valerian 271 : 20 813 x 60 13.550 6a =c

4-4-4 For text and numerals alike, choose harmonious and

legible tabular alignments.

Simple tables and lists of paired items, like the sample tables of
contents on page 36, are often best aligned against each other, the
left column flush right and the right column flush left. Financial
statements and other numerical tables usually follow the opposite
pattern: a column of words, on the left, aligns flush left, while the
subsequent columns of numbers all align flush right or on the
decimal. Any repeating character - a dimension sign or equal
sign, for instance - is potentially of use in tabular alignment.
But many columns with many different alignments can generate
overall visual chaos. Occasionally it is better, in such cases, to set
all columns or most columns either flush right or flush left, for
the sake of general clarity.

4.5 FRONT & BACK MATTER

4.5.1 Leave adequate space at the beginning and end of every

publication.

A brief research paper may look its best with no more space at
beginning and end than is provided by the standard page margins.
The same is rarely true of a book, whose text should generally be,
and should seem to be, a living and breathing entity, not aged and
shrink-wrapped meat. A chapbook or saddle-stitched booklet can
begin directly with the title page. Otherwise, a half-title is cus-
tomary, preceding the title page. It is equally customary to leave
a blank leaf, or at least a blank page, at the end of a book. These
blanks provide a place for inscriptions and notes and allow the
text to relax in its binding.

72
4.5.2 Give adequate space to the prelims.

A text preceded by an interminable chain of forewords, prefaces,

introductions and prologues is unlikely to be read. But a dedica-
tion that is stuffed, like a typographic afterthought, onto an already
overfilled copyright page is no dedication at all. And a list of
contents which is incomplete (or missing altogether), and which Structural
does not have the page to itself, is usually a sign of typographic Forms
desperation or of disregard for the reader. and
Devices
4.5.3 Balance the front and back matter.

Books are normally built up from gatherings or signatures -

printed and folded sheets - with each signature forming a unit
of 8, 12, 16, 24 or 32 pages. The 16-page signature is by far the
most common. Typographers therefore work to make most of
their books seem divinely ordained and conceived to be some
multiple of 16 pages in length. Seasoned book typographers recite
in their meditations not only the mantra of points and picas - 12,
24, 36, 48, 60, 72 ... - but also the mantra of octavo signatures:
16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 176, 192, 208, 224, 240, 256,
272, 288, 304, 320, 336, 352, 368, 384, 400 .... These are the lengths
of the books that we read.
In a work of continuous prose, the illusion of divine love for
the number sixteen is obtained by straightforward copyfitting.
If the length of the text is accurately measured, the page can be
designed to yield a book of appropriate length. More compli-
cated books are often surrounded by paraphernalia - not only
the standard half-title, title page, copyright page, dedication page
and some blanks, but also perhaps a detailed table of contents,
a list of charts, illustrations and maps, a table of abbreviations,
a page or two of acknowledgements, and a preface, counterbal-
anced by appendices, endnotes, bibliography, index and a colo-
phon. Copyfitting the main text for a volume of this kind may
be highly complex, and room may be taken up or conserved in
the large aura of front and back matter. But for complex books
and simple books alike, it is up to the typographer to balance the
front matter, back matter and text. A wad of blank leaves at the
end of a book is a sign of carelessness, not of kindliness toward
readers who like to take notes.

73
 ABCDEF GHIKL
MNOPQ _RSTV
XYZabc defghil
mnopqrs fruvxyz
345 6 7 8 ~o , . .,) .. 9 '
12 . ,.-.,.,...

i£ ~a fffi Rer lf Gft f1 ~

& aaaa~ eeeeec; 1111·1 r
I uri5 prttceptafont httc, H onefte 'Viuere, alterum
non lttdere, Juum cui4; tribuere . H uiU! ftudij dutt
fantpojitiones, Publicum & priuatum. Publicum
iU! eft, quod adftatum rei RomanttJfeClat. Priua
tum, quod ad jingulorum 'Vtilitatem pertinet.
Dicendum eft igitur de iure priuato, qu6d triperti-
tum eft: colleClum eff enim ex naturalibU! prttcep-
t~, aut%/'tium aut ciuilibU!. I U! naturale ejl qu6d

A 42 pt roman titling font (cut c. 1530, revised c. 1550) and a 16 pt italic

text font (c. 1539). Both were cut by Claude Garamond, Paris. The italic is
shown actual size and the roman reduced by about one fifth. Matrices for
the roman font survive at the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp.

74
ANALPHABETIC SYMBOLS

5.1 ANALPHABETIC STYLE

It falls to the typographer to deal with an increasing herd of

flicks, squiggles, dashes, dots and ideographs that travel with
the alphabet yet never quite belong. The most essential of these
marks - period, comma, parentheses, and the like - are signs of
logical pause and intonation, much like the rests and slurs in a
musical score. Some, like the dollar and per cent signs, are styl-
5
ized abbreviations. Others, like the asterisk and the dagger, are
silent typographical cross-references.And a few that are normally
unspoken have tried to sneak their way into the oral tradition.
Speakers who say quote unquote or who slash what or That's it,
period! are, of course, proving their debt to these enduring para-
literary signs.
Approached through the scribal and typographic tradition,
the palette of analphabetic symbols is much more supple and
expressive than it appears through the narrow grill of the type-
writer keyboard. A typographer will not necessarily use more
analphabetic symbols per page than a typist. In fact, many good
typographers use fewer. But even the most laconic typographer
learns to speak this sign language with an eloquence that conven-
tional editing software, like the typewriter, seems to preclude.

5.u To invoke the inscriptional tradition, use the midpoint.

The earliest alphabetic inscriptions have no analphabetic furni-

ture at all, not even spaces between the words. As writing spread
through Greece and Italy, spaces appeared between the words, and
a further sign was added: the centered dot, for marking phrases or
abbreviations. That dot, the midpoint or small bullet, remains one
of the simplest, most effective forms of typographic punctuation
- useful today in lists and letterheads and signage just as it was
on engraved marble twenty centuries ago.

Suite 6 · 325 Central Park South

Roman calligraphers lettered their inscriptions with a flat

brush held in the right hand. The flat brush - thick in one direc-

75
 tion, thin in the other, like a broadnib pen - produces a modulated
stroke. That is to say, the weight of the stroke varies predictably
with direction. The letter 0 is an example. Because the brush
is held in the scribe's right hand, the strokes are thickest in the
northwest/southeast direction, at the natural inclination of the
forearm and the hand. Using the same brush, Roman calligraphers
also developed the subtle choreography of twists and turns at the
stroke-ends that produces the imperial Roman serif. Roman capi-
In Asian and tal letters have retained these forms for two thousand years.
European scripts
alike, modulated
strokes are usually
serifed and
unmodulated When the centered dot or midpoint is made in the same way
strokes are usually
not. Transitive with the same tool, it becomes a small, curved wedge: a clockwise
brush serifs are twist of the brush, with a short tail. Falling to the baseline, this
evident in the tailed dot became our comma. The same inscriptional and cal-
mincho typeface
above, designed ligraphic traditions have left us other useful marks, such as the
by Takaichi Hori. double dot or colon(:), the virgule(/), the hyphen(-), and the
The same kanji long dash (- or-).
and kana are
shown below in
an unserifed face 5.1.2 Use analphabetic symbols and diacritics that are in tune
designed by with the basic font.
Yasubumi Miyake.
Mincho katsuji
or 'Ming Dynasty A normal font of type now includes about two dozen mutant
script' is. roughly. forms of the few ancient signs of punctuation (period, comma,
the Japanese
counterpart of colon, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, dashes, and so
serifed roman on). It also includes about a dozen diacritics (acute and grave
- but its serif accents, the circumflex, tilde, ogonek, umlaut, and others), some
structure is more
cursive, like that legal and commercial logograms (@ # $ £ % o/oo etc) and a few
of italic. arithmetical symbols. In the 1so Latin character sets (font tables
defined by the International Organization for Standardization
and now used as a standard by most digital foundries in Europe
and North America), analphabetic symbols outnumber the basic
Latin alphabet three to one.
On some fonts, these analphabetic characters are beautifully
designed; on others they are not designed at all. Often they are
simply borrowed from another font, which may have been drawn
in a different weight and style.
Several analphabetic characters are notorious for poor design
and should always be inspected when assessing a new font. These
problem characters include square brackets [ ], which are often
too dark; parentheses ( ), which are often too symmetrical and
skinny; the asterisk*, the pi/crow'" and the section sign§, which
are often stiff and bland; and the octothorp or numeral sign #,
which is frequently too large for anything more interesting than
chain-store propaganda. Fonts equipped with good versions of
these characters must often lend them to those without. But not
just any good version will do.
Analphabetic
Symbols

a · *§&&;'!?
r2348t£ · z
Neoclassical analphabetics, after john Baskerville, above, and the neo-
humanist analphabetics of Hermann Zapf's Palatino, below. Analphabetics
differ from one face to another, and from one historical period to another,
JUSt as much as the letterforms do - and they differ in essentially the
same ways.

a · *§&&;'!?
12348t£ ·z
Baskerville, which is an eighteenth-century Neoclassical type-
face, requires a Neoclassical asterisk: one with an even number of
lobes, each in symmetrical teardrop form. But a twentieth-century
neohumanist face like Palatino requires an asterisk with more cal-
ligraphic character - sharper, slightly asymmetrical lobes, more
likely five than six in number, showing the trace of the broadnib
pen. Well-made fonts are distinguished by similar differences
in the question and exclamation marks, quotation marks and
commas. Not even simple periods are freely interchangeable.
Some are elliptical, diamond-shaped or square instead of round.
Their weight and fitting varies as well. The visible invisibility of
the marks of punctuation, which is essential to their function,
depends on these details. So, therefore, does the visible invisibil-
ity of the typeface as a whole. In the republic of typography, the
lowliest, most incidental mark is also a citizen.

77
 5.1.3 In heads and titles, use the best available ampersand.

Earlier The ampersand is a symbol evolved from the Latin et, meaning
typographers and. It is one of the oldest alphabetic abbreviations, and it has
made liberal use
of ampersands, assumed over the centuries a wonderful variety of forms. Con-
especially when temporary offerings are for the most part uninspired, stolid pret-
setting italic - zels: unmusical imitations of the treble clef. Often the italic font
and relished their
variety of form. is equipped with an ampersand less repressed than its roman
The 16th-century counterpart. Since the ampersand is more often used in display
French printer work than in ordinary text, the more creative versions are often
Christophe
Plantin some- the more useful. There is rarely any reason not to borrow the
times uses four italic ampersand for use with roman text.
quite different
ampersands in
the course of a Shakespeare eJ Co.
single paragraph,
even when setting Brown & Son
something as
unwhimsical as Smith & Daughter
the eight-volume
polylingual Bible Trump Mediaval italic (top) was designed by Georg Trump, Pontifex ro-
on which he
risked his fortune man (second two lines) by Friedrich Poppl. In both, the italic ampersand
and to which he is more stylish than the roman.
devoted more
than six years of
his life. 5.1.4 Consider even the lowly hyphen.

It is worth taking a close look at hyphens, which were once

more subtle and various than they tend to be today. The hyphen
was originally a simple pen stroke, often the thinnest stroke the
broadnib pen could make, at an angle of 20° to 45° above hori-
zontal. To distinguish the hyphen from the comma (which could
also be written as a simple, canted stroke), the hyphen was often
doubled, like an equal sign heading uphill.
Many Renaissance typographers preferred the canted hy-
phen with italic and the level hyphen with roman. Others
mixed the two at random - one of several techniques once used
to give a touch of scribal variety to the typeset page. But after the
death of the master printer Robert Estienne in 1559 and of Claude
Garamond in 1561, the level hyphen was the norm.
Most hyphens currently offered are short, blunt, thick, and
perfectly level, like refugees from a font of Helvetica. This has
sometimes been the choice of the designer, sometimes not. The
double hyphen designed by Hermann Zapf in 1953 for his type-
face Aldus, as an example, was omitted when the face was com-
mercially issued in 1954· Foundry Centaur, designed by Bruce
Rogers, had a hyphen inclined at 48°, but Monotype replaced it
with a level bar when the face was adapted for machine compo-
sition in 1929. And the original Linotype issue of W.A. Dwig-
gins's Electra had a subtly tapered hyphen inclined at 7° from
the horizontal; later copies of the face have substituted a bland,
anonymous form. Analphabetic
If you are tempted to redesign an existing font, using a digi- Symbols
tal font editor, the hyphen is a good character to start on. It is a
comparatively simple character, and you may be able to restore
instead of subvert the designer's original intentions.
A few alternatives to the blunt and level hyphen are also still
in circulation, and these are worth stealing on occasion for use
with another face. The hyphen in Monotype Poliphilus is can-
ted (as in the original design) at 42°. The hyphen in Monotype
Blacio (the companion italic to Poliphilus) is canted at 35° and
tapered as well. The hyphens in most of Frederic Goudy's text
faces are canted at angles ranging from 15° to 50°. Some digital Poliphilus &
Blado, above;
versions preserve this feature; others are more homogenized.
Kennerley below.
Canted and tapered hyphens are also to be found in many of the
faces of Oldi'ich Menhart. (In the original version of Men hart's
Figural, for example, the roman hyphen is tapered one way and
the italic hyphen the other.) Frederic Warde's Arrighi, Jose Men-
doza's Photina italic, and Warren Chappell's Trajanus all have
g--h
hyphens that are level but asymmetrically serifed, which gives
them a slight angular movement. The hyphen in Bram de Does's g--h
Trinite, a model of subtlety, is essentially level and unserifed but
has a slight calligraphic lift at one end.

fine-tuned/ eagle-eye
Frederic Warde's Arrighi, left, and Warren Chappell's Trajanus, right

Hyphens also once varied considerably in width, but most

now are standardized to a quarter of an em. Sometimes a shorter
hyphen is better. Some of Gerard Unger's and Martin Majoor's
economical Dutch hyphens (in faces such as Swift, Flora and
Scala) measure no more than a fifth of an em.
Line-end hyphens are often best hung in the right margin,
like the line-end hyphens on this and the facing page. This was
easy to do for the scribes, who made it a common practice, but

79
 it is tedious to emulate in metal. Digital typography makes it
potentially easy once again - though not all typesetting software
is equally eager to oblige.

5.2 DASHES, SLASHES & DOTS

Dashes, 5.2.1 Use spaced en dashes - rather than close-set em dashes or

Slashes spaced hyphens - to set off phrases.
and Dots
Standard computer keyboards and typewriters include only one
dash: the hyphen. Any normal font of text type, either roman or
italic, includes at least three. These are the hyphen and two sizes
of long dash: the en dash - which is one en (half an em, M/2) in
width - and the em dash-which is one em (two ens) wide. Many
fonts also include a subtraction sign, which may or may not be the
same length and weight as the en dash, and some include a figure
dash (equal to the width of a standard numeral). The three-quarter
em dash, and the three-to-em dash, which is one third of an em
(M/3) in length, are often missing but perfectly easy to make.
In typescript, a double hyphen (--) is often used for a long
dash. Double hyphens in a typeset document are a sure sign that
the type was set by a typist, not a typographer. A typographer
will use an em dash, three-quarter em, or en dash, depending on
context or personal style. The em dash is the nineteenth-century
standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em
dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized
space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted
aesthetic of Victorian typography.
Used as a phrase marker - thus - the en dash is set with a
normal word space either side.

5.2.2 Use close-set en dashes or three-to-em dashes between

digits to indicate a range.

Thus: 3-6 November; 4:30-5:00 PM; 25-30 mm. Set close in this
way (and with careful attention to kerning and spacing), the dash
stands for the word to. The hyphen is too short to serve this
function, and in some faces the en dash (which is traditionally
prescribed) appears too long. A three-to-em (M/3) dash is often
the best choice. There is no need to edit the font in order to make
such a creature. Typesetting software will happily condense the
en or em dash by any desired amount.

80
 When compound terms are linked with a dash in the midst
of running prose, subtle clues of size and spacing can be crucial,
and confusion can easily arise. A sentence such as The office will
be closed 25 December - 3 January is a linguistic and typographic
trap. When it stands all alone in a schedule or list, the phrase
25 December - 3 January will be clear, but in running prose it is
better both editorially and typographically to omit the dash and Analphabetic
insert an honest preposition: 25 December to 3 January. Symbols

5.2.3 Use the em dash to introduce speakers in narrative

dialogue.

The em dash, followed by a thin space (M/5) or word space, is the Unicode (see
normal European method of marking dialogue, and it is much p 181) defines a
special character
less fussy than quotation marks: [u+2015) as the
quotation dash.
- So this is a French novel? she said. Fonts containing
such a character
- No, he said, it's Manitoban. are rare. The em
dash is the typo-
5.2.4 In lists and bibliographies, use a three-em rule when graphic norm.

required as a sign of repetition.

Set without spaces, a line of true em dashes forms a continuous

midline rule. A three-em rule (three consecutive em dashes) is
the old standard bibliographical sign for the repetition of a name.
For example:

Boas, Franz. Primitive Art. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1927. Reissued Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1928; New York: Dover, 1955.
- - . Tsimshian Mythology. BAE Ann. Rep. 31. Washington, DC: Bureau of
American Ethnology, 1916.

In recent years, many professional scholars have abandoned

this style of bibliography, but the three-em rule still has many
nonacademic uses.

5.2.5 Use the virgule with words and dates, the solidus with split-
level fractions.

The slash, like the dash, is more various in real life than it is on
the typewriter keyboard. A normal font of type includes a vertical
bar and two slashes of differing inclinations. The steeper slash is
the virgule (/),an alternative form of the comma. It is useful in

81
 dates (6/6/99 = 6.v1.99 = 6 June 99) and in text where a comma
or parenthesis might otherwise have been used.

Wednesday I August 3 I 1977

Tibetan Guest House I Thamel I Kathmandu
Victoria University, Toronto I Ontario
Dashes, he/she hit him/her
Slashes
and Dots The other slash mark on the font is a solidus or fraction bar,
used to construct fractions such as 3/32. The solidus generally
slopes at close to 45° and kerns on both sides. The virgule, not the
solidus, is used to construct level fractions, such as 2rr/3. (Notice,
for instance, the difference in slope and kerning between the two
slash marks in the type specification 8/9V2.)

5.2.6 Use a dimension sign ( x) instead of the letter x when

dimensions are given.

A picture is 26 x 42 cm; studs are 2 x 4 and shelving is 2 x 10

inches; North American letter paper is 8Vi x 11.

5.2.7 Use ellipses that fit the font.

Most digital fonts now include, among other things, a prefabri-

cated ellipsis (a row of three baseline dots). Many typographers
1 ... J nevertheless prefer to make their own. Some prefer to set the
three dots flush ... with a normal word space before and after.
Others prefer ... to add thin spaces between the dots. Thick spaces
k ... . (M/3) are prescribed by the Chicago Manual of Style, but these
are another Victorian eccentricity. In most contexts, the Chicago
ellipsis is much too wide.
1. .. ,1 Flush-set ellipses work well with some fonts and faces but
not with all. At small text sizes - in 8 pt footnotes, for example
- it is generally better to add space (as much as M/5) between the
I, ... I dots. Extra space may also look best in the midst of light, open
letterforms~such as Baskerville, and less space in the company of
a dark font, such as Trajanus, or when setting in bold face. (The
m ... ? ellipsis generally used in this book is part of the font and sets as
a single character.)
In English (but usually not in French), when the ellipsis occurs
n ... ! at the end of a sentence, a fourth dot, the period, is added and
the space at the beginning of the ellipsis disappears .... When the

82
ellipsis combines with a comma, exclamation mark or question
mark, the same typographic principle applies. Otherwise, a word
space is required fore and aft.

5.2.8 Treat the punctuation as notation, not expression, most of

the time.
Analphabetic
Now and again the typographer finds on his desk a manuscript Symbols
in which the exclamation marks and question marks stand six or
nine together. Certain words may be written in bold capitals and
others may be underlined five times. If the page has been written
by hand, the dashes may get longer, and the screamers (exclama-
tions) may get taller as they go. With sufficient equipment and
time, the typographer can actually come close to reproducing
what he sees; he can even increase its dramatic intensity in any
of several ways. Theatrical typography is a genre that flourished
throughout most of the twentieth century, yet whose limits are
still largely unexplored.
Most writing and typography nevertheless remain content-
edly abstract, like a theater script or a musical score. The script
of Macbeth does not need to be bloodstained and spattered with
tears; it needs to be legible. And the score of Beethoven's Ham-
merklavier Sonata does not need bolder notes to mark fortissi-
mos nor fractured notes to mark the broken chords. The score is
abstract code and not raw gesture. The typeset script or musical See Joseph
Blotner & Noel
score is also a performance in its way - but only of the text. The Polk, "Note on
score is silent so the pianist can play. The script can whisper while the Texts:· in
the actors roar. William Faulk-
ner, Novels
William Faulkner, like most American novelists of his gen- 1930-1945 (New
eration, typed his final drafts. Noel Polk, a literary scholar and a York: Library of
specialist on Faulkner, has prepared new editions of these novels America, 1985),
p 1021, and
in recent years. He found that Faulkner usually typed three hy- Novels 1936-
phens for a long dash and four or five dots for an ellipsis, but that 1940 (1990 ),
once in a while he hammered away at the key, typing hyphens or p 1108. Photo-
reproductions
dots a dozen or more in a row. Polk decided not to try to replicate of Faulkner's
Faulkner's keyboard jigs exactly, but he did not want to edit them holographs
entirely away. He evolved the rule of converting two, three or four and typescripts
have also been
hyphens to an em dash, and five or more hyphens to a two-em published in 25
dash. Anything up to six dots, he replaced with a standard ellipsis, volumes as The
and he called for seven dots wherever Faulkner had typed seven Faulkner Manu-
scripts (New
dots or more. York: Garland,
These are typographic decisions that other editors or ty- 1986-87).
 pographers might have made in other ways. But the principle
underlying them is sound. That principle is: punctuation is cold
notation; it is not frustrated speech; it is typographic code.
Faulkner, we can presume, did not resort to bouts of extrava-
gant punctuation because he was unable to express himself in
words. He may, however, have been looking for some of the keys
Dashes, that the typewriter just doesn't have. The typographer's task is
Slashes to know the vocabulary and grammar of typography, and to put
and Dots them to meaningful use on Faulkner's behalf.

5.3 PARENTHESES

5.3.1 Use the best available brackets and parentheses, and set
them with adequate space.

Typographic parentheses are traditionally pure line, like the vir-

gule (!), the en dash ( - ) and the em dash ( - ). They are curved
rules - usually portions of perfect circles, with no variation in
weight - and in many older fonts they were loosely fitted, or set
with plenty of space between them and the text they enclose.
Parentheses in the form of swelled rules - thick in the middle and
pointed at the ends - first appeared in the early Baroque, faded
from view again in the Neoclassic age, and became the fashion,
along with lining figures, in the nineteenth century. Many of the
best twentieth-century text faces (Bruce Rogers's Centaur and
the Monotype Corporation's Bembo, for example) were historical
revivals that reasserted the older form.

(abc) (abc)
Monotype Centaur and Monotype Baskerville, above. Georg Trump's
Trump Mediaval Antiqua and Karl-Erik Forsberg's Berling, below.

(abc) (abc)
 The parentheses of some recent faces, such as Georg Trump's
Trump Mediaval Antiqua and Hermann Zapf's Comenius, are In older German
modulated, asymmetrical strokes, based on the natural forms of typeface classifi-
cations, Antiqua
the broadnib pen. In other recent designs (Zapf's Melior and Zapf means roman
International, and Karl-Erik Forsberg's Berling, for example), the and mediiival
parentheses are symmetrically thick in the middle and thin at the actually means
Renaissance -
ends, like the nineteenth-century standard, but they are stretched because Italian
into the form of a partial superellipse, which gives them greater Renaissance
tension and poise. architects and
scribes revived
Parentheses in the form of nineteenth-century swelled rules and updated
are found by default on many digital fonts and have frequently been romanesque
added, by mistake or by design, to alphabets with which they don't and Carolingian
forms from the
belong- historical revivals of the printing types of Garamond and medieval period.
Baskerville for example. Trump Mediaval
If you are forced to work with a font whose parentheses Antiqua, or
Trump Medieval
fall below standard, borrow a better pair from elsewhere. And roman, despite its
whatever parentheses you use, check that they are not too tightly name, stems from
fitted (as in recent fonts they very often are). late Renaissance
forms.

5.3.2Use upright (i.e., "roman") rather than sloped parentheses,

brackets and braces, even if the context is italic.

Parentheses and brackets are not letters, and it makes little sense This rule has
to speak of them as roman or italic. There are vertical parentheses been broken
more often than
and sloped ones, and the parentheses on italic fonts are almost followed since
always sloped, but vertical parentheses are generally to be pref- the end of the
erred. That means they must come from the roman font, and may 16th century. It
was followed
need extra spacing when used with italic letterforms. more often than
broken by the
best of the early

(efg) (ejg) typographers

who set books in
italic: Aldus Man-
utius, Gershom
Soncino, Johann
Froben, Simon
The sloped square brackets usually found on italic fonts are, de Colines,
if anything, even less useful than sloped parentheses. If, perish Robert Estienne,
Ludovico degli
the thought, there were a book or film entitled The View from My Arrighi and Henri
[sic} Bed, sloped brackets might be useful as a way of indicating Estienne 11.
that the brackets and their contents are actually part of the title.
Otherwise, vertical brackets should be used, no matter whether
the text is roman or italic: "The View from My [sic] Bed" and "the
view from my [sic] bed."

85
 5.4 QUOTATION MARKS & OTHER INTRUSIONS

5-4.1 Minimize the use of quotation marks, especially with

Renaissance faces.

Typographers got by quite well for centuries without quotation

Quotation marks. In the earliest printed books, quotation was marked merely
Marks by naming the speaker - as it still is in most editions of the Vul-
and Other gate and King James Bibles. In the High Renaissance, quotation
Intrusions was generally marked by a change of font: from roman to italic
or the other way around. Quotation marks were first cut in the
middle of the sixteenth century, and by the seventeenth, some
printers liked to use them profusely. In books from the Baroque
and Romantic periods, quotation marks are sometimes repeated
at the beginning of every line of a long quotation. When these
distractions were finally omitted, the space they had occupied
was frequently retained. This is the origin of the indented block
quotation. Renaissance block quotations were set in a contrasting
face at full size and full measure.
Three forms of quotation mark are still in common use.
Inverted and raised commas - "quote" and 'quote' - are generally
"and" favored in Britain and North America. But baseline and inverted
commas - ,,quote" - are more widely used in Germany, and many

,,und" typographers prefer them to take the shape of sloped primes

(,,-") instead of tailed commas (,,-"). Guillemets, otherwise
known as duck-foot quotation marks, chevrons, or angle quotes
«et» - «quote» and <quote> - are the normal form in France and Italy,
and are widely used in the rest of Europe. French and Italian ty-
pographers set their guillemets with the points out, «thus», while
»Und« German-speaking typographers usually set them »the opposite
way«. In either case, thin spaces are customary between the guil-
lemets and the text they enclose.
An informative Quotation marks are sufficiently ingrained in modern edito-
history of rial sign language that it is difficult, in many kinds of texts, to do
punctuation
is M.B. Parkes, entirely without them. But many nonprofessional writers overuse
Pause and quotation marks. Good editors and typographers will reduce their
Effect (1993). appearance to a minimum, retaining only those that contribute
real information.
When quotation marks (including guillemets) are used, the
question remains, how many should there be? The usual British
practice is to use single quotes first, and doubles within singles:
'So does "analphabetic" mean what I think it means?' she said

86
suspiciously. When this convention is followed, most quotation
marks will be singles and therefore less obtrusive.
Common American practice is the reverse: "So," she said,
"does 'analphabetic' mean ... ?" This convention, using singles
within doubles instead of doubles within singles, ensures that
quotation flags will stand out. But some faces - Matthew Carter's
Galliard, for example - have prominent quotation marks, while Analphabetic
others have forms that are more discreet. Consider the face as Symbols
well as the text when deciding which convention to follow in
marking quotations.

5.4.2 Position quotation marks consistently in relation to the rest

of the punctuation.

Punctuation is normally placed inside a closing single or double

guillemet if it belongs to the quotation, and outside otherwise.
With other quotation marks, usage is less consistent. Most North
American editors like their commas and periods inside the raised
commas, "like this;' but their colons and semicolons outside. Many
British editors prefer to put all punctuation outside, with the milk
and the cat. The kerning capabilities of digital typesetters, espe-
".In."
cially in the hands of advertising typographers, have evolved an
intermediate third style, in which closing quotation marks are
kerned over the top of commas and periods. Typographically, this "OUt".
is a good idea with some faces in large sizes, but a bad idea with
many faces at text sizes, where a kerned quotation mark or apos-
trophe may look much like a question or exclamation mark.

"kern, 'kerning; kerned:'

When quotation marks are not kerned, it makes no typo-
graphic difference whether they follow commas and periods or
precede them. The difference is one of editorial rather than visual
discretion. But typographers, like editors, should be consistent,
whichever route they choose.

543 Omit the apostrophe from numerical plurals.

Houses are built with 2 x 4s; children and parents live through the
terrible twos; Europeans killed as many Europeans in the 1930s
as they did Native Americans and Africans in the 1800s.
 544 Eliminate other unnecessary punctuation.

Omit the period after metric units and other self-evident ab-
breviations. Set 5.2 m and 520 cm but 36 in. or 36", and in biblio-
graphical references, p 36f, or pp 396-424.
North American editors and typesetters tend to put periods
Quotation after all abbreviations or (more rarely) after none. The former
Marks practice produces a text full of birdshot and wormholes; the lat-
and Other ter can cause confusion. As a form of compromise, the Oxford
Intrusions house style, which is widely followed in Britain, has much to
commend it. This rule is: use a period only when the word stops
prematurely. The period is omitted if the abbreviation begins
with the first letter of the word and ends with the last. Thus:
Mrs Bodoni, Mr John Adams Jr and Ms Lucy Chong-Adams, Dr
McBain, St Thomas Aquinas, Msgr Kuruwezi and Fr O'Malley;
but Prof. Czeslaw Milosz and Capt. James Cook.
Periods are equally unnecessary in acronyms and other abbre-
viations written with small or large capitals. Thus: 3:00 AM and
450 Be; Washington, DC, and Mexico, DF; Vancouver, BC, and
Darwin, NT.
In the interests of typographic hygiene, unnecessary hyphens
should likewise be omitted. Thus: avant garde, bleeding heart, half-
hearted, postmodern, prewar, silkscreen and typeface, in prefer-
ence to the hyphenated alternatives. (It is good editorial practice,
however, to hyphenate compound adjectives unless they can be
fused into single words or will stand out as proper nouns. Thus,
one finds twentieth-century typefaces in limited-edition books but
publishes a limited edition at the end of the twentieth century and
rides the New York Subway in New York.And one finds lowercase
letters in the lower case.)
Apostrophes are needed for some plurals, but not for others,
and inconsistency is better than a profusion of unnecessary marks.
Thus: do's and don'ts; the ayes have it but the I's don't; the ewes
are coming but the you's are staying home.

545 Add punctuation, or preserve it, where it is necessary to

meaning.

The phrase twenty one night stands is ambiguous when written,

but if the speaker knows what he means, it will be perfectly clear
when spoken. Typography answers to vocal inflection in distin-
guishing twenty one-night stands from twenty-one nightstands.

88
 In the careful language of science and poetry, hyphens can
be more important still. Consider the following list of names:
Douglas-fir, balsam fir, Oregon ash, mountain-ash, redcedar,
yellowcedar, Atlas cedar, white pine, yellow pine, blue spruce.
All these names are correct as they stand. They would be less so
if an eager but ignorant editor, or a typographer obsessed with
graphic hygiene, tried to standardize the hyphens. The terms are Analphabetic
written differently because some are made from nouns that are Symbols
only borrowed, others from nouns that are generic. The balsam fir
is what it claims to be: a fir; the Douglas-fir is not; it is a separate
genus waiting for a proper English name. The Oregon ash, like-
wise, is an ash, but the mountain-ash is not, and the Atlas cedar is
a cedar, but redcedar and yellowcedar (or yellow-cedar) are not.
The differences, though subtle, are perfectly audible in the speech
of knowledgeable speakers (who say balsam fir and Douglas-fir
and mountain-ash and Oregon ash). A good typographer will
make the same distinctions subtly visible as well. In the present
state of typographic art and editorial convention, this is done not
by spattering the page with boldface syllables but by the judicious
and subtle placement of hyphens.

5.5 DIACRITICS

5.5.1 Use the accents and alternate sorts that proper names and
imported words and phrases require.

Simplicity is good, but so is plurality. Typography's principal func-

tion (not its only function) is communication, and the greatest
threat to communication is not difference but sameness. Com-
munication ceases when one being is no different from another:
when there is nothing strange to wonder at and no new infor-
mation to exchange. For that reason among others, typography
and typographers must honor the variety and complexity of hu-
man language, thought and identity, instead of homogenizing
or hiding it.
Typography was once a fluently multilingual and multicul-
tural calling. The great typographers of the fifteenth and sixteenth aaa
centuries worked willingly with North Italian whiteletter, Italian
or German blackletter, French script, Ashkenazi and Sephardic XN
Hebrew, orthotic and cursive and chancery Greek. The best
typographers of the twentieth century have followed their lead.
But typographic ethnocentricity and racism also have thrived in
a~ '
 the last hundred years, and much of that narrow-mindedness
is institutionalized in the workings of machines. Unregenerate,
uneducated fonts and keyboards, defiantly incapable of setting
anything beyond the most rudimentary Anglo-American alpha-
bet, are getting scarcer but are still not difficult to find.
Recent digital technology has made it possible for any typog-
Diacritics rapher to create special characters on demand - a luxury most
have been without since the seventeenth century. Prepackaged
fonts of impeccable design, with character sets sufficient to set
any word or name in any European and many Asian languages,
and the software to compose and kern these characters, are also
now available even to the smallest home and desktop operations.
Yet there are large-circulation newspapers in North America still
unwilling to spell correctly even the names of major cities, com-
posers and statesmen, or the annual list of winners of the Nobel
Prize, for fear of letters like fl and e.
Neither typographers nor their tools should labor under the
sad misapprehension that no one will enjoy or even mention
crepes flambees or a"ioli, no one will have a name like Antonin
Dvorak, S0ren Kierkegaard, Stephane Mallarme or Chloe Jones,
and no one will live in Obidos or Arhus, in Kromei'iz or 0ster Vra,
Pruhonice, Nagykoros, Dalasysla, K1rkaga~ or Koln.

5.5.2 Remap the font driver and keyboard to suit your own
requirements.

The conventional computer keyboard includes a number of char-

acters - @ # " + = { } I \ - < > - rarely required by most typesetters,
while frequently needed characters, such as the en dash, em dash,
acute accent, midpoint and ellipsis, are nowhere to be seen. Unless
your keyboard fits your needs as is, remap it. It should give you
ready access to whatever accented and analphabetic characters
you regularly use.
Unless your composition software places ligatures automati-
cally, you may find it easiest to insert them through a substitution
routine after the text is fully set. Some typographers, however,
(and I am one of them) prefer to rearrange their fonts or key-
boards so that all the basic ligatures are accessible directly from
the keyboard, as they are on a Monotype machine. Open and
close quotes can also be inserted through substitution routines,
but most typing and typesetting software will insert them auto-
matically. (This means, of course, that in words or names such as

90
Dutch 's-Hertogenbosch or Navajo 'Ashjjh 'Asdzaan, the software
will always make the wrong choice, which the typographer must
then correct by hand - or through yet another search-and-replace
routine.)
Compositors who seldom use accented characters often prefer
to set them through mnemonic codes, using a function key that
momentarily redefines the keyboard. Software that operates in Analphabetic
this way may produce 6 from the combination o + /, r from r + v, Symbols
Ufrom U + o, and so on. But if you use accented characters with
any frequency, you may find it worth your while to map them
directly to the keyboard. One way to do this is to install the stan-
dard prefabricated keyboards for each language you may need.
This, however, requires swapping from one to another as differ-
ent languages or even different names come up in multilingual
text, and it requires you to memorize a lot of different layouts.
Another solution is to create a custom keyboard (or even several
keyboards) that will meet your own particular requirements.
A typical customized keyboard for a Latin font is shown
overleaf. The purpose of this particular layout is general mul-
tilingual text work. This could mean something as complex as
polylingual manuals and packaging for technical products sold
on the global market, or something as simple as addressing an
envelope to Poland, or spelling the names correctly in the program
for a symphony performance in Chicago or Detroit.
The keyboard shown accommodates more than twenty Eu-
ropean languages, including Albanian, Basque, Breton, Catalan,
Danish, Dutch, English, Farnese, Finnish, Flemish, French, Fri-
sian, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish,
Portuguese, Romansch, Spanish, Swedish and Welsh. It will also
accommodate many African and Native American languages and Tagalog is the
most of the Pacific languages written in Latin script (including primary language
Bahasa Indonesia, Biko!, Cebuano, Fijian, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, of the Philippines.
Biko!, Cebuano,
Malay, Tagalog and Tahitian). Hiligaynon and
Expanded to its maximum dimensions, a standard keyboard Ilocano are
will give direct access to 47 x 6 = 282 glyphs. This is enough to other Philippine
languages with
handle all current European versions of the Latin alphabet. several million
The individual characters are identified and discussed in speakers each.
appendices A & B, pages 288-320.

91
 Cntrl wy £ z i u x
SHI FT w y $ % 0
& * (J +
Plain 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
Alt a e 6 u A :E I 6 (J

Cntrl 0 E E A J:> Y 0 s s u
Sample SH I FT Q W E R T Y U I o P 6 D
Layout Plain q w e r t y u 0 p [ l
for an Alt 0 e e a p y u 0 '" 0 ii
Expanded
Keyboard Cntrl A § D A E I 0 D t Y c
SH I FT A S D F G H J K L "/"
Plain a s d f g h k I '/'
Alt a B a a e 6 ii l y c
Cntrl A 6 <;: ~ ~ N 6 « » t N IE
SHIFT z x c v B N M µ ? A CE
Plain z x c v b n m a re
Alt a 6 <;: q ~ fl 6 0
n ~

Ambiguous characters are as follows. Row 1: Shift-6 is the degree sign.

Alt-hyphen is an en dash, and Alt-equal is an em dash. Row 4: Alt-comma
is the ordinal A. Alt-period is a midpoint. The slash key is a virgule, not a
fraction bar or solidus. Alt-slash is the ordinal o.
The two extra keys shown to the right in the bottom row are placed in
different positions by different keyboard manufacturers. On an ordinary
keyboard, one of these keys carries the backslash and pipe; the other
carries the swung dash and floating grave. Here, the backslash key is
reassigned to carry upper- and lowercase a-acute and n-acute. The swung
dash key is reassigned to the four typographic diphthongs or ligatured
vowels. The single and double quotation mark keys follow the "smart
quotes" convention. All other keys are coded one to one; they give a single
complete glyph for each stroke.
There are i88 characters in the keyboard layout shown. By employing
the Shift-Cntrl and Shift-Alt combinations, another 94 characters can be
added: enough to accommodate all variations on the Latin alphabet used
in Eastern and Western Europe.
("Alt" and "Control" are keyboard codes of the PC persuasion. On
the Macintosh keyboard, the counterparts are the "Option" and "Com-
mand" keys.)

92
CHOOSING & COMBINING TYPE

6
6.1 TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS

6.i.1 Consider the medium for which the typeface was originally
designed.

Typographic purists like to see every typeface used with the tech-
nology for which it was designed. Taken literally, this means that
virtually all faces designed before 1950 must be set in metal and
printed letterpress, and the majority must be set by hand. Most
typographers apply this principle in a more relaxed and complex
way, and settle for preserving something rather than everything
of a type's original character.
On the technical side, several things can be done to increase
the chance that a letterpress typeface will survive translation to
digital composition and offset printing.

6.i.2 When using digital adaptations of letterpress faces, choose

fonts that are faithful to the spirit as well as the letter of the old
designs.

Letterpress printing places the letterform into the paper, while

offset printing lays it on the surface. Many subtle differences re-
sult from these two approaches to printing. The letterpress adds
a little bulk and definition to the letter, especially in the thin
strokes, and increases the prominence of the ends of thin serifs.
Metal typefaces are designed to take advantage of these features
of letterpress printing.
On the offset press - and in the photographic procedures by
which camera-ready art and offset printing plates are prepared
_ thin strokes tend to get thinner and the ends of delicate serifs
are eaten away. In a face like Bembo, for instance, offset printing
I li•
tends to make features like the feet of i and I, and the heads and
feet of H and I, slightly convex, while letterpress printing tends
to make them slightly concave.
Faces designed for photographic manipulation and offset
printing are therefore weighted and finished differently from
letterpress designs. And adapting a letterpress face for digital
composition is a far from simple task.

93
 Digital fonts poorly translated from metal originals are some-
times too dark or light or blunt throughout, or uneven in stroke
weight, or faithless in their proportions. They sometimes lack
text figures or other essential components of the original design.
But digital translations can also be too faithful to the original.
They sometimes neglect the subtle adjustments that the shift
Technical from three-dimensional letterpress to two-dimensional offset
Consider- printing requires.
ations
6.i.3 Choose faces that will survive, and if possible prosper,
under the final printing conditions.

Bembo and Centaur, Spectrum and Palatino, are subtle and beau-

aa tiful alphabets, but if you are setting 8 pt text with a laser printer
on plain paper at 300 dpi, the refined forms of these faces will
be rubbed into the coarse digital mud of the imaging process. If

aa the final output will be 14 pt text set directly to plate at 2800 dpi,
then printed by good offset lithography on the best coated paper,
every nuance may be crystal clear, but the result will still lack the
character and texture of the letterpress medium for which these
faces were designed.
Some of the most innocent looking faces are actually the most

Ir difficult to render by digital means. Optima, for example - an

unserifed and apparently uncomplicated face - is (in its authentic
form) entirely constructed of subtle tapers and curves that can be
adequately rendered only at the highest resolutions.
Faces with blunt and substantial serifs, open counters, gentle
modeling and minimal pretensions to aristocratic grace stand the

aa best chance of surviving the indignities oflow resolution.Amasis,

Caecilia, Lucida Sans, Stone and Utopia, for example, while they
prosper at high resolutions, are faces that will also survive under

aa cruder conditions lethal to Centaur, Spectrum, Linotype Di dot or

almost any version of Bodoni.

6.1.4 Choose faces that suit the paper you intend to print on, or
paper that suits the faces you wish to use.

Most Renaissance and Baroque types were made to be pressed

into robust, lively papers by fairly robust means. They wilt
when placed on the glossy, hard-surfaced sheets that came into
vogue toward the end of the eighteenth century. Most Neoclas-
sical and Romantic types, on the other hand, were designed to

94
require smooth papers. Rough, three-dimensional papers break The types
their fragile lines. Geometric Modernist types such as Futura, associated with
these historical
and overhauled Realist types such as Helvetica, can be printed categories are
on rough and smooth papers alike, because they are fundamen- epitomized on
tally monochrome. (That is to say, the stroke is nearly uniform in pp 12-15 and
explored in
width.) But the aura of machine precision that emanates from a more detail in
type like Futura is reinforced by a smooth paper and contradicted chapter 7.
(or counterbalanced) by a paper that feels homespun.

6.2 PRACTICAL TYPOGRAPHY

6.2.1 Choose faces that suit the task as well as the subject.

You are designing, let us say, a book about bicycle racing. You
have found in the specimen books a typeface called Bicycle,
which has spokes in the 0, an A in the shape of a racing seat, a T
that resembles a set of racing handlebars, and tiny cleated shoes
perched on the long, one-sided serifs of ascenders and descend-
ers, like pumping feet on the pedals. Surely this is the perfect face
for your book?
Actually, typefaces and racing bikes are very much alike. Both
are ideas as well as machines, and neither should be burdened
with excess drag or baggage. Pictures of pumping feet will not
make the type go faster, any more than smoke trails, pictures of
rocket ships or imitation lightning bolts tied to the frame will
improve the speed of the bike.
The best type for a book about bicycle racing will be, first
of all, an inherently good type. Second, it will be a good type for
books, which means a good type for comfortable long-distance
reading. Third, it will be a type sympathetic to the theme. It will
probably be lean, strong and swift; perhaps it will also be Italian.
But it is unlikely to be carrying excess ornament or freight, and
unlikely to be indulging in a masquerade.

6.2.2 Choose faces that can furnish whatever special effects you
require.

If your text includes an abundance of numerals, you may want a

face whose numerals are especially well designed. Palatino, Pon-
tifex, Trump Mediaval and Zapf International, for example, all
recommend themselves. If you prefer three-quarter-height lining
numerals, your options include Bell, Trajanus and Weiss.

95
 If you need small caps, faces that lack them (such as Frutiger
and Meridien) are out of the running. If you need a range of
weights, Spectrum is disqualified but Frutiger may work. If you
need matching phonetics, your options include Stone Serif and
Sans, Lucida Sans, and Times Roman. For the sake of a match-
ing Cyrillic, you might choose Charter, Minion, Lazurski, Offi-
Practical cina, Quadraat, Warnock, or, among the unserifed faces, Syntax,
Typography Myriad or Futura. For the sake of a matching Greek, you might
choose Georgia or Palatino, or for the sake of a matching Chero-
kee, Plantagenet. To obtain a perfectly mated sanserif, you might
choose Haarlemmer, Legacy, Lucida, Le Monde, Officina, Quad-
raat, Scala, Seria or Stone. These matters are explored in more de-
tail in chapter 11, which addresses individual typefaces.
Special effects can also be obtained through more unorthodox
combinations, which are the subject of §6.5.

6.2.3 Use what there is to the best advantage.

If there is nothing for dinner but beans, one may hunt for an
onion, some pepper, salt, cilantro and sour cream to enliven the
dish, but it is generally no help to pretend that the beans are really
prawns or chanterelles.
When the only font available is Cheltenham or Times Ro-
man, the typographer must make the most of its virtues, limited
though they may be. An italic, small caps and text figures will
help immensely if they can be added, but there is nothing to be
gained by pretending that Times Roman is Bembo or Cheltenham
is Aldus in disguise.
As a rule, a face of modest merits should be handled with
great discretion, formality and care. It should be set in modest
sizes (better yet, in one size only) with the caps well spaced, the
lines well leaded, and the lower case well fitted and modestly
kerned. The line length should be optimal and the page impec-
cably proportioned. In short, the typography should be richly and
superbly ordinary, so that attention is drawn to the quality of the
composition, not to the individual letterforms. Only a face that
warrants close scrutiny should be set in a form that invites it.
Using what there is to best advantage almost always means
using less than what is available. Baskerville, Helvetica, Palatino
and Times Roman, for example - which are four of the most
widely available typefaces - are four faces with nothing to offer
 Baskerville roman
and its italic
Helvetica roman Choosing
and
Combining
and its oblique Type

Palatino roman
and its italic
Times New Roman
and its italic
Baskerville is an English Neoclassical face designed in Birmingham in
the 1750s by john Baskerville. It has a rationalist axis, thoroughgoing
symmetry and delicate finish.
Helvetica is a twentieth-century Swiss revision of a late nineteenth-
century German Realist face. The first weights were drawn in 1956 by
Max Miedinger, based on the Berthold Foundry's old Odd-job Sanserif,
or Akzidenz Grotesk, as it is called in German. The heavy, unmodulated
line and tiny aperture evoke an image of uncultivated strength, force and
persistence. The very light weights issued in recent years have done much
to reduce Helvetica's coarseness but little to increase its readability.
Palatino is a lyrical modernist face with a neohumanist architecture,
which is to say that it is written, not drawn, and that it is based on Ren-
aissance forms. It was created in 1948 by Hermann Zapf.
Times Roman - properly Times New Roman - is an historical pastiche
drawn by Victor Lardent for Stanley Morison in London in 193i. It has a
humanist axis but Mannerist proportions, Baroque weight, and a sharp,
Neoclassical finish.

97
 one another except public disagreement. None makes a good
companion face for any of the others, because each of them is
rooted in a different concept of what constitutes a letterform. If
the available palette is limited to these faces, the first thing to do
is choose one for the task at hand and ignore the other three.

Historical 6.3 HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Consider-
ations Typography, like other arts, preys on its own past. It can do so with
the callousness of a grave robber, or with the piety of unquestion-
ing ancestor worship. It can also do so in thoughtful, enlightened
and deeply creative ways.
Roman type has been with us for more than five centuries.
Its root components - the roman upper and lower case, basic
analphabetic symbols, and the arabic numerals - have been with
us for much longer yet. There are typographers who resolutely
avoid using any typeface designed in an earlier era, but even they
must learn something of how the older letterforms functioned,
because the ancient forms are living in the new. Typographers who
willingly use the old faces, and who wish to use them intelligently,
need to know all they can learn about the heritage they enjoy.

6.3.1Choose a face whose historical echoes and associations are

in harmony with the text.

Any contemporary library will furnish examples of typographic

anachronism. There are books on contemporary Italy and on
seventeenth-century France set in typefaces such as Baskerville
abc and Caslon, cut in eighteenth-century England. There are books
about the Renaissance set in faces that belong to the Baroque, and

abc books about the Baroque set in faces from the Renaissance. To a
good typographer it is not enough merely to avoid these kinds
of laughable contradictions. The typographer seeks to shed light
on the text, to generate insight and energy, by setting every text
in a face and form in which it actually belongs.
It is not that good typographers object to mixing centuries
and cultures. Many take delight in doing so - especially when they
have no other choice. A text from ancient Athens, for example,
cannot be set in an ancient Athenian version of roman type. A
face designed in North America in the 1990s may well be used
instead. Texts from seventeenth-century France or eighteenth-
century England also might be set perfectly well in faces of recent
design. But a face that truly suits an historical text is likely to
have some fairly clear historical content of its own. There is no
typeface equally suited to texts from Greek antiquity, the French
Baroque and the English Neoclassical period - though faces
equally unsuited to each of them abound.
The historical affiliations of individual typefaces are discussed Choosing
in chapters 7 and 11. and
Combining
6.3.2 Allow the face to speak in its natural idiom. Type

Books that leap historical boundaries and mix historical subjects

can pose complex and exciting typographic problems. But often,
if a text calls for a Renaissance type, it calls for Renaissance typog-
raphy as well. This usually means Renaissance page proportions
and margins, and an absence of bold face. It may also mean large
Renaissance versals, Renaissance style in the handling of quota-
tions, and the segregation of roman and italic. If the text calls for
a Neoclassical type, it likewise often calls for Neoclassical page
design. When you undertake to use an historical typeface, take the
trouble to learn the typographic idiom for which it was intended.
(Works of reference that may be useful in solving particular prob-
lems are listed in the bibliography, page 357.)

6.4 CULTURAL & PERSONAL CONSIDERATIONS

641 Choose faces whose individual spirit and character is in

keeping with the text.

Accidental associations are rarely a good basis for choosing a

typeface. Books of poems by the twentieth-century Jewish Ameri-
can poet Marvin Bell, for example, have sometimes been set in
Bell type -which is eighteenth-century, English and Presbyterian
- solely because of the name. Such puns are a private amusement
abc
for typographers; they also sometimes work. But a typographic
page so well designed that it attains a life of its own will be based
on real affinities, not on an inside joke.
abc
Letterforms have character, spirit and personality. Typog-
raphers learn to discern these features through years of working
first-hand with the forms, and through studying and comparing
the work of other designers, present and past. On close inspec-

99
 tion, typefaces reveal many hints of their designers' times and
temperaments, and even their nationalities and religious faiths.
Faces chosen on these grounds are likely to give more interesting
results than faces chosen through mere convenience of availability
or coincidence of name.
If, for example, you are setting a text by a woman, you might

aa prefer a face, or several faces, designed by a woman. Such faces

were rare or nonexistent in earlier centuries, but there are now a
number to choose from. They include Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse's

aa admirable Alcuin, Carmina, Diotima and Nofret families; Eliza-

beth Friedlander's Elizabeth; Kris Holmes's Sierra and Lucida;
Kris Holmes's and Janice Prescott Fishman's Shannon; Carol

aG Twombly's handsome text face Chaparral and her titling faces

Charlemagne, Lithos, Nueva and Trajan; Zuzana Licko's Journal
and Mrs Eaves, and Ilse Schiile's Rhapsodie. For some purposes,

a one might also go back to the work of Elizabeth Colwell, whose

Colwell Handletter, issued by ATF in 1916, was the first American
typeface designed by a woman.
But perhaps a text by a French author, or a text dealing with
France, might best be set in a French typeface, without regard to
the gender of author or designer. The choices include Garamond,
Jan non, Mendoza, Meridien, Vendome and many others, but even
this abbreviated list covers considerable range. Garamond - of
which there are many recent revivals - was designed in sixteenth-
century Paris. It owes much to Italian forms and belongs to the
world of Renaissance Catholicism. Jan non is equally elegant but
nonconformist. It belongs to the Reformation rather than the Re-
naissance, and its designer, Jean Jan non, was a French Protestant
who suffered all his life from religious persecution. Vendome,
designed by Frarn;:ois Ganeau, is a witty twentieth-century face
much indebted to Jannon. Mendoza, designed in Paris in 1990,
goes back to the tough humanist roots from which Garamond
sprang. Meridien, from the 1950s, is more in touch with the sec-
ular spirit of twentieth-century Swiss industrial design, yet it in-
cludes a regal, even imperious, upper case and a very crisp and
graceful italic. These five different faces invite additional differ-
ences in page design, paper and binding as well as different texts,
just as different musical instruments invite different phrasings,
different tempi, different musical modes or keys.
Even nations such as Greece and Thailand, which have al-
phabets of their own, share in a multinational tradition of type

100
 Garamond roman
and its italic
Jannon roman Choosing
and
Combining
and its italic Type

Mendoza roman
and its italic
Meridien roman
and its italic
Vendome roman
and its oblique
Stempel Garamond is the Stempel Foundry's replica of a text roman and
italic designed by Claude Garamond (c. 1490-1561). (Compare the repro-
ductions of some of Garamond's actual type on page 74.)
Monotype 'Garamond' 156 is a revival of a type designed by Jean Jan-
non (1580-1658), the greatest typecutter of the French Baroque. Jannon's
type was once misidentified as Garamond's and is still routinely sold
under his name.
Mendoza was designed about 1990 by Jose Mendoza y Almeida.
Adrian Frutiger's Meridien and Frarn;:ois Ganeau's Vend6me are products
of the 1950s. Ganeau - who worked as a painter, sculptor and set designer
more than as a typographer - based Vend6me on Jannon's letters, but
moved them playfully in the direction of French Neoclassicism.

101
 design. Nevertheless, some typefaces seem more redolent of
national character than others. Frederic Goudy, for example, is
widely regarded as the most ebulliently American of all Ameri-
can type designers. The sensitive typographer would not choose
one of Goudy's faces to set, let us say, the text of the Canadian or
Mexican constitution.
Cultural This subject is a lifelong study, and for serious typographers
and Personal it is a lifelong source of discovery and delight. Here it is pursued
Consider- at greater length in chapter 11. Appendix o (page 333) is a cross-
ations indexed list of type designers.

6.5 THE MULTICULTURAL PAGE

Consistency is one of the forms of beauty. Contrast is another. A

fine page, even a fine book, can be set from beginning to end in
one type in one size. It can also teem with variety, like an equato-
rial forest or a modern city.

6.5.1 Start with a single typographic family.

Most pages, and most entire documents, can be set perfectly well
with only one family of type. But perhaps the page confronting
you requires a chapter title, two or three levels of subheads, an
epigraph, a text in two languages, block quotations within the
text, a couple of mathematical equations, a bar graph, several
explanatory sidenotes, and captions for photographs and a map.
aAa An extended type family, such as Legacy, Lucida, Quadraat, Seria
or Stone, may provide sufficient resources even for this task. An-
aAa other possibility is Gerard Unger's comprehensive series known
as Demos, Praxis and Flora - which is a family with no surname
a Aa to unite it. Each of these series includes both roman and italic in a
range of weights, matching serifed and unserifed forms, and other
aAa variations. If you restrict yourself to faces within the family, you
can have variety and homogeneity at the same time: many shapes
and sizes but a single typographic culture. Such an approach is
well suited to some texts, poorly suited to others.
You can also, of course, mix faces at random, by drawing
them out of a hat.
Between these two extremes is the wide arena of thoughtful
mixing and matching, in which the typographic intelligence often
does its most creative work and play.

102
6.5.2 Respect the integrity of roman, italic and small caps.

It has been the normal practice of type designers since the middle
of the sixteenth century to offer text faces in the form of a matched
triad, consisting of roman, italic and small caps. Because some
of these marriages are more successful than others, it is wise to
examine the roman and the italic both separately and together Choosing
when choosing a text face. and
There are several celebrated instances in which an italic de- Combining
signed by one artist has been happily and permanently married Type
to another designer's roman. These matches always involve some
redrawing (and the face that is most heavily redrawn is almost
always the italic, which is the subsidiary and 'feminine' font in
post-Renaissance typography). There are also instances in which
a roman and its italic have been designed by the same artist many
years apart. But casual liaisons, in which the roman of one family
is paired momentarily with the italic of another, have little hope
of success. Mixing small caps from one face with full caps from
another is even less likely to succeed.
If you use type strictly in the Renaissance manner, treating
the roman and italic as separate but equal, not mixing them on
the line, you may find that greater latitude is possible. Jan van
Krimpen's Lutetia italic mixes well with his later Romanee roman,
for example, if the two are not too intimately combined. One is
visibly more mature than the other, but they are close in color and
structure, and they are patently the work of the same designer.

6.5.3 Consider bold faces on their own merits.

E
The original boldface printing types are the blackletters used by
Gutenberg in the 1440s. For the next two centuries, blackletter
fonts were widely used not only in Germany but in France, Spain,
the Netherlands and England. (That is why blackletter fonts are
occasionally sold in the USA as 'Olde English:)
Boldface romans, however, are a nineteenth-century inven-
tion. Bold italic is even more recent, and it is hard to find a suc-
cessful version designed before 1950. Bold romans and italics
have been added retroactively to many earlier faces, but they are
often simply parodies of the original designs.
Before using a bold weight, especially a bold italic, ask yourself
whether you really need it at all. If the answer is yes, you may want

103
 to avoid type families such as Bembo, Garamond or Baskerville,
to which bold weights have been retroactively added but do not
in fact belong. You might, instead, choose a twentieth-century
family such as Apollo, No fret or Scala, in which a range of weights
is part of the original design.
If your text face lacks a bold weight, you may also find an
The appropriate bold close by. Hermann Zapf's Aldus, for example,
Multicultural is a twentieth-century family on the Renaissance model, limited
Page to roman, italic and small caps. But Aldus is a close cousin of the
same designer's Palatino family, which does include a bold, and
Palatino bold sits comfortably enough with Aldus text.

a aardvark; b balloon; 3 thruppence

Aldus 16 pt roman and italic with Palatino 15 pt bold

Equally interesting results can often be obtained by reaching

much farther afield. The normal function of boldface type is, after
all, to contrast with the roman text. If the bold is used in small
amounts, and bold and roman are not too intimately combined,
a difference in structure as well as weight may be an asset. Under
these conditions, a typographer is free to choose both roman and
bold on their own merits, seeking basic compatibility rather than
close genetic connection.

c chinstrap; d daffodil; 6 saxophone

Sabon 16 pt roman and italic with Zapf International 15 pt demi bold

A text might be set in Sabon, for example, with Zapf Inter-

national as a titling face and Zapf International demi or heavy
for subheads and flags. Structurally, these are very different faces,
with very different pedigrees. But Sabon has the calm and steady
flow required for setting text, while Zapf International's vitality
makes it a good face for titling - and this vitality persists even in
the boldest weights. The bold weights of fonts that are closer in
structure Sabon often look splayed and deformed.
Fifteenth-century typographers - Nicolas Jenson for example
- rarely mixed fonts except when mixing languages. They loved an
even page. Bold roman is therefore an appendage they did happily
without. If, nevertheless, you were using one of the fine text faces

104
based on Jenson's single roman font and wanted to embellish it
with bold, you might consider using Jenson's kind of bold. The
only dark faces he cut were blackletters.

1Elevc elephant; fool filibuster; lvi phytogenic

Bruce Rogers's Centaur (here i6 pt) with Karlgeorg Hoefer's San Marco Choosing
(12 pt). Centaur is based on the roman that Nicolas Jenson cut at Venice and
in i469. San Marco is based on the rotundas he cut there in the i47os. Combining
Type
6.5.4 Choose titling and display faces that reinforce the structure
of the text face.

Titling faces, display faces and scripts can be chosen on much the
same principles as bold faces. Incestuous similarity is rarely a ne-
cessity, but empathy and compatibility usually are.A geometrically
constructed, high-contrast face such as Bauer Bodoni, beautiful
though it may be, has marginal promise as a titling face for a text
set in Garamond or Bembo, whose contrast is low and whose
structure is fundamentally calligraphic. (Bodoni mixes far more
happily with Baskerville - of which it is not a contradiction but
rather an exaggeration.)

6.5.5 Pair serifed and unserifed faces on the basis of their inner
structure.

When the basic text is set in a serifed face, a related sanserif is

frequently useful for other elements, such as tables, captions or
notes. In complicated texts, such as dictionary entries, it may
also be necessary to mix unserifed and serifed fonts on the same
line. If you've chosen a family that includes a matched sanserif,
your problems may be solved. But many successful marriages
between serifed and unserifed faces from different families are
waiting to be made.

Frutiger Meridien Univers

The version of
Frutiger used
here is the recent
Suppose your main text is set in Meridien - a serifed roman revision known
as Frutiger Next.
and italic designed by Adrian Frutiger. It would be reasonable
to look first of all among Frutiger's other creations for a related
sanserif. Frutiger is a prolific designer of types, both serifed and

105
 unserifed, so there are several from which to choose. Univers is
his most widely used sanserif. But another of his unserifed faces
- the one to which he gave his own name - is structurally much
closer to Meridien and works handsomely as a companion.
Hans Eduard Meier's Syntax is a sanserif much different in
structure from either Frutiger or Univers. It is based on serifed
The Renaissance forms like those of Garamond. It works well with
Multicultural such faces as Stempel or Adobe Garamond, or with Sabon, another
Page descendant of Garamond, designed by Meier's contemporary and
countryman, Jan Tschichold.
If your choice falls on a more geometric sanserif, such as
Futura, a Renaissance roman will hardly suffice as a serifed com-
panion. Many romans based on the work of Bodoni, however,
breathe much the same spirit as Futura. They aspire not to cal-
ligraphic motion but to geometric purity.

Gabocse escobaG
Gabocse escobaG
Gabocse escobaG
Syntax and Minion, above; Futura and Berthold Bodoni, center; Helvetica
and Haas Clarendon, below.

6.6 MIXING ALPHABETS

6.6.1 Choose non-Latin faces as carefully as Latin ones.

Mixing Latin letters with Hebrew or Arabic is, in principle,

aN scarcely different from mixing roman with blackletter or serif

with sans. Different though they look, and even though they read
in different directions, all these alphabets spring from the same

ax source, and all are written with similar tools. Many structural
similarities underlie the obvious differences. A book involving
more than one alphabet therefore poses some of the same ques-
tions posed by a bilingual or polylingual book set entirely in Latin
letters. The typographer must decide in each case - after studying
the text - whether to emphasize or minimize the differences. In
general, the more closely different alphabets are mixed, the more

106
important it becomes that they should be close in color and in
size, no matter how superficially different in form.
The Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets are as closely related
in structure as roman, italic and small caps. (And in most Cyril-
lic faces, the lower case is close in color and shape to Latin small
caps.) Random marriages of Latin and Greek, or Latin and Cyril-
lic, look just as ungainly and haphazard as random combinations Choosing
of roman, italic and small caps - but excellent sets of related faces and
have developed, and a few homogeneous polyglot families have Combining
been designed. Type

Plato and Aristotle both quote

the line of Parmenides that says
7tpwna-rov µ£v ''Epwra Sewv µ11-r[aa-ro
7tav-rwv: "The first of all the gods to
arise in the mind of their mother was
,,
PHYSICAL LOVE.

fpeKM 6orOTBOpMJIM rrp11po.n;y M

3asern;an11 MMPY CBOIO pen11r1110,
TO ecTb cftullococftu10 u ucKyccmBo,
says a character named Shatov in
Dostoevsky's novel Demons: "The
Greeks deified nature and bequeathed
to the world their religion, which is
philosophy and art."
Robert Slimbach's Minion roman, italic and small caps, with upright and
cursive forms of Minion Cyrillic and Minion Greek.

107
 CD Y:Ll:L AS THE SOUL/ THE SOUL AS rNQ:Ll:L.
The second proposition of Thales declares that the
All is alive, or has Soul in it (To TTav Eµy;vxov ). This
statement accounts for the mobility of cpucns. Its motion,
and its power of generating things other than itself, are
The text on this due to its life ( 'f'VXTJ), an inward, spontaneous principle
page is set in ITC
Mendoza 10/13
of activity. (Cf. Plato, Laws 892c: cpuow l)ou/..ovTm M.-
with 12 pt GFS YEIV yEvrnw Ti]v mpi Ta TTpwTa· El 8!\ cpavricrETm y;vxii
Neo Hellenic. On
the facing page,
TTPWTOV, OU TTUP ou8E aiJp, y;vxii 2,,' EV TTPWTO!S YEYEV11-
the roman and µEVT), crxE8ov 6p66TaTa AEyon' &v EtvO! 81acpEpOVTC.US
italic are Figural cpvcrE!.) ...
10/I3; the Greek
is 10.5 pt GFs It is a general rule that the Greek philosophers describe
Porson. The caps cpucr1s as standing in the same relation to the universe as
in both Greek
fonts have been soul does to body. Anaximenes, the third Milesian, says:
resized. (The OloV 1) 'f'VXfi 1) i)µETEpa ai}p oucra crvyKpaTEl !)µas, Kai
original edition
of Cornford's
8/..ov Tov Kocrµov TTVEuµa Kai ai}p mptEXEL "As our soul
book, printed in is air and holds us together, so a breath or air embraces the
1912, was set in
whole cosmos." 1 ...
the curious
combination The second function of Soul - knowing - was not at
of Century first distinguished from motion. Aristotle says, cpaµ!\v yap
Expanded and
Porson Greek.) Ti]v y;vxfiv AvmfoOm xaipE!V, OappEtV cpol)Efo601, ET! 8E
6pyi~m6ai TE Kai alcrOavmOm Kai 81av0Efo601· TauTa 8!\
TTCxVTa K!VTJO'El) El VO! 80KOUO'!V. o6EV OtT)6EiT) Tl) av auTi}V
K1vEfo601. "The soul is said to feel pain and joy, confidence
and fear, and again to be angry, to perceive, and to think;
and all these states are held to be movements, which might
lead one to suppose that soul itself is moved." 2 Sense-
perception ( afoOT)crts), not distinguished from thought,
was taken as the type of all cognition, and this is a form of
action at a distance. 3

1 Frag. 2. Compare Pythagoras' "boundless breath" outside the heavens, which is

inhaled by the world (Arist., Phys. 213b22), and Heraclitus' "divine reason," which
surrounds ( Trep1exe1) us and which we draw in by means of respiration (Sext. Emp.,
Adv. Math. vii.127).
2 De anima 408b1.
3 De anima 410a25: Those who make soul consist of all the elements, and who
hold that like perceives and knows like, "assume that perceiving is a sort of being
acted upon or moved and that the same is true of thinking and knowing" (TO 2'
aia6avecr6at TrOUXElV Tl Kai Ktvefo6at Tt6foatv oµoiws 8e Kai TO voeiv TE Kai
y1yvwaKe1v).

108
 All such action, moreover, was held to require a continu-
ous vehicle or medium, uniting the soul which knows to
the object which is known. Further, the soul and its object
must not only be thus linked in physical contact, but they
must be alike or akin ....
It follows from this principle that, if the Soul is to know The texts on
this and the
the world, the world must ultimately consist of the same facing page are
substance as Soul. <Dvm<; and Soul must be homogeneous. adapted from
F.M. CORNFORD's
Aristotle formulates the doctrine with great precision:
From Religion
to Philosophy: A
oaol /)' E7Tl TO ylvwaKElv Kal. TO aia8avw8m Twv ovTwv, Study in the Ori-
OVTOl DE Myovm TT/I! !/Jvxr1v TCTS' apxa<;, oi f1EV 7TAEloVS' 7TOl- gins of Western
Speculation
OVVTE<;', TaVTa<;', oi DE µiav, TaVTYJV, wa1TEp 'Eµ7TEDOKA~S' f1EV EK (London, 1912).
Twv arnlxEiwv ?TavTwv, Etvm DE Kal. EKaarnv !/Jvx~v TOVTwv, Some of the
Mywv ovTw<; Greek quota-
tions have been
extended, and
ya{n µEv yap yaiav 07TW7Taµw, vDan D' vDwp, some have been
ai8Epl D' aWf.pa Diav, aTap 7TVpl 7TVp a'tDYJAOV, moved from the
footnotes into the
arnpyfJ DE arnpy~v, VElKOS' DE TE VElKEi. /..vypep.
main text. This
makes Cornford's
TOI! avTOV DE TP07TOV Kal I1ACTTWV EV Tep Tlµa{w T~V !/Jv- prose seem more
x~vEK TWV UTOlXElWV 7TOlEl' YlYVWaKw8m yap Tep oµo{cp TO pedantic and
less lucid than
oµowv, Ta DE 77payµarn EK TWV apxwv Elvm. it really is, but it
poses a harder
«Those who laid stress on its knowledge and percep- test for the type
tion of all that exists, identified the soul with the ultimate and at the same
time permits a
principles, whether they recognized a plurality of these or more compact
only one. Thus, Empedocles compounded soul out of all typographic
the elements, while at the same time regarding each one of demonstration.

them as a soul. His words are,

«With earth we see earth, with water water,
«with air bright air, ravaging fire by fire,
«love by love, and strife by gruesome strife.
«In the same manner, Plato in the Timaeus constructs
the soul out of the elements. Like, he there maintains, is
known by like, and the things we know are composed of
the ultimate principles .... »4

109
 These lines Ho 5I rrpeAyrrpe)KAaID Bae,
are from §5
of Anna
Akhmatova's But I'm warning you,
B copoKOBOM
ro11y. q TO 5I )l(li1BY B IIOCAeAHV1M pa3.
this is my last existence.
Hu AacToqKoM, HV1 KAeHoM,
Not as a swallow, not as a maple,
Hu TpocTHV1KOM u HU 3Be3AOM ...
not as a cat-tail and not as a star ...
The words of Anna Akhmatova in the letters ofVadim Lazurski. The type
is Lazurski Cyrillic with its companion roman.

Greek letters, like Greek words, are used for many purposes in
non-Greek-speaking countries. Physicists and fraternity members,
astronomers and novelists have raided the old alphabet for sym-
bols. Because of their frequent use in mathematics and technical
writing, a grab-bag of Greek letters lurks somewhere in nearly ev-
ery digital typesetting system. a,~, y, e, rr, n (alpha, beta, gamma,
theta, pi, cap omega) and their brethren are usually housed, with
other mathematical symbols, in a ghetto called the pi font. But
setting Greek text with such a font is not a thankful task. Pi fonts
lack the breathing marks and accents used in the classical lan-
guage, and even the two simple diacritics (acute and diaeresis)
that survive in modern Greek; and some pi fonts include only ten
Greek caps - r f:i. e i\ B IT :E <I> '¥ 0 - because the others - A B
E H Z I K M N 0 P TY X - have familiar roman forms, though
not in every case the same phonetic value.
A text that includes even a single Greek quotation calls for a
Greek text font rather than a pi font. A text font will include not
only the full alphabet but matching punctuation and all the mono-
tonic (modern) or polytonic (classical) diacritics. It will include
two forms of lowercase sigma (i:;, used at the ends of words, and
CJ, used everywhere else). If it is a polytonic font, it will include

110
in addition three sets oflong vowels with iota subscripts (q., ft,¢,
etc). With luck, the font will include a sensible kerning table as
well. This is a lot to ask from an industry in which there is, of-
ficially, no culture other than commerce and no purpose except
monetary gain. It is a lot to ask, but not by itself enough. In Greek
as in any other alphabet, the face must suit the text. It must also
suit the context, which is likely to be roman and italic. Choosing
There may be 60,000 fonts of type for the Latin alphabet now and
on the market in digital form. These comprise some 7,000 fam- Combining
ilies. Perhaps two per cent of them are truly useful for text work Type
- but a hundred families of type is still a very generous number,
and the available text faces cover a wide stylistic range. With a
little scrounging, one can turn up several dozen digital fonts of
Greek - but again, only a small percentage of these have any real
potential for text work. It is therefore often best to choose a Greek
font first, and then a roman and italic to go with it, even when
only a few Greek words or a single Greek quotation is present in
the text you are going to set.
Two Greek text fonts with eminent credentials - Victor Schol-

&~y
derer's New Hellenic, designed in 1927, and Richard Parson's Par-
son, designed in 1806 - are shown, in their digital incarnations, on
pages 108-109. Parson's Greek was first commissioned by Cam-
bridge University Press, but it became in the twentieth century the
favorite Greek at Oxford, while Scholderer's New Hellenic became
the favorite Cambridge Greek. New Hellenic in particular has an
eminent Renaissance pedigree further discussed in §11.7.
Uf3y
6.6.2 Match the continuity of the typography to the continuity of
thought.

A text composed in a single dialect may be full ofleaps and holes,

while a text that hops and skips through several languages and
alphabets may in fact be tracing a path that is perfectly smooth.
The continuity, or lack of continuity, that underlies the text should
as a rule be revealed, not concealed, in the cloth the typographer
weaves.
An author who quotes Greek or Hebrew or Russian or Ara-
bic fluently and gracefully in speech should be permitted to do
likewise on the page. Practically speaking, this means that when
the alphabets are mixed, they should be very closely balanced
both in color and in contrast.

111
 abyohi &~yo61 abyohi
abyohi &~yo61 abyohi
Mixing
Alphabets abyohi &~yo61 abyohi
Victor Scholderer's New Hellenic paired with Jose Mendoza's Mendoza
(above), with Peter Matthias Noordzij's Caecilia (center) and with Adobe
Jenson (below). Mendoza is a face with very low contrast (the thicks and
thins are nearly the same). New Hellenic and Caecilia have an unmodu-
lated stroke - in other words, no contrast at all. New Hellenic and Adobe
Jenson have stylistic compatibility of a different kind. Both stem from the
work of Nicolas Jenson, who in 1469 cut the father of this roman and in
1471 the grandfather of this Greek.

Flow and slope are other factors to consider, especially when

balancing Latin and Greek. Many Greek text faces (the Porson
and Didot Greeks for example) are structurally comparable to
italics. That is, they are cursive. Some of them are upright none-
theless (like the Didot), and some (like the Porson) slope. When
roman, italic and Greek are combined on the page, the Greek
may be upright like the roman, or it may harmonize with the
italic in flow and slope. It may also stand aloof, with a gait and
inclination of its own.

6.6.3 Balance the type optically more than mathematically.

Two other factors of importance when types sit side by side are
their torso (x-height) and extension. When a long-limbed Greek
is paired with a short-limbed Latin, the difference will stand out.
Large disparities in x-height are far more obvious still. In metal,
this is a harsh typographic constraint. In the digital medium, it is
easy to match the torso of any Greek face to that of any Latin face
exactly, through microscopic adjustments in size. But an optical,
not mathematical, match is the goal. Classical Greek, beneath its
cloud of diacritics, needs more room to breathe than roman type.
And when setting Greek in footnotes, the minimum practical size
is the size at which the accents are still legible.

112
 abyohia~yo8labyohi
abyohia~yo8tabyohi
Choosing
abyohia~yo~iabyohi and
Combining
Above: The Greek of Richard Person paired with W.A. Dwiggins's Electra. Type
Center: Didot Greek paired with Adobe Caslon. Below: The Bodoni Greek of
Takis Katsoulides paired with the Esprit roman and italic of)ovica Veljovic.
Electra italic and Person Greek both have a slope of 10°, while the Casi on
italic slopes at 20°. Person, with its rationalist axis, also has a structural
kinship to Electra. The Didot Greek, though Neoclassical in form, is closer
in color to Caslon. Katsoulides's more playful Bodoni Greek is closer both
in structure and in spirit to Esprit.

The type on page 109 looked fine when it was first roughed
out in bald Greek letters identical in x-height to the roman. When
the bald sorts were replaced with accented letters, the Greek was
still mathematically correct but optically too large. Balance was
restored by shrinking the Greek from 11 to 10.5 pt. The x-height
of the type is (as usual in a Neoclassical text face) only about two
fifths of the body size. The difference in x-height between 10.5 and
11 pt type is accordingly two fifths of half a point. That is roughly
70 µm, which is less than 0.003 inch. Not much, but enough to
unbalance or balance the page.

6.7 NEW ORTHOGRAPHIES

No writing system is fixed. Even our ways of writing classical Latin

and Greek continue to change, along with our ways of writing and
spelling such rapidly mutating languages as English. But many
languages old to speech are new to writing, and many have not
yet decided their literate form.
In North America, for example, Navajo, Hopi, Tlingit, Cree,
Ojibwa, Inuktitut and Cherokee, among others, have evolved quite
c• b
stable writing systems, in which a substantial printed literature
has accrued. But many Native American languages are still being
written in different ways by every scholar and student who hap-

ll3
 pens by. Some, like Tsimshian, Fox and Kwakwala, already possess
a considerable written literature, but in cumbersome scripts that
even scholars have ceased to use.
Typographers must generally confront these problems piece-
meal. Alphabets are often created by fiat, but it is usually in tiny
increments that real typographic style evolves.
New
Orthogra- 6.7.1 Add no unnecessary characters.
phies
Colonial expansion has carried the Arabic alphabet across the
north of Africa and much of southern Asia, Cyrillic script across the

dg north of Asia, and the Latin alphabet around the world. For better or
for worse, most of those learning to read and write in newly literate
languages are exposed to writing in a colonial language first. For

1)Jb readers and typographers alike, the basic Latin, Cyrillic or Arabic
alphabet is therefore often the easiest place to start, and the fewer
additional symbols required the better. The dream of a common
language, imposed upon many minority cultures, has proven for
most to be a nightmare. But in a world where there are hundreds
of ancestral and classical languages and literatures instead of one
or two, prayers for renewed diversification often entail the dream
of a common script.

Wa'gien sq!e'fi.gua la'na hin sa'wan, "K!wa la t!ala'fi. l

gia\itc!in:'

Wagyaan sqqinggwa llaana hin saawan, "Kkwa Ila

ttaalang hi gyadliittsin:'

A sentence in the Haida language, in the earliest standard orthography

(first used in 1900) and a more recent, simplified version. In the former,
glottalized consonants are marked by exclamations and long vowels by
macrons. In the latter, both are notated by doubling. (Translation: Then
the one in the bow said, 'Let us take it aboard.')

6.7.2 Add only characters that are visually distinct.

The texture of the typographic page depends not only on how

the type is designed, set and printed, but also on the frequency
of different letters. Latin looks smoother than English (and much
smoother than German) because it uses fewer ascending and
descending letters, no accented characters, and (in the hands of

114
most editors) very few caps. Polynesian languages - Maori and
Hawaiian, for example - which are long on vowels and short on
consonants, compose into a texture even creamier than Latin,
and require an even smaller alphabet.
Most languages need more, not fewer, consonants than the
basic Latin alphabet provides. There may be (as in Haida and
Tlingit) four forms of k, or (as in the Khoisan languages of south-
west Africa) 36 different clicks - and if each is lexically significant,
each needs a distinctive typographic form.
Vowels are fairly easy to elaborate when need be; except
for they, they have no extenders. Navajo, for example, involves
*' *'!' '!* -
twelve forms of a - a, aa, <), 'l<), a, aa, aa, aa, H, all easily In the Navajo
alphabet (saad
distinguished. Typographically, it would be no problem to add
bee 'ci/'ini), long
another dozen forms. vowels are writ-
Consonants are not quite so easy to ramify, just because so ten double and
many have extenders. Typographically deficient forms therefore nasal vowels are
written with an
often crop up. Lakhota, for example - the language of the Sioux ogonek. High
- requires two forms of h. The missionary Stephen Riggs, who tone is marked
published the first Lakhota dictionary and grammar in 1852, with an acute.
Long high vowels
chose to mark the second form with an overdot: h. This charac- carry two acutes,
ter is easily mistaken for Ii. More recent Lakhota orthographies one on each
(including the Txakini system, developed by Violet Catches, a vowel. Long fall-
ing vowels carry
native speaker) replace Riggs's dotted h with x. This is easier to an acute on the
type. More importantly, it is harder to misread. first vowel only,
In the Tlingit language, spoken and written in southern long rising vow-
els carry an acute
Alaska, northern British Columbia and the Yukon, underscores on the second
are used to mark uvular consonants, which is fine for k and x, vowel only.
but maybe not so fine for g. A form like g or g or g, though less Glottalized (ejec-
tive) consonants
consistent, is more compact and, once again, harder to misread. are followed by
The desire for consistency was not the only factor that led apostrophes.
earlier linguists to write g instead of g. The Tlingit alphabet was
developed, like many early twentieth-century writing systems,
using only the keyboard of a North American typewriter. Recent
Tlingit publications are typeset with computers using modified
fonts of Palati no or Stone, but the iron metaphor of the typewriter
has not yet loosed its hold.
Elsewhere in the world, the mechanical typewriter and let-
terpress are still economically viable tools - and this need not
prevent new alphabet design. The Pan Nigerian face shown over-
leaf was cut and cast commercially for hand composition in 1983.
Mechanical typewriters using a monospaced version of the font
entered production in 1985. Digital versions now also exist.

115
 ab6cdcfeaefghii1jkKl
• •
AB'BCD'DE3EFGHIIIJKKL
' '
MNOOPRSSTUUVWYZI I I

New mnooprsstuuvwyz
I I I
Orthogra-
phies Pan-Nigerian alphabet designed in i983 by Hermann Zapf, in collabora-
tion with Victor Manfredi. This normalizes the missionary orthographies
that had been used for Hausa, lgbo, Yoruba, Edo, Fulfulde and several
other Nigerian languages.

6.7.3 Avoid capricious redefinition offamiliar characters.

Mayan languages have been written in roman script since the

i55os, but more than one orthography remains in use. Perhaps the
oldest, based on the manuscript tradition of the Popol Vuh, uses
the numerals 3 and 4 and the digraphs 4h and 4, [including the
comma] to write glottalized consonants. The Quiche words for
sun and moon, for example, can be written k'ih and ic', or kkih and
ice, or 3ih and i4, and the word for blood can be written quit'z or
quittz or qui4,. In the final case - but not in any of the others - the
comma is part of the word and not a mark of punctuation.
Though it is not as picturesque as Mayan hieroglyphs, this
alphanumeric script appeals to some scholars and amateurs,
perhaps because of its very strangeness. Typographically, it begs
for clarification, either through the creation of unambiguous new
symbols or through reversion to plain old roman letters (which
is now a common practice).

6.7.4 Don't mix faces haphazardly when specialized sorts are

required.

If a text involves setting occasional words such as 7aX'aqam or

?a.\'aqarn is mta-rnef;rnj famnks, it is best to plan for them from the begin-
Upper Chehalis, ning. Two standard phonetic alphabets are in use: the international
meaning
you will emerge; ( 1 PA) and the American. But the extra characters involved have
inta-na:J;mj been cut for only a few faces. (Lucida Sans, Stone and Times Ro-
fanEnks man are examples. Stone phonetic - which is used here - exists
(international
phonetics) in both serifed and unserifed forms.) The typographer therefore
is English. has two choices: to set the entire text in a face for which matching

116
phonetic characters are available, so that phonetic transcriptions
can enter the text transparently and at will; or to set the main
text in a suitably contrasting face, and switch to the phonetic font
(along with its matching text font, if required) each timea phonetic
transcription occurs.
If contrasting faces are used for phonetic transcriptions and
main text, each entire phonetic word or passage, not just the indi- Choosing
vidual phonetic characters, should be set in the chosen phonetic and
face. Patchwork typography, in which the letters of a single word Combining
come from different faces and fonts, is a sign of typographic failure. Type
Forms such as '0at0i;li' and '?e!hn heldeli' (formerly employed in
writing the Native Canadian language Chipewyan) or'8raetona'
and 'UsaSan' (still used in writing the ancient language Avestan)
are typographically problematic because they mix two alphabets
within a single word. Such mixtures are almost sure to fail unless
all the fonts involved have been designed as a single family. (Here
they succeed, because a unified Latin and Greek are used.)

6.8 BUILDING A TYPE LIBRARY

6.8.1 Choose your library offaces slowly and well.

Some of the best typographers who ever lived had no more than
one roman font at a time, one blackletter and one Greek. Oth-
ers had as many as five or six romans, two or three italics, three
blackletters, three or four Greeks. Today, the typographer can buy
fonts by the thousand on compact discs, and use the telephone
to download thousands more: more fonts than any human could
use, yet never a complete selection.
With type as with philosophy, music and food, it is better to
have a little of the best than to be swamped with the derivative,
the careless, the routine.
The stock fonts supplied with software packages and desk-
top printers are sometimes generous in number, but they are the
wrong fonts for many tasks and people, and most of them are
missing essential parts (small caps, text figures, ligatures, diacritics
and important analphabetics).
Begin by buying one good face or family, or a few related
faces, with all the components intact. And instead of skipping
from face to face, attempting to try everything, stay with your
first choices long enough to learn their virtues and limitations
before you move on.

117
 A IS C
HY L 0
MWG
RU IX
PTEK
Carol Twombly's Lithos (1988) and Adrian Frutiger's
Herculanum (1990) and Rusticana (1991) are typefaces based on
early Mediterranean inscriptions. In this example, Lithos
is printed solid, Herculanum with a medium
screen, Rusticana with a light screen.
HISTORICAL INTERLUDE

Printing from movable type was first invented not in Germany

7
in the 1450s, as Europeans often claim, but in China in the
1040s. In preference to Gutenberg, we should honor a scholarly
engineer by the name of Bi Sheng ( l- -ff-). The earliest surviving
works printed in Asia from movable type seem to date from the
thirteenth century, but there is a clear account of the typesetting
process, and Bi Sheng's role in its development, by the eleventh-
century essayist Shen Kuo. Shen Kuii's
The new technology reached Korea before the middle of the account is
contained in his
thirteenth century and Europe by the middle of the fifteenth. Mengxl Bitan
There it intersected the already long and fertile history of the (~'**-;dJ,
roman letter. And there typesetting flourished as it had failed to "Dream Creek
Essays:' For more
do in China, because of the far smaller number of glyphs Euro- information
pean scripts required. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, in English, see
most printing in China was done by the same method used in Denis Twitchett,
Printing and
the eighth century to make the first printed books: entire pages Publishing in
of text were carved by hand into wooden printing plates. Cor- Medieval China
rections were made by drilling out the error, installing a wooden (1983) and
Thomas F. Carter,
plug, and cutting the new characters. Text, in other words, was The Invention of
treated just like woodcut illustrations. To this day, a page of type Printing in China
is known in Chinese as hu6biin ( ;f, :f&.), "a living plank." and Its Spread
Westward, ind ed.
(1955).
7.1 THE EARLY SCRIBAL FORMS

The earliest surviving European letterforms are Greek capitals

scratched into stone. The strokes are bony and thin, almost ethe-
real - the opposite of the heavy substance they are carved in. The
letters are made primarily from straight lines, and when curved
forms appear, they have a very large aperture. This means that
forms like Sand C and M, which can be relatively open or rela-
tively closed, are about as open as they can get. These early Greek
letters were drawn freehand, not constructed with compasses and
rule, and they have no serifs - neither the informal entry and exit
strokes left by a relaxed and fluent writer, nor the symmetrical
finishing strokes typically added to letters by a formal scribe.
In time, the strokes of these letters grew thicker, the aperture
lessened, and serifs appeared. The new forms, used for inscrip-
tions throughout the Greek empire, served as models for formal

119
 lettering in imperial Rome. And those Roman inscriptional letters
- written with a flat brush, held at an angle like a broadnib pen,
then carved into the stone with mallet and chisel - have served
in their turn as models for calligraphers and type designers for
the past two thousand years. They have a modest aperture, a
modulated stroke (a stroke whose thickness varies with direction),
The and they have lively but full and formal serifs.
Early
Scribal
Forms
ABCS PQR
Trajan, designed by Carol Twombly in i988, is based on the inscription at
the base of Trajan's Column, Rome, carved in AD 113.

Between the Roman inscriptions and Gutenberg's time, there

were many further changes in European letterforms. Narrow rus-
tic capitals, wide uncials and other forms evolved. Writing spread
to the farthest corners of Europe, and many regional scripts and
alphabets arose. Monastic scribes - who were designers, copy-
ists and archivists as well - kept many of the older letterforms
alive. They used them for titles, subheads and initials, choosing
newer and more compact scripts for running text. Out of this rich
multiplicity of letters, a basic dichotomy evolved: majuscules and
minuscules: large formal letters and smaller, more casual ones:
the upper and lower case, as we call them now.

CAROLUS MAGNUS
Caroline or Carolingian means of the time
of the Emperor Cha.rlema.5ne: "Bis Charles"·
Carol Twombly's Charlemagne (above), Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse's Alcuin
(center) and Gottfried Pott's Carolina (below) are typefaces based on
Carolingian majuscules and minuscules from ninth- and tenth-century
European manuscripts.

Many of the old scribal conventions survive in typesetting to-

day. Titles are still set in large, formal letters; large initials mark the
beginnings of chapters or sections; small capitals mark an opening
phrase. The well-made page is now what it was then: a window into

120
history, language and the mind: a map of what is being said and a
portrait of the voice that is silently speaking.
In the later Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, a well-
trained European scribe might know eight or ten distinct styles
of script. Each was defined as precisely as a typeface, stored like
a font in the human memory, and each had certain uses. Sacred
scriptures, legal documents, romance literature, business and per- Historical
sonal letters all required different scripts, and particular forms Interlude
evoked specific languages and regions.
When the technology of movable type arrived, Europe was
rich with Gothic, Byzantine, Romanesque and humanistic hands,
and with a wealth of older letters. They are all still with us in
some way, but the humanistic hand, based on the Carolingian
minuscule, has become the central form: the roman lower case,
evolving into a thousand variations, sports and hybrids, like the
willow or the rose.

7.2 THE TYPOGRAPHIC LATIN LETTER

Several systems are in use for classifying typefaces. Some of

them use fabricated terms such as 'garalde' and 'didone: Others
rely on familiar but vague labels such as 'old style; 'modern' and
'transitional: All these systems work to a certain extent, but all
leave much to be desired. They are neither good science nor
good history.
Rigorously scientific descriptions and classifications of type-
faces are certainly possible, and important research has been un-
der way in this field for several years. Like the scientific study of
plants and animals, the infant science of typology involves precise
measurement, close analysis, and the careful use of technically
descriptive terms.
But letterforms are not only objects of science. They also
belong to the realm of art, and they participate in its history. They The art history
have changed over time just as music, painting and architecture of Latin letter-
forms is treated
have changed, and the same historical terms - Renaissance, Ba- in greater detail
roque, Neoclassical, Romantic, and so on - are useful in each of in an incomplete
these fields. series of essays
in Serif maga-
This approach to the classification ofletterforms has another zine, issues 1-5
important advantage. Typography never occurs in isolation. Good (1994-97).
typography demands not only a knowledge of type itself, but an
understanding of the relationship between letterforms and the

121
 other things that humans make and do. Typographic history is
just that: the study of the relationships between type designs and
the rest of human activity - politics, philosophy, the arts, and the
history of ideas. It is a lifelong pursuit, but one that is informative
and rewarding from the beginning.

The p.1 The Renaissance Roman Letter

Typographic
Latin Renaissance roman letters developed among the scholars and
Letter scribes of northern Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies. Their translation from script to type began in Italy in
1465 and continued for more than a century. Like Renaissance
painting and music, Renaissance letterforms are full of sensuous

abcefgnopj
abcefgnopj
abcefgnopj
abcefgnopj
Four twentieth-century reconstructions of Renaissance roman typefaces.
Centaur (top) was designed by the American typographer Bruce Rogers,
Boston, c. i914, after Nicolas Jenson, Venice, i469. Bembo (second) was
cut by Monotype, London, in i929, based on the design ofFrancesco Griffo,
Venice, i499. Adobe Garamond (third) was designed by Robert Slimbach,
San Francisco, i988, after Claude Garamond, Paris, c. i540. DTL Van den
Keere (bottom) is Frank Blokland's reconstruction of a font cut for Chris-
tophe Plantin by Hendrik van den Keere, Antwerp, in i575.

122
 and unhurried light and space. They have served as typographic
benchmarks for five hundred years.
The earliest surviving roman punches or matrices may well be
Garamond's, cut in Paris in the 1530s. For earlier type, we have no
evidence beyond the printed books themselves. The basic struc-
ture and form of these early typefaces is clear beyond dispute, but
in their subtlest details, all the existing replicas of fifteenth-century Historical
Italian type are hypothetical reconstructions. Interlude
Like Roman inscriptional capitals, Renaissance roman low-
ercase letters have a modulated stroke (the width varies with
direction) and a humanist axis. This means that the letters have
the form produced by a broadnib pen held in the right hand in a
comfortable and relaxed writing position. The thick strokes run
Nw/sE, the axis of the writer's hand and forearm. The serifs are
crisp, the stroke is light, and the contrast between thick strokes
and thin strokes is generally modest.
In summary, the characteristics of the early Renaissance ro-
man letter are these:

• stems vertical
• bowls nearly circular
• modulated stroke
• consistent humanist axis
• modest contrast
• modest x-height
• crisp, oblique head serifs (on letters such as b and r)
• abrupt, flat or slightly splayed bilateral foot serifs (on letters such
as r, 1and p)
• abrupt, pen-formed terminals on a, c, f and r
• rising crossbar in e, perpendicular to the stroke axis
• the roman font is solitary (there is no italic or bold)

In later Renaissance forms (from 1500 on), the letterforms

grow softer, smoother and more self-contained in subtle ways:

• head serifs become more wedge-shaped

• foot serifs become adnate (flowing smoothly into the stem)
instead of abrupt
• terminals of c, f and r become less abrupt and more lachrymal
(teardrop-shaped)
• crossbar of e becomes horizontal

123
 7.2.2 The Renaissance Italic Letter

Rome is located in the midst of Italy. Why is roman type a category

separate from italic? It seems a question to which typographers
might possess the answer. But the question and the answer both
have as much to do with politics and religion as with calligraphy
The and typography.
Typographic Roman type consists of two quite different basic parts. The
Latin upper case, which does indeed come from Rome, is based on
Letter Roman imperial inscriptions. The lower case was developed
in northern Europe, chiefly in France and Germany, in the late
Middle Ages, and given its final polish in Venice in the early
Renaissance. Nevertheless, it too is Roman in the larger sense.
While the roman upper case is a legacy of the Roman Empire,
the lower case is a legacy of the Holy Roman Empire, the pagan
empire's Christianized successor. It acquired its fundamental form
at the hands of Christian scribes, many of them employed dur-
ing the late eighth century as administrators and teachers by the
Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.
Italic letterforms, on the other hand, are an Italian Renais-
sance creation. Some early italics come from Rome, others from
elsewhere in Italy, and when they were first converted to type,
italics were still full of local flavor and freshness. But the earliest
italic fonts, cut between 1500 and 1540, consist oflower case only.
They were used with upright roman caps but not in conjunction
with the roman lower case.

abcefgnopxyz
abcefgnopxyz
Two revivals of Renaissance italic type. Monotype Arrighi (above) is de-
rived from one of a series of italics designed by Frederic Warde, London
and Paris, 1925-29, after Ludovico degli Arrighi, Rome, 1524. Monotype
Bembo italic (below) was cut in London in 1929, based on the work of
both Arrighi and Giovanantonio Tagliente, Venice, 1524.

124
 The characteristics of the Renaissance italic letter can be
summarized as follows:

• stems vertical or offairly even slope, not exceeding 10°

• bowls generally elliptical
• light, modulated stroke
• consistent humanist axis Historical
• low contrast Interlude
• modest x-height
• cursive forms with crisp, oblique entry and exit serifs
• descenders serifed bilaterally or not at all
• terminals abrupt or lachrymal
• italic lower case paired with small, upright roman capitals, and
with occasional swash capitals; italic otherwise fully indepen-
dent of roman

Early Renaissance italics are known as A/dine italics, in honor See page 210 for
of the scholar and publisher Aldus Manutius, who commissioned reproductions of
two Aldine italics.
the first italic type from Francesco Griffo in 1499. Strange to
say, in 2004, not a single authentic reconstruction of an Aldine
italic appears to be on the market, in either metal or digital form.
Monotype Bembo roman and Monotype Poliphilus are both based

ae
on Griffo's work, but their companion italics are not; they come
from a different age. The digital italic nearest to an Aldine in
design is Giovanni Mardersteig's Dante italic, but even this has
sloped instead of upright capitals.

r,~hTgffglopfZJ
abefopabefop
Two recent typefaces in the Mannerist tradition. Poetica (above) is a chan-
cery italic based on sixteenth-century models. It was designed by Robert
Slimbach and issued by Adobe in i992. Galliard (below), designed by
Matthew Carter, was issued by Linotype in i978. It is based on letterforms
cut in the sixteenth century by Robert Granjon.

125
 7.2.3 The Mannerist Letter

Mannerist art is Renaissance art to which subtle exaggerations

- of length, angularity or tension, for example - have been added.
Mannerist typographers, working chiefly in Italy and France early
in the sixteenth century, began the practice of using roman and
The italic in the same book, and even on the same page - though rarely
Typographic on the same line. It was also during the Mannerist period that
Latin sloped roman capitals were first added to the italic lower case.
Letter There are many fine sixteenth-century examples of Manner-
ist typefaces, including roman titling fonts with long, delicate ex-
tenders, chancery italics with even longer and often ornamented
extenders, and text faces with short extenders but increased ten-
sion in the forms. Digital interpretations of a number of these
faces have recently been made. Two significant examples - one
ornate and one restrained - are shown overleaf.

abefopabefap
abefopahefOp
abefopabefop
abefopabefap
Four revivals of Baroque typefaces. Monotype 'Garamond' (top) is based
on fonts cut in France by Jean jannon, about 1621. DTL Elzevir (second)
is based on fonts cut by Christoffel van Dijck at Amsterdam in the 1660s.
Linotype Janson Text (third) is based on fonts cut by Miklos Kis, Amsterdam,
about 1685. Adobe Caslon (bottom), by Carol Twombly, is based on faces
cut by William Casi on, London, in the 1730s.

126
 7.2-4 The Baroque Letter

Baroque typography, like Baroque painting and music, is rich

with activity and takes delight in the restless and dramatic play
of contradictory forms. One of the most obvious features of any
Baroque typeface is the large variation in axis from one letter
to the next. Baroque italics are ambidextrous: both right- and Historical
lefthanded. And it was during the Baroque that typographers first Interlude
made a habit of mixing roman and italic on the same line.
In general, Baroque letterforms appear more modeled and
less written than Renaissance forms. They give less evidence of
the direct trace of the pen. Yet they take many different forms,
and they thrived in Europe throughout the seventeenth century,
endured through much of the eighteenth, and enjoyed an enthu-
siastic revival during the nineteenth.
Baroque letterforms generally differ from Renaissance letters
in the following ways:

• stroke axis of the roman and italic lower case varies widely
within a single alphabet
• slope of italic averages 15° to 20° and often varies considerably
within a single alphabet
• contrast increased
• x-height increased
• aperture generally reduced
• further softening of terminals from abrupt to lachrymal
• roman head serifs become sharp wedges
• head serifs of italic ascenders become level and sharp

7.2.5 The Rococo Letter

The historical periods listed here - Renaissance, Baroque and

so on - belong to all the arts, and they are naturally not limited,
in typography, to roman and italic letters. Black.letter and script
types passed through the same phases as well. But the Rococo
period, with its love of florid ornament, belongs almost entirely
to blackletters and scripts.
Roman and italic type was certainly used by Rococo typogra-
phers, who often surrounded their texts with typographic orna-
ments, engraved medallions, and so on. They produced a good
deal of Rococo typography, but not much Rococo roman and italic
type. Several romans and italics that might indeed be classified

127
 abcefgnopy
The
Typographic
Latin
CEFOTZ
Letter

abcefgnopy
Though he was DTL Fleischmann. Note the ornate forms of g, y and several of the capitals,
born and trained and the exaggerated contrast in italic o. This exaggerated contrast is typi-
in Germany,
Fleischman cal of the Romantic types cut by Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni
moved to the after Fleischman's death in 1768. But Romantic types have an obsessively
Netherlands vertical axis. The primary axis of Fleischman's type is oblique. Structurally,
before his 30th
birthday and these letters belong to the Baroque. But their tendency to ornamentation
remained there and exaggeration sets them apart from earlier Baroque types. That is a
the rest of his reason for calling them Rococo.
life. Fleischmann
is the German
spelling of his as Rococo were, however, cut in Amsterdam in 1738-39 by the
name; the Dutch German-born punchcutter Johann Michael Fleischman. Digital
form Fleischman
is the one he versions of these fonts have recently been released by the Dutch
chose to use in Type Library in 's-Hertogenbosch.
all his published
specimens. The
digital versions 7.2.6 The Neoclassical Letter
of Fleischman's
type, published in Generally speaking, Neoclassical art is more static and restrained
the Netherlands,
were created by than either Renaissance or Baroque art, and far more interested
the German type in rigorous consistency. Neoclassical letterforms follow this pat-
designer Erhard tern. In Neoclassical letters, an echo of the broadnib pen can still
Kaiser, who
christened them be seen, but it is rotated away from the natural writing angle to
Fleischmann. a strictly vertical or rationalist axis. The letters are moderate in
contrast and aperture, but their axis is dictated by an idea, not by
the truth of human anatomy. They are products of the Rational-
ist era: frequently beautiful, calm forms, but forms oblivious to
the more complex beauty of organic fact. If Baroque letterforms
are ambidextrous, Neoclassical letters are, in their quiet way,
neitherhanded.

128
 abefopabefop
abefopabefop Historical
Interlude

abefopabefop
Three twentieth-century revivals of Neoclassical letterforms. Above: Mono-
type Fournier, which is based on types cut by Pierre Simon Fournier, Paris,
about i740. Center: Monotype Baskerville, which is based on the designs
of john Baskerville, Birmingham, about i754. Below: Monotype Bell, based
on the types cut in London in i788 by Richard Austin for the typefounder
and publisher john Bell.

The first Neoclassical typeface, known as the romain du roi

or King's Roman, was designed in France in the 1690s, not by a
typographer but by a government committee consisting of two
priests, an accountant and an engineer. Other Neoclassical faces
were designed and cut in France, England, Italy and Spain during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and some of them have
remained in continuous use throughout all subsequent changes
of style and fashion.
The American printer and statesman Benjamin Franklin
deeply admired the Neoclassical type of his English contemporary
John Baskerville, and it is partly due to Franklin's support that
Baskerville's type became more important in the United States
and France than it ever was in Baskerville's native land. But the
connection between Baskerville and America rests on more than
Benjamin Franklin's personal taste. Baskerville's letters correspond
very closely to the federal style in American architecture. They
are as purely and unperturbably Neoclassical as the Capitol
Building, the White House, and many another federal and state
edifice. (The Houses of Parliament in London and in Ottawa,
which are Neogothic instead of Neoclassical, call for typography
of a different kind.)

129
 In brief, Neoclassical letterforms differ from Baroque letters
as follows:

• predominantly vertical axis in both roman and italic

• slope of italic generally uniform, averaging 14 ° to 16 °
• serifs generally adnate, but thinner, flatter, more level
The
Typographic 7.2.7 The Romantic Letter
Latin
Letter Neoclassicism and Romanticism are not sequential movements
in European history. They marched through the eighteenth cen-
tury and much of the nineteenth side by side: vigorously opposed
in some respects and closely united in others. Both Neoclassical
and Romantic letterforms adhere to a rationalist axis, and both
look more drawn than written, but it is possible to make some
precise distinctions between the two. The most obvious differ-
ence is one of contrast. In Romantic letters we will normally find
the following:

• abrupt modulation of the stroke

• vertical axis intensified through exaggerated contrast
• hardening of terminals from lachrymal to round
• serifs thinner and more abrupt
• aperture reduced

This remarkable shift in type design - like all structural shifts

in type design - is the record of an underlying change in handwrit-
ing. Romantic letters are forms from which the broadnib pen has
vanished. In its place is the pointed and flexible quill. The broadnib
pen produces a smoothly modulated stroke whose thickness varies
with direction, but the pointed quill performs quite differently. The
stroke of a flexible quill shifts suddenly from thin to thick to thin
again, in response to changes in pressure. Used with restraint, it pro-
duces a Neoclassical flourish. Used with greater force, it produces
a more dramatic and Romantic one. Dramatic contrast, which is
essential to much Romantic music and painting, is essential to
Romantic type design as well.
Romantic letters can be extraordinarily beautiful, but they
lack the flowing and steady rhythm of Renaissance forms. It is
that rhythm which invites the reader to enter the text and read.
The statuesque forms of Romantic letters invite the reader to
stand outside and look at the letters instead.

130
 abefopabefop
abefopabefop Historical
Interlude

abefopabefop
abefop abefop
Four revivals of Romantic letterforms. Monotype Bulmer (top) is based
on a series of fonts William Martin cut in London in the early 1790s.
Linotype Didot (second), drawn by Adrian Frutiger, is based on fonts
Firmin Didot cut in Paris between 1799 and 1811. Bauer Bodoni (third) is
based on fonts cut by Giambattista Bodoni at Parma between 1803 and
1812. Berthold Walbaum (bottom) is based on types cut by Justus Erich
Walbaum, Weimar, about 1805.

7.2.8 The Realist Letter

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have entertained a be-

wildering variety of artistic movements and schools - Realism,
Naturalism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Art Nouveau, Art
Deco, Constructivism, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art,
Op Art, and many more. Virtually all of these movements have
raised waves in the typographic world as well, though not all are
important enough to merit a place in this brief survey. One of
these movements - one which has not by any means yet expired
- is typographic Realism.
The Realist painters of the nineteenth century - Gustave
Courbet, Frarn;:ois Millet and many others - turned their backs
on the subjects and poses approved by the academy. They set
out instead to paint ordinary people doing their ordinary tasks.
Realist type designers - Alexander Phemister, Robert Besley

131
 abcefgnop
The
Typographic
Latin
Letter
abcefgnop
Akzidenz Grotesk (above) is a Realist typeface issued by the Berthold
Foundry, Berlin, in 1898. It is the immediate ancestor of Morris Benton's
Franklin Gothic (1903) and of Helvetica, issued by the Haas Foundry in
1952. Haas Clarendon (below), designed in 1951 by Hermann Eidenbenz,
is a revival of an earlier Realist face, the first Clarendon, cut by Benjamin
Fox for Robert Besley, London, 1845.

and others, who have not achieved the posthumous fame of the
painters - worked in a similar spirit. They made blunt and simple
letters, based on the script of people denied the opportunity to
learn to read and write with fluency and poise. Realist letters very
often have the same basic shape as Neoclassical and Romantic
letters, but most of them have heavy, slab serifs or no serifs at all.
The stroke is often uniform in weight, and the aperture (often a
gauge of grace or good fortune in typefaces) is tiny. Small caps,
text figures and other signs of sophistication and elegance are
almost always missing.

7.2.9 Geometric Modernism: The Distillation of Function

Early modernism took many intriguing typographic forms. One

of the most obvious is geometric. The sparest, most rigorous
architecture of the early twentieth century has its counterpart in
the equally geometric typefaces designed at the same time, often
by the same people. These typefaces, like their Realist predeces-
sors, make no distinction between main stroke and serif. Their
serifs are equal in weight with the main strokes or are missing
altogether. But most Geometric Modernist faces seek purity more
than populism. Some show the study of archaic inscriptions, and
some include text figures and other subtleties, but their shapes
owe more to pure mathematical forms - the circle and the line
- than to scribal letters.

132
 abcefgnop
abcefgnop Historical
Interlude

Two Geometric Modernist typefaces. Futura (above) was designed in Ger-

many 1n 1924-26 by Paul Renner. Memphis (below) was designed in 1929
by Rudolf Wolf, art director at the Stempel Foundry. The original design
for Futura included text figures and many highly geometric, alternative
characters which have never been issued in metal, though The Foundry
(London) issued them in digital form in 1994·

abefopabefop
abefopabefop
abefopabefop
abefopabefop
Four neohumanist or Lyrical Modernist typefaces. Spectrum (top) was
designed by Jan van Krimpen in the Netherlands during the 1940s and
issued by both Enschede and Monotype in 1952. Palatino (second) was
designed by Hermann Zapf, Frankfurt, 1948. Dante (third) was designed
by Giovanni Mardersteig, Verona, 1952. Pontifex (bottom) was designed
by Friedrich Poppl, Wiesbaden, 1974· All but the last were originally cut
by hand in steel, JUSt like Renaissance faces.

133
 7.2.10 Lyrical Modernism: The Rediscovery of Humanist Form

Another major phase of modernism in type design is closely

allied with abstract expressionist painting. Painters in the twen-
tieth century rediscovered the physical and sensory pleasures of
painting as an act, and the pleasures of making organic instead
The of mechanical forms. Designers of type during those years were
Typographic equally busy rediscovering the pleasures of writing letterforms
Latin rather than drawing them. In rediscovering calligraphy, they redis-
Letter covered the broadnib pen, the humanist axis and humanist scale
of Renaissance letters. Typographic modernism is fundamentally
the reassertion of Renaissance form. There is no hard line between
modernist design and Renaissance revival.

7.2.11 The Expressionist Letter

In yet another of its aspects, typographic modernism is rough

and concrete more than lyrical and abstract. Rudolf Koch, Vojtech
Preissig and Oldfich Menhart are three designers who explored
this path in the early part of the twentieth century. They are in
some respect the typographic counterparts of expressionist pain-
ters such as Vincent van Gogh and Oskar Kokoschka. More recent
painters and type designers, such as Zuzana Licko, have proven
that the genre is still richly productive.
Expressionist designers use many different tools. Koch and
Preissig often cut their own letters in metal or wood. Menhart
worked with a pen and rough paper. Licko has exploited the

abeefghijop
abefopabefop
Two Expressionist types - one Modernist and one Postmodern. Preissig
(above) was designed in New York in i924 by the Czech artist Vojtech Preis-
sig. It was cut and cast in Prague in i925. Zuzana Licko's journal (below) was
designed in Berkeley in i990 and issued in digital form by Emigre.

134
harsh economies of digital plotting routines, slicing from control
point to control point not with a knife, file or chisel but with
digitized straight lines.

7.2.12 Elegiac Postmodernism

Modernism in type design has its roots in the study of history, the Historical
facts of human anatomy, and in the pleasures of calligraphy. Like Interlude
the Renaissance itself, modernism is more than a phase or fad that
simply runs its course and expires. It remains very much alive in
the arts generally and in type design in particular, though it no
longer seems the final word. In the last decades of the twentieth
century, critics of architecture, literature and music - along with
others who study human affairs - all perceived movements away
from modernism. Lacking any proper name of their own, these
movements have come to be called by the single term postmod-
ernism. And postmodernism is as evident in the world of type
design as it is in other fields.
Postmodern letterforms, like Postmodern buildings, fre-
quently recycle and revise Neoclassical, Romantic and other
premodern forms. At their best, they do so with an engaging
lightness of touch and a fine sense of humor. Postmodern art is
for the most part highly self-conscious, but devoutly unserious.
Postmodern designers - who frequently are or have been Mod-
ernist designers as well - have proven that it is possible to infuse
Neoclassical and Romantic form, and the rationalist axis, with
genuine calligraphic energy.

abefopabefop
abefopabefop
Two Postmodern faces. Esprit (above) was designed by jovica Veljovic,
Beograd, i985. Nofret (below) was designed by Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse,
Darmstadt, i990. Both types sing, where many Postmodern faces merely
screech. But the song is elegiac more than lyrical.

135
 abefopabefop
The
Typographic
Latin
abefopabefop
Letter Two Geometric Postmodern faces: Triplex Sans (above) and Officina Serif
(below). Triplex italic was designed by john Downer in 1985. Its companion
romans - one with serifs, one without - were designed by Zuzana Licko
in 1989-90, and the full menage a trois was issued in 1990 by Emigre.
Officina (ITC, 1990) was designed by Erik Spiekermann. It has been issued
in both serifed and unserifed versions.

7.2.13 Geometric Postmodernism

Some Postmodern faces are highly geometric. Like their predeces-

sors the Geometric Modernist faces, they are usually slab-serifed
or unserifed, but often they exist in both varieties at once or are
hybrids of the two. They are rarely, it seems, based on the pure and
simple line and circle, but almost always on more mannered, often
asymmetric forms. And like other Postmodern types, they are rich
with nostalgia for something premodern. Many of these faces are
indebted to older industrial letterforms, including typewriter faces
and the ubiquitous factory folk-art of North American highway
signs. They recycle and revise not Romantic and Neoclassical
but Realist ideas. To this industrial unpretentiousness, however,
they often add not only Postmodern humor but also the fruits of
typographic sophistication: text figures, small caps, large aperture,
and subtle modeling and balancing of forms.
Postmodern art, like Neoclassical art, is above all an art of
the surface: an art of reflections rather than visions. It has thrived
in the depthless world of high-speed offset printing and digital
design, where modernism starves. But the world of the scribes,
in which the craft of type design is rooted, was a depthless world
too. It was the world of the Gothic painters, in which everything is
present in one plane. In that respect at least, postmodernism and
modernism alike confront the basic task with which typography
began. That is the task of answering in two (or little more than
two) dimensions to a world that has many.
7.3 MECHANICAL TYPESETTING

7.3.1 The Linotype Machine

The Linotype machine, invented in the 1880s by Ottmar Mer- For a detailed
genthaler and much modified over the years, is a kind of cross account of
the growth of
between a casting machine, a typewriter, a vending machine mechanized
and a backhoe. It consists of a series of slides, belts, wheels, lifts, typesetting, see
vises, plungers and screws, controlled from a large mechanical Richard E. Huss,
The Development
keyboard. Its complex mechanism composes a line of matrices, of Printers'
justifies the line by sliding tapered wedges into the spaces be- Mechanical
tween the words, then casts the entire line as a single metal slug Typesetting
Methods 1822-
for letterpress printing. 1925 (1973).
Typeface design for the Linotype was restricted by three basic
factors. First, kerning is impossible without special compound
matrices. (The basic italic fin a Linotype font therefore always
has a stunted head and tail.) Second, the em is divided into only
18 units, which discourages subtlety of proportion. Third, the
italic and roman matrices are usually paired. In most faces, each
italic letter must therefore have the same width as its counterpart
in roman.
A number of typefaces designed for the Linotype were artis-
tically successful in spite of these constraints. Hermann Zapf's
Aldus and Optima, Rudolph Ruzicka's Fairfield, Sem Hartz's Ju-
liana, and W. A. Dwiggins's Electra, Caledonia and Falcon were
all designed for the Linotype machine. Linotype Janson, adapted
by Zapf in 1952 from the seventeenth-century originals of Miklos
Kis, is another eminent success. Many Linotype faces have never-
theless been modified in the course of digitization, to make use
of the kerning capabilities of digital machines and restore the
independent proportioning of roman and italic.

7.3.2 The Monotype Machine

In 1887, in competition with Mergenthaler, Tolbert Lanston cre-

ated a machine that stamped individual letters in cold metal and
assembled them into lines. This device was soon abandoned for
another - built in 1900 by Lanston's colleague John Bancroft
- that cast individual letters from molten metal rather than
cold-stamping them. It was soon sold worldwide as the Mono-
type machine. It is two machines in fact, a terminal and an out-
put device, and in this respect resembles most computer-driven

137
 typesetting machines. But the Monotype terminal carries a large
mechanical keyboard, including seven full alphabets as well as
analphabetics. The keyboard punches holes in a paper tape, like
a narrow player-piano roll, by driving pins with compressed air.
The output device is the caster, which reads the paper tape by
blowing more compressed air through the punched holes, then
Mechanical casts and assembles the letters.
Typesetting The Monotype em, like the Linotype em, is divided into only
18 units, but italic and roman are independent in width, kerning
is possible, and because the type remains in the form of separate
letters, typeset lines can be further adjusted by hand. Characters
larger than 24 pt are cast individually and left for hand assembly.
In fact, the Monotype machine is a portable typefoundry as much
as it is a composing machine - and it is increasingly used as such,
even though its unit system imposes restrictions on letterform
design, and it is incapable of casting in hard metal.

7.3.3 Two-Dimensional Printing

From the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the

twentieth, most roman letters were printed by a technique rooted
in sculpture. In this process, each letter is carved at actual size on
the end of a steel punch. The punch is then struck into a matrix
of softer metal, the matrix is fitted into a mold, and three-dimen-
sional metal type is cast from an alloy of lead, tin and antimony.
The cast letters are locked in a frame and placed in a printing
press, where they are inked. Their image is then imprinted into
the paper, producing a tactile and visual image. The color and
sheen of the ink join with the smooth texture of crushed paper,
recessed into the whiter and rougher fibers surrounding the letters
and lines. A book produced by this means is a folding inscription,
a flexible sculpture in low relief. The black light of the text shines
out from within a well-printed letterpress page.
Renaissance typographers reveled in the physical depth and
texture they could achieve by this method of printing. Neoclassi-
cal and Romantic printers, like Baskerville, often took a different
view. Baskerville printed his sheets by letterpress - since he had
no other method - but then had them ironed like laundry to
remove the sculptural tinge.
With the development of lithography, at the end of the
eighteenth century, printing moved another step back toward
the two-dimensional world of the medieval scribes. Since the

138
middle of the twentieth century, most commercial printing has
been by two-dimensional means. The normal method is offset
photolithography, in which a photographic or digital image is
etched into a plate, inked, offset to a smooth intermediary blanket,
then laid flat on the surface of the page.
In the early days of commercial offset printing, type was still
set with Linotype or Monotype machines. Proofs were pulled in Historical
a letterpress, then cut, pasted and photographed. Type designers Interlude
saw their work altered by this process. Most letters designed to
be printed in three dimensions look weaker when printed in two.
But other letters prospered: geometric letters, which evoked the
world of the draftsman rather than the goldsmith, and flowing
letters recalling the heritage of the scribe.

7-3-4 Phototype Machines

Light flashes through the image of a letter carried on glass or

photographic film; the size of the letter is altered with a lens; its
target location is fixed by a mirror, and it is exposed like any other
photographic image onto photosensitive paper or film. Machines
that operate on this principle are the natural children of the cam-
era and the offset press. They were designed and patented in the
1890s and in regular use for setting titles and headlines by 1925,
though it was not until the 1960s that they came to dominate
the trade.
Just as the sophistication and subtlety of handset type seemed
at first to be swept aside when composing machines appeared, so
the sophistication slowly achieved with Linotype and Monotype
machines seemed to be swept aside by this new technological
wave. The photosetters were fast, but they knew nothing of subtle
changes in proportion from size to size. Their fonts lacked liga-
tures, text figures and small caps. American-made fonts lacked
even the simplest accented characters. The choice of faces was
poor. And with the sudden, widespread use of these complex but
simplistic machines came the final collapse of the old craft system
of apprenticeships and guilds.
Phototypesetting machines and their users had only begun
to answer these complaints when digital equipment arrived to
replace them. Some excellent faces were designed for phototype
machines - from Adrian Frutiger's Apollo (1962) to Bram de
Does's Trinite (1982) - but in retrospect, the era of phototype
seems only a brief interregnum between hot metal and digital

139
 composition. The important innovation of the period was not,
after all, the conversion of fonts from metal to film, but the intro-
duction of microcomputers to edit, compose and correct the text
and to drive the last generations of photosetting machines.

7.3.5 Historical Recutting and Twentieth-Century Design

Mechanical
Typesetting New typefaces have been designed in vast numbers in the past
hundred years, and many old ones have been resuscitated. From
1960 to 1980, most new types and revivals were designed for pho-
tosetting, and since 1980, almost all have been planned for digital
composition. But most of the older faces now sold in digital form
have already passed through another stylistic filter. They were
recut in the early twentieth century, either as foundry type or as
matrices for the Monotype or Linotype machines. Typography
was radically reformed between 1920 and 1950, through the com-
mercial reinvention of typographic history. It is worth looking
back at this process to see something of what went on, because
its legacy affects us still.
Two separate companies - one based in England, one in
America - rose up around the Monotype machine and followed
two quite separate development programs. The English company,
advised during its heyday by a scholar named Stanley Morison,
cut a series of facsimiles based on the work of Francesco Griffo,
Giovanantonio Tagliente, Ludovico degli Arrighi and other early
designers. It was Morison who conceived the idea of turning in-

aa dependent Renaissance faces into families by mating one design-

er's roman with another's formerly self-sufficient italic. The fruits
of this enterprise included Poliphilus and Blado (one of Griffo's

aa romans mated with an altered version of one of Arrighi's italics),

Bembo (a later version of the same roman, paired with an altered
version of one of Tagliente's italics), and the brilliantly successful

aa shotgun marriage of Centaur roman (designed by Bruce Rog-

ers) with the Arrighi italic (designed by Frederic Warde). This
program was supplemented by commissioning new faces from
artists such as Eric Gill, Alfred Fairbank, Jan van Krimpen and
Berthold Wolpe.
Lanston Monotype, as the American company was called,
made some historical recuttings of its own and issued many new
and historically based faces designed by its own advisor, Fred-
eric Goudy. A third campaign to recreate typographic history in
marketable form was mounted by Linotype, under the direction
of the English master printer George William Jones.
Several of the larger typefoundries - including ATF (Ameri-
can Type Founders) in the United States, Deberny & Peignot in
France, Enschede in the Netherlands, Stempel in Germany and
Grafotechna in Czechoslovakia - continued ambitious programs
of their own, lasting in some cases into the 1980s. Revivals of Historical
faces by Claude Garamond, Miklos Kis and other early designers Interlude
came from these foundries during the twentieth century, along
with important new faces by such designers as Hermann Zapf,
Jan van Krimpen, Adrian Frutiger, Oldfich Menhart and Hans
Eduard Meier. Zapf's Palatino, which became the most widely
used (and most widely pirated) face of the twentieth century, was
cut by hand in steel and cast as a foundry type in the ancient way,
in 1949-50, while phototype machines and a few cumbersome
early computers were humming no great distance away.
The earlier history of type design is the history of forms
made by individual artists and artisans who began their careers
as apprentices and ended them as independent masters and
small businessmen. The scale of the industry enlarged in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and questions of fashion
increasingly superseded questions of artistry. By the end of the
nineteenth century, commercial considerations had changed the
methods as well as the taste of the trade. Punches and matrices
were increasingly cut by machine from large pattern letters, and
calligraphic models were all but unknown.
The twentieth-century rediscovery of the history and prin-
ciples of typographic form was not associated with any particular
technology. It occurred among scholars and artists who brought
their discoveries to fruition wherever they found employment: in
typefoundries, typesetting-machine companies, art schools and
their own small, independent studios.
Despite commercial pressures, the best of the old metal
foundries, like the best of the new digital ones, were more than
merely market-driven factories. They were cultural institutions, on
a par with fine publishing houses and the ateliers of printmakers,
potters, weavers and instrument makers. What made them so was
the stature of the type designers, living and dead, whose work they
produced - for type designers are, at their best, the Stradivarii of
literature: not merely makers of salable products, but artists who
design and make the instruments that other artists use.

141
 7.3.6 Digital Typography

It is much too soon to summarize the history of digital typog-

raphy, but the evolution of computerized bitmapping, hinting
and scaling techniques has proceeded very quickly since the
development of the microchip at the beginning of the i97os.
Mechanical At the same time, the old technologies, freed from commercial
Typesetting duties, have by no means died. Foundry type, the Monotype, the
Linotype and letterpress remain important artistic instruments,
alongside brush and chisel, pencil, graver and pen.
Typographic style is founded not on any one technology
of typesetting or printing, but on the primitive yet subtle craft
of writing. Letters derive their form from the motions of the
human hand, restrained and amplified by a tool. That tool may
be as complex as a digitizing tablet or a specially programmed
keyboard, or as simple as a sharpened stick. Meaning resides, in
either case, in the firmness and grace of the gesture itself, not in
the tool with which it is made.

7.4 THE PLURALITY OF TYPOGRAPHIC HISTORY

Every alphabet is a culture. Every culture has its own version of

history and its own accumulation of tradition - and this chapter
has dwelt on the recent history of one alphabet only. The Arabic,
(J) Armenian, Burmese, Cherokee, Cree, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Geor-
gian, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Malayalam, Tamil
and Telugu alphabets and syllabaries - to name only a few - have
other histories of their own, in some cases every bit as intricate
and long as - or longer than - the history of Latin letterforms.
So, of course, has the logographic script of Chinese. These histo-
ries have touched at certain points; at other points, they diverge.
Here at the beginning of the twenty-first century, an unusual de-
gree of convergence can be seen. But the challenge and excitement
of multilingual typography still lies largely in the fact that differ-
ent typographic histories momentarily share the page. Typogra-
phers working with multiple alphabets are multiply blessed: with
a chance to learn the cultural history as well as the typographic
technicalities of every script concerned.
The histories of Greek and Cyrillic types are taken up more
briefly in chapter 11, and the legacies of individual typefoundries
are summarized briefly in appendix E, page 346.

142
 8
SHAPING THE PAGE

A book is a flexible mirror of the mind and the body. Its overall
size and proportions, the color and texture of the paper, the sound
it makes as the pages turn, and the smell of the paper, adhesive
and ink, all blend with the size and form and placement of the
type to reveal a little about the world in which it was made. If
the book appears to be only a paper machine, produced at their
own convenience by other machines, only machines will want
to read it.

8.1 ORGANIC, MECHANICAL & MUSICAL PROPORTION

A page, like a building or a room, can be of any size and propor-

tion, but some are distinctly more pleasing than others, and some
have quite specific connotations. A brochure that unfolds and
refolds in the hand is intrinsically different from a formal letter
that lies motionless and flat, or a handwritten note that folds into
quarters and comes in an envelope of a different shape and size.
All of these are different again from a book, in which the pages
flow sequentially in pairs.
Much typography is based, for the sake of convenience, on
standard industrial paper sizes, from 35 x 45 inch press sheets to
31/2 x 2 inch conventional business cards. Some formats, such as
the booklets that accompany compact discs, are condemned to
especially rigid restrictions of size. But many typographic proj-
ects begin with the opportunity and necessity of selecting the
dimensions of the page.
There is rarely a free choice. A page size of 12 x 19 inches, for
example, is likely to be both inconvenient and expensive because
it is just in excess of 11 x 17, which is a standard industrial unit.
And a brochure that is 5 x 9 inches, no matter how handsome,
might be unacceptable because it is too wide to fit into a standard
business envelope (4x9Yi). But when the realm of practicality has
been established, and it is known that the page must fall within
certain limits, how is one to choose? By taking whatever is easiest,
or biggest, or whatever is the most convenient standard size? By
trusting to blind instinct?
Instinct, in matters such as these, is largely memory in dis-
guise. It works quite well when it is trained, and poorly otherwise.

143
 But in a craft like typography, no matter how perfectly honed
one's instincts are, it is useful to be able to calculate answers ex-
actly. History, natural science, geometry and mathematics are all
relevant to typography in this regard - and can all be counted
on for aid.
Scribes and typographers, like architects, have been shaping
Organic, visual spaces for thousands of years. Certain proportions keep
Mechanical recurring in their work because they please the eye and the mind,
and Musical just as certain sizes keep recurring because they are comfortable
Proportion to the hand. Many of these proportions are inherent in simple
geometric figures - equilateral triangle, square, regular pentagon,
hexagon and octagon. And these proportions not only seem to
please human beings in many different centuries and countries,
they are also prominent in nature far beyond the human realm.
Two very useful They occur in the structures of molecules, mineral crystals, soap
works on natural bubbles, flowers, as well as books and temples, manuscripts and
form and struc-
ture are D'Arcy mosques.
Thompson, On The tables on pages 148-149 list a number of page propor-
Growth and tions derivable from simple geometric figures. These proportions
Form (rev. ed.,
1942) and Peter S. occur repeatedly in nature, and pages that embody them recur in
Stevens, Patterns manuscripts and books from Renaissance Europe, Tang and Song
in Nature (1974). dynasty China, early Egypt, precolumbian Mexico and ancient
An equally
important book Rome. It seems that the beauty of these proportions is more than
on structures a matter of regional taste or immediate fashion. They are therefore
made by hu- useful for two purposes. Working and playing with them is a way
mans is Dorothy
Washburn & of developing good typographic instincts, and they serve as useful
Donald Crowe, references in analyzing old designs and calculating new ones.
Symmetries of For comparison, several other proportions are included in the
Culture: Theory
and Practice of tables. There are several simple numerical ratios, several standard
Plane Pattern industrial sizes, and several proportions involving four irrational
Analysis (1988) numbers important in the analysis of natural structures and pro-
cesses. These numbers are TI= 3.14159 .. ., which is the circumfer-
ence of a circle whose diameter is one; {2 = 1.41421. . ., which is
the diagonal of a unit square; e = 2.71828 .. ., which is the base of
the natural logarithms; and cp = 1.61803 ... , a number discussed in
greater detail on page 155. Certain of these proportions reappear in
the structure of the human body; others appear in musical scales.
Indeed, one of the simplest of all systems of page proportions is
based on the familiar intervals of the diatonic scale. Pages that
embody these basic musical proportions have been in common
use in Europe for more than a thousand years.

144
 Sizing and spacing type, like composing and performing music
or applying paint to canvas, is largely concerned with intervals and
differences. As the texture builds, precise relationships and very
small discrepancies are easily perceived. Establishing the overall
dimensions of the page is more a matter of limits and sums. In
this realm, it is usually sufficient, and often it is better, if structural
harmony is not so much enforced as implied. That is one of the Shaping
reasons typographers tend to fall in love with books. The pages flex the
and turn; their proportions ebb and flow against the underlying Page
form. But the harmony of that underlying form is no less important,
and no less easy to perceive, than the harmony of the letterforms
themselves.
The page is a piece of paper. It is also a visible and tangible
proportion, silently sounding the thoroughbass of the book. On it
lies the textblock, which must answer to the page. The two together The textblock
- page and textblock - produce an antiphonal geometry. That is known in
Chinese as yexin
geometry alone can bond the reader to the book. Or conversely, it (Jr .;; ), a useful
can put the reader to sleep, or put the reader's nerves on edge, or phrase. Ye means
drive the reader away. page; xin means
heart and mind.
Arithmetic and mathematics also drive away some readers,
and this is a chapter peppered with both. Readers may well ask
whether all this is necessary, merely in order to choose where
some letters should sit on a piece of paper and where the paper
itself should be trimmed. The answer, naturally, is no. It is not
in the least necessary to understand the mathematics in order
to perform the actions that the math describes. People walk and
ride bicycles without mathematical analyses of these complex
operations. The chambered nautilus and the snail construct per-
fect logarithmic spirals without any need of logarithmic tables,
sliderules or the theory of infinite series. The typographer likewise
can construct beautiful pages without knowing the meaning of
symbols liken or cp, and indeed without ever learning to add and
subtract, ifhe has a well-educated eye and knows which buttons
to push on the calculator and keyboard.
The mathematics are not here to impose drudgery upon any-
one. On the contrary, they are here entirely for pleasure. They are
here for the pleasure of those who like to examine what they are
doing, or what they might do or have already done, perhaps in
the hope of doing it still better. Those who prefer to act directly
at all times, and to leave the analysis to others, may be content in
this chapter to study the pictures and skim the text.

145
 [] octave. 1 : 2

Chromatic
Scale
of Page
Proportions rnrn major 7th, 8 : 15 minor 7th, 9: 16

rnrn major 6th, 3 : 5 minor 6th, 5 : 8

rn DJ ITJ
fifth. 2 : 3 dim. 5th/aug. 4th, 1 : {2 fourth, 3: 4

major 3rd, 4 : 5 minor 3rd, 5 : 6

major 2nd, 8 : 9 minor 2nd, 15 : 16

unison, 1: 1

Page proportions corresponding to the chromatic scale, from unison (at

the bottom ) to octave (at the top). The musical correlations are shown
in detail on the facing page.

146
 PAGE PROPORTIONS AS MUSICAL INTERVALS

octave I: 2 I: 2 c - c' double square

major 7th 8: 15 I : 1.875 C-B

minor 7th
major 6th
minor 6th

fifth
9: 16
3:5
5:8

2:3
1 :
1
I

I :
1.778
: 1.667
: I.6

1.5
C -
C-A
C -

C-G
B~

A~ l narrow
books
- I: <p

dim. 5th C - G~ self-replicating The value for the

I: {2 I : 1.414 { diminished 5th/
aug. 4th C - F# page
augmented 4th is
calculated here
fourth 3:4 I : 1.333 C-F according to the
system of equal
temperament. All
major 3rd 4:5 I : 1.25 C-E - <p: 2

l
other intervals
minor 3rd 5:6 I : 1.2 C - E~ wide are calculated
major 2nd 1 : 1.125 books according to the
8:9 C-D
system of just
minor 2nd 15 : 16 1 : 1.067 C - D~
intonation.

unison 1: 1 1: 1 c-c square page

Page shapes derived from the chromatic scale. Two-page spreads that
embody these proportions are shown on the facing page.
The perfect intervals (fifth and fourth) coincide exactly with the
favorite page shapes of the European Middle Ages, which are still in use
today: the page proportions 2: 3 and 3: 4. Renaissance typographers made
extensive use of narrower pages, corresponding to the larger impure in-
tervals (major and minor sixth, major and minor seventh).
Each page shape has a counterpart with which it alternates. If a sheet
whose proportions are 5: 8 is folded in half, it produces a sheet whose
proportions are 4: 5. If this is folded once again, it produces another
sheet whose proportions are 5: 8. In the same way, the proportion l: 2

alternates with the proportion l: 1. The proportion l: {2, corresponding

to the diminished fifth and augmented fourth of equal temperament, is
the only one that alternates with itself.
In musical terms, these alternating proportions form harmonic inver-
sions. (The harmonic inversion of a fifth, for example, is a fourth, and the
harmonic inversion of a minor sixth is a ma1or third.) The total of each
such pair of intervals is always one octave.

147
 Page & Textblock Proportions Sample sizes in inches

octave A Double Square l: 2 4.5 x 9 5 x 10 5.5 x 11

B Tall Octagon l: 1.924 4.7 x 9 5.2 x 10 5.7 x 11
major 7th 8: 15 l: 1.875 4.8 x 9
c Tall Hexagon l: 1.866 5.9 x 11
D Octagon l: 1.848 4.9 x 9 5.4 x 10 6x11
5:9 l: 1.8 5x9
minor 7th 9: 16 l: 1.778 5.1 x 9
E HEXAGON= l: ..J3 l: 1.732 4.9 x 8.5 5.2 x 9 6-4 x 11
F Tall Pentagon l: 1.701 5 x 8.5 5.3 x 9 6.5 x 11
major 6th 3: 5 l: 1.667 5.1 x 8.5
Legal Sheet l: 1.647 8.5 x 14
G G 0 LOE N SECTION l: 1.618 5.3 x 8.5 5.6 x 9 6.8x11
minor 6th 5:8 l: 1.6 5x8
H PENTAGON l: 1.539 5.5 x 8.5 5.9 x 9 7.2 x 11
> fifth 2:3 l : 1.5 6x9 7.3 x 11
z ISO=l:..J2 l: 1-414 6-4 x 9 7.1x10 7.8 x 11
5:7 l: 1-4
Short Pentagon l : 1-376 6.5 x 9 7.3 x 10 8 x 11
> fourth 3:4 l: i.333 6.8 x 9 7.5 x 10 9x12
K Tall Half Octagon l: 1.307 6.9 x 9 7.7 x 10 8-4 x 11
Letter Sheet l: 1.294 8.5 x 11
major 3rd 4: 5 l: 1.25 7.2 x 9 8 x 10 8.8 x 11
L Half Octagon l: 1.207 8-3 x 10 9.1x11
minor 3rd 5:6 l: 1.2 7.5 x 9
M Truncated Pentagon l: 1.176 8.5 x 10 9-4 x 11
6:7 l: 1.167 nx9
e: rr l: 1.156
N Turned Hexagon l : 1.155 7.8 x 9 8.7 x 10 9.5 x 11
major 2nd 8:9 l: 1.125 8x9 8.9 x 10 9.8 x 11
0 Tall Cross Octagon l: 1.082 8.3 x 9 9.2 x 10 10.2 x 11
minor 2nd 15: 16 l: 1.067 8-4 x 9 9-4 x 10 10.3 x 11
p Turned Pentagon l: 1.051 8.6 x 9 9.5x10 10.5 x 11
unison Q SQUARE l: l 9x9 lOX 10 11x11
R Broad Pentagon l: 0.951 8.9 x 8.5 10 x 9.5 11 x l0.5
s Broad Cross Octagon l: 0.924 9.2 x 8.5 10 x 9.2 11x10.l
major 2nd 9:8 l: 0.889 9.6 x 8.5 11 x 9.8
T Broad Hexagon l: o.866 9.8 x 8.5 10 x 8.7 11 x 9.5
u Full Cross Octagon l: 0.829 10.3 x 8.5 10 x 8.3 11 x 9.1
major 3rd 5: 4 l: o.8 10.6 x 8.5 11x8.8
Landscape Letter l: 0.773 11x8.5 10 x 7.7

148
 Column Proportions Sample sizes in picas

a Quadruple Square l: 4 10 x 40 11x44 12 x 48 double octave

l: '115 l : 3-873 10 x 39
4: 15 l: 3.75 12 x 45 major 14th
5: 18 l : 3-6 10 x 36 12 x 43
9: 32 l: 3.556 11x39 minor 14th
l:'112 l : 3-464 11 x 38 15 x 52
b Octagon Wing l: 3-414 12 x 41
3: 10 l : 3.333 12 x 40 15 x 50 major 13th
l : 2<p l : 3-236

5: 16 l : 3-2 15 x 48 minor 13th

l :'110 l: 3.i62 12 x 38
l : TI l: 3-142 14 x 44
c Double Pentagon l : 3-078 12 x 37 14 x 43 16 x 49
d Triple Square l: 3 12 x 36 14 x 42 16 x 48 twelfth
e Wide Octagon Wing l: 2.993
z l : 2{2 = l : {8 l: 2.828
f Pentagon Wing l: 2.753 16 x 44
l: e l: 2.718 14 x 38 18 x 49
3:8 l: 2.667 15 x 40 18 x 48 eleventh
l :'17 l: 2.646
g Extended Section l: 2.618
h Tall Octagon Column l: 2.613 18 x 47
Mid Octagon
Column l: 2.514
2:5 l: 2.5 16 x 40 18 x 45 20 x 50 major 10th
Short Octagon
Column l: 2-414
5: 12 l: 2.4 20 x 48 minor 10th
k Hexagon Wing l: 2.309 16 x 37 20 x 46
m Double Truncated
Pentagon l: 2.252
4:9 l: 2.25 20 x 45 major 9th
l: -JS l: 2.236 17 x 38 21x47
5: 11 l: 2.2 20 x 44 24 x 53
15: 32 l: 2.133 24 x 52 minor 9th
A Double Square l: 2 18 x 36 21x42 24 x 48 octave

[The intervals listed in the right hand column on this page are com-
pound intervals of the chromatic scale. Octave+ minor 2nd = minor
9th; octave + major 3rd = major loth; octave + fifth = twelfth, etc.]

149
 F
Organic,
Mechanical
and Musical
Proportion

p R

F,P,Randfare Pages derived from the pentagon : F the Tall Pentagon page, i: i.701;
shown here as H Pentagon page, 1: i.539; JShort Pentagon page, i : q76 ; M the Truncated
two-page spreads.
H, J, M and m are
Pentagon page, l: i.176; P Turned Pentagon page, 1 : 1.051; R the Broad
shown as single Pentagon page, l : 0.951; f Pentagon Wing, 1 : 2.753; m the Double Truncated
pages. Pentagon, l : 2.252. The pentagon page differs by 2% from the North Ameri-
can standard small trade book size, which is half the size of a letter sheet:
5Y2 x 8% inches. A more eminent page proportion, the golden section, is also
present in the pentagon (see page i56 ) . In nature, pentagonal symmetry
is rare in inanimate forms . Packed soap bubbles seem to strive for it but
never quite succeed, and there are no mineral crystals with true pentagonal
structures. But pentagonal geometry is basic to many living things, from
roses and forget-me-nots to sea urchins and sta rfish.

150
 c E
Shaping
the
Page

N, N,

T, /\V\T,
k

Pages derived from the hexagon : C the Tall Hexagon page, i: 1.866; All formats on
E Hexagon page, 1: {3 = i: i.732; N Turned Hexagon page, i : u55; this page are
shown as two-
T Broad Hexagon page, i : o.866; k Hexagon Wing, i : 2.309. The hexagon page spreads.
consists of six equilateral triangles, and each of these page shapes can be
derived directly from the triangle instead. The hexagon merely clarifies their
existence as mirror images, like the pages of a book. Hexagonal structures
are present in both the organic and the inorganic world -in lilies and wasps'
nests, for example, and in snowflakes, s ilica crystals and sunbaked mudflats.
The proportions of the broad hexagon page are within one tenth of one per
cent of the natural ratio n/e, while the turned hexagon page (which is the
broad hexagon rotated 90°) approximates the ratio e/n. (The hexagon page
used in this book is analyzed on page 6.)

151
 B D
Organic,
Mechanical
and Musical
Proportion

u
b
h, i, i

B, D,0,S and U Pages derived from the octagon: B the Tall Octagon page, l: i.924;
are shown as two- D Octagon page, l : l.848; K Tall Half Octagon page, l : i.307; L Half
page spreads.
Octagon page, l : l.207; 0 Tall Cross Octagon, l : l.082; S Broad Cross
Octagon page, l : 0.924; U the Full Cross Octagon page, l: 0.829;
b Octagon Wing, l: 3.414; e Wide Octagon Wing, l: 2.993; h, i, j Tall,
Middle and Short Octagon Columns, l : 2.613, l: 2.514 and l: 2.414. The
tall half octagon page (K), used in Roman times, differs by a margin of
1% from the standard North American letter size. Are proportions derived
from the hexagon a nd pentagon livelier a nd more pleasing than those
derived from the octagon? Forms based on the hexagon and pentagon
are, at any rate, far more frequent than octagonal forms in the structure
of flowering plants and elsewhere in the living world.

152
 A z,
Shaping
the
Page

z,

Pages derived from the circle and square: A Double Square page, i: 2; Except for z,.
Z the Broad Square page, which is the 1so standard, l: --J2 = l : 1.414; all formats on
this page are
Q the Perfect Square; z Double 1so, l: 2-v2 = l: 2.828. The proportion shown as two-
i: -v2 is that of side to diagonal in a square. A rectangle of these propor- page spreads.
tions (and no others) can be halved or doubled indefinitely to produce new
rectangles of the same proportion. The proportion was chosen for that
reason as the basis for 1so (International Organization for Standardization)
paper sizes. The A4 sheet, for example, is standard European letter size,
210 x 297 mm = 8"Xi" x 11%". An 8Y:z" x 12" book page also embodies
this proportion.
The 1so or broad square page is latent not only in the square but in
the octagon.

153
 AO

Organic,
Mechanical
and Musical
Proportion

A2 Al

A4 A3

AS

1so sheet sizes: AO =841 x 1189 mm A3 = 297 x 420 mm

Al = S94 x 841 mm A4 = 210 x 297 mm
A2 = 420 x S94 mm AS = 148 x 210 mm

When a sheet whose proportions are l: '12 is folded in half, the result
is a sheet half as large but with the same proportions. Standard paper
sizes based on this principle have been in use in Germany since the early
1920s. The basis of the system is the Ao sheet, which has an area of1 m'.
Yet precisely because it is reciprocal with nothing but itself. the 1so page
is, in isolation, the least musical of all the major page shapes. It needs a
textblock of another shape for contrast.

IS4
8.2 THE GOLDEN SECTION

The golden section is a symmetrical relation built from asym-

metrical parts. Two numbers, shapes or elements embody the
golden section when the smaller is to the larger as the larger is
to the sum. That is, a: b = b: (a + b ). In the language of algebra,
this ratio is I : cp = I : (1 + -{5) /2, and in the language of trigonom- Shaping
etry, it is I : (2 sin 54°). Its approximate value in decimal terms the
is I : I.61803. Page
The second term of this ratio, cp (the Greek letter phi), is a
number with several unusual properties. If you add one to cp,
you get its square (cp x cp ). If you subtract one from cp, you get its
reciprocal (1/<p ). And if you multiplycp endlessly by itself, you get
an infinite series embodying a single proportion. That propor-
tion is I : cp. If we rewrite these facts in the typographic form
mathematicians like to use, they look like this:

<p + I = <p2

<p-I=I/<p

<p-1 : I = I: <p = <p: <p2 = <p2 : cp' = cp' : cp• = cp• : cps ...

If we look for a numerical approximation to this ratio, I : cp, we

will find it in something called the Fibonacci series, named for the
thirteenth-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci. Though
he died two centuries before Gutenberg, Fibonacci is important
in the history of European typography as well as mathematics.
He was born in Pisa but studied in North Africa. On his return,
he introduced Arabic mathematics to North Italian scholars and
also arabic numerals to the North Italian scribes.
As a mathematician, Fibonacci took an interest in many prob-
lems, including the problem of unchecked propagation. What
happens, he asked, if everything breeds and nothing dies? The
answer is a logarithmic spiral of increase. Expressed as a series
of integers, such a spiral takes the following form:

0 · 1 · 1 · 2 · 3 · 5 · 8 · 13 · 21 · 34 · 55 · 89 · 144 · 233 · 377 · 610 ·

987 · I,597 · 2,584 · 4,181 · 6,765 · I0,946 · 17,711 · 28,657 ...

Here each term after the first two is the sum of the two pre-
ceding. And the farther we proceed along this series, the closer

155
 The
Golden
Section

The screened
area represents a
two-page spread
in which each
page embodies
the golden sec-
tion. The root of
the spiral, which
is the navel of
the page, lies at
the intersection
of the diagonals.
This is a Renais-
sance structure:
precisely mea-
sured and formed,
yet open-ended,
unconfined. Like
Thoreau's vision
of the mind (page G Golden Section, 1 : cp = i:i.618 .... In the pentagon, the sides and the chord
66). it is hypethral.
(Compare the c embody the golden section. The smaller is to the larger as the larger is to
equally elegant the whole, ors: c = c : (s + c). When two chords intersect, they divide each
but closed, medi- other in the same proportion: a: b = b: c, whe re c = a+ b. Moreover, b = s.
eval structure on
page 173 and the Thus, a:s = s : c = c :(s+c) = 1 :cp.
resolutely linear An evolving sequence of figures th at em body the golden section a lso
structure on defines the path of a logarithmic spiral. And if the lengths of the sides of
page 154.)
the figures are rounded off to the nearest whole numbers, the result is a
Fibonacci series of integers.
we come to an accurate approximation of the number <p. Thus
5: 8 = I: 1.6; 8: 13 = I: 1.625; 13: 21 = I: 1.615; 21: 34 = 1: 1.619, and
so on.
In the world of pure mathematics, this spiral of increase, the
Fibonacci series, proceeds without end. In the world of mortal
living things, of course, the spiral soon breaks off. It is repeatedly
interrupted by death and other practical considerations - but it Shaping
is visible nevertheless in the short term. Abbreviated versions of the
the Fibonacci series, and the proportion 1 : <p, can be seen in the Page
structure of pineapples, pinecones, sunflowers, sea urchins, snails,
the chambered nautilus, and in the proportions of the human
body as well.
If we convert the ratio 1 : <p or 1 : 1.61803 to percentages, The golden
the smaller part is roughly 38.2% and the larger 61.8% of the section, 1 : cp,
differs by roughly
whole. But we will find the exact proportions of the golden section one per cent
in several simple geometric figures. These include the pentagon, from the interval
where they are relatively obvious, and the square, where they are of the minor
sixth in the
somewhat more deeply concealed. Sunflowers, snails and humans chromatic scale.
who use the golden section choose it; they do not invent it. The proportion
The golden section was much admired by classical Greek 5. 8, which is the
arithmetic value
geometers and architects, and by Renaissance mathematicians, of the minor
architects and scribes, who often used it in their work. It has also sixth in music,
been much admired by artists and craftsmen, including typogra- is often used in
typography as a
phers, in the modern age. Paperback books in the Penguin Clas- rough approxim-
sics series have been manufactured for more than half a century ation to the
to the standard size of m x 180 mm, which embodies the golden golden section.

section. The Modulor system of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier

is based on the golden section as well.
If type sizes are chosen according to the golden section, the
result is again a Fibonacci series:

These sizes alone are adequate for many typographic tasks.

But to create a more versatile scale of sizes, a second or third
interlocking series can be added. The possibilities include:

(b) 6. 10. 16. 26. 42. 68. 110 ...

( c) 4 . 7 . 11 . 18 . 29 . 47 . 76 ...

All three of these series - a, band c - obey the Fibonacci rule

(each term is the sum of the two terms preceding). Series bis also

157
 related to series a by simple doubling. The combination of a and
b is therefore a two-stranded Fibonacci series with incremental
symmetry, forming a very versatile scale of type sizes:

(d) 6. 8. 10. 13. 16. 21. 26. 34. 42. 55. 68 ...

The The double-stranded Fibonacci series used by Le Corbusier

Golden (with other units of measurement) in his architectural work is
Section similarly useful in typography:

(e) 4 61/2 17 271/2 441/2 72

89 ...
5 8 13 21 34 55

h a e b j

g d f c k

Finding the golden section in the square. Begin with the square abed. Bisect
the square(with the line ef)and draw diagonals (ec anded) in each half. An
isosceles triangle, cde, consisting of two right triangles, is formed. Extend
the base of the square (draw the line gk) and pro1ect each of the diagonals
(the hypotenuse of each of the right triangles) onto the extended base.
Now ce = cg, and de = dk. Draw the new rectangle, efgh. This and its mir-
ror image, ejkf. each have the proportions of the golden section. That is
to say, eh: gh = gh: (gh +eh)= ej: jk = jk: (jk + ej) = i : cp. (Contrastthis
with figure Z 2 on page i 53.)
 Shaping
the
Page

The relationship between the square and the golden section is perpetual.
Each time a square is subtracted from a golden section, a new golden sec-
tion remains. Iftwo overlapping squares are formed within a golden-section
rectangle, two smaller rectangles of golden-section proportions are created,
along with a narrow column whose proportions are l: (cp + l) = l: 2.618.
This is g, the Extended Section, from the table on page 149· If a square is
subtracted from this, the golden section is restored.

159
 The
Golden
Section
Ts eARAGRAett,focex-
ample, is indented according to the golden section. The indent
is to the remainder of the line as that remainder is to the full text
measure. Here the measure is 21 picas, and the indent is 38.2% of
that, which is to say 8 picas.
The amount of sinkage (the extra white
space allowed at the top of the page) is 7 lines (here equal to 7
picas). Add the extra pica of white space created by the indent
itself, and you have an imaginary 8-pica square of empty space
in the upper left corner of the textblock.
The size of the elevated cap is related in
turn to the size of the indent and the sinkage. Eight picas is 96 pt,
and 61.8% of that is 59.3 pt. But the relationship between 59 or
60 pt type and an 8-pica indent would be difficult to perceive,
because a 60 pt letter is not visibly 60 pt high. The initial used
has an actual 60 pt cap height instead. Depending on the face,
such a letter could be anywhere from 72 to 100 pt nominal size;
here it is 84 pt Castellar.

8.3 PROPORTIONS OF THE EMPTY PAGE

8.3.1 Choose inherently satisfying page proportions in preference

to stock sizes or arbitrary shapes.

The proportions of a page are like an interval in music. In a given

context, some are consonant, others dissonant. Some are famil-
iar; some are also inescapable, because of their presence in the
structures of the natural as well as the man-made world. Some
proportions also seem particularly linked to living things. [t is
true that wastage is often increased when an 8\12 x 11 inch page is
trimmed to i~4 x 11 or 6% x 11, or when a 6 x 9 book page is nar-
rowed to 5% x 9. But an organic page looks and feels different from
a mechanical page, and the shape of the page itself will provoke
certain responses and expectations in the reader, independently
of whatever text it contains.

160
8.3.2 Choose page proportions suited to the content, size and
ambitions of the publication.

There is no one ideal proportion, but some are clearly more pon-
derous, others more brittle. In general, a book page, like a human
being, should not peer down its nose, nor should it sag.
The narrower page shapes require a soft or open spine so that Shaping
the opened book lies flat, and at smaller sizes, narrower pages the
are suitable only for text that can be set to a narrow measure. At Page
larger sizes, the narrow page is more adaptable.
For ordinary books, consisting of simple text in a modest
size, typographers and readers both gravitate to proportions
ranging from the light, agile 5 : 9 [1 : 1.8] to the heavier and more
stolid 4: 5 [1: 1.25]. Pages wider than I: {2 are useful primarily
in books that need the extra width for maps, tables, sidenotes or
wide illustrations, and for books in which a multiple-column
page is preferred.
When important illustrations are involved, these gener-
ally decide the shape of the page. Typically, one would choose
a page somewhat deeper than the average illustration, both to
leave extra blank space at the foot of the page, and to permit the
insertion of captions. The e/Tt or turned hexagon page, i: 1.16,
for example, which is slightly deeper than a perfect square, is
useful for square artwork, such as photographs taken with a
square-format camera. The n/e or broad hexagon page, I: 0.87,
is useful for landscape photographs in the 4 x 5 format, and the
full cross octagon page, I: 0.83, for landscape photos in the wider
format of 35 mm. (Un cropped 35 mm transparencies embody the
proportion 2: 3.)

8.3.3 Choose page and column proportions whose historical

associations suit your intended design.

Early Egyptian scribes (when not writing vertically) tended to

write a long line and a wide column. This long Egyptian line reap-
pears in other contexts over the centuries - on Roman imperial
writing tablets, in medieval European charters and deeds, and
in many poorly designed twentieth-century works of academic
prose. It is a sign, generally speaking, that the emphasis is on the
writing instead of the reading, and that writing is seen as an in-
strument of power, not an instrument of freedom. Whether oral
or visual, longwindedness is very rarely a virtue.
 Early Hebrew scribes generally favored a narrower column,
and early Greek scribes a column narrower still. But they, like the
Egyptians, were making scrolls instead of bound books. It is dif-
ficult, therefore, to compare modern notions of the page directly
with theirs. You can open a scroll as wide as you like, exposing one
column, two columns, three. This flexible approach to the con-
Proportions cept of the page survives to some extent in early codices (bound
of the books). There are early books that are three times taller than wide,
Empty Page others that are close to square, and many shapes between.
In medieval Europe, most books, though certainly not all,
settled down to proportions ranging from i : LS to i : 1.25. Paper
- once the mills were built in Europe - was commonly made in
sheets whose proportions were 2 : 3 [1 : LS] or 3 : 4 [1 : L33]. These
proportions, which correspond to the acoustically perfect musical
intervals of fifth and fourth, also reproduce one another with each
fold. If a sheet is 40 x 60 cm [2: 3] to start with, it folds to 30 x 40
[3 : 4], which folds to 20 x 30, and so on. The 25 x 38 inch [roughly
2: 3] and 20 x 26 inch [roughly 3: 4] press sheets used in North
America today are survivors of this medieval tradition.
The page proportion i : {2, which is now the European stan-
dard, was also known to the medieval scribes. And the tall half
octagon page, i : L3 (the shape enshrined now in North American
letter paper) has a similar pedigree. The British Museum has a
Roman wax-tablet book of precisely this proportion, dated to
about AD 300.
Renaissance typographers continued to produce books in the
proportions 1 : L5. They also developed an enthusiasm for nar-
rower proportions. The proportions i: I.87 (tall hexagon), i: 1.7
(tall pentagon), 1: I.67 [3: 5], and of course 1: I.62, the golden
section, were used by typographers in Venice before the end of
the fifteenth century. The narrower page was preferred especially
for works in the arts and sciences. Wider pages, better able to
carry a double column, were preferred for legal and ecclesiastical
texts. (Even now, a Bible, a volume of court reports or a manual
on mortgages or wills is likely to be on a wider page than a book
of poems or a novel.)
Renaissance page proportions (generally in the range of i : L4
to 1 : 2) survived through the Baroque, but Neoclassical books
are often wider, returning to the heavier Roman proportion of
1: 1.3.
8.4 THE TEXTBLOCK

8-4.1If the text is meant to invite continuous reading, set it in

columns that are clearly taller than wide.

Horizontal motion predominates in alphabetic writing, and

for beginners, it predominates in reading. But vertical motion Shaping
predominates in reading for those who have really acquired the the
skill. The tall column of type is a symbol of fluency, a sign that Page
the typographer does not expect the reader to have to puzzle
out the words.
The very long and very narrow columns of newspapers and
magazines, however, have come to suggest disposable prose and
quick, unthoughtful reading. A little more width not only gives
the text more presence; it implies that it might be worth savoring,
quoting and reading again.

842 Shape the textblock so that it balances and contrasts with

the shape of the overall page.

The proportions that are useful for the shapes of pages are equally
useful in shaping the textblock. This is not to say that the pro-
portions of the textblock and the page should be the same. They
often were the same in medieval books. In the Renaissance, many
typographers preferred a more polyphonic page, in which the
proportions of page and textblock differ. But it is pointless for
them to differ unless, like intervals in music, they differ to a clear
and purposeful degree.
For all the beauty of pure geometry, a perfectly square block
of type on a perfectly square page with even margins all around
is a form unlikely to encourage reading. Reading, like walking,
involves navigation - and the square block of type on a square
block of paper is short of basic landmarks and clues. To give the
reader a sense of direction, and the page a sense of liveliness and
poise, it is necessary to break this inexorable sameness and find
a new balance of another kind. Some space must be narrow so
that other space may be wide, and some space emptied so that
other space may be filled.
In the simple format shown overleaf, a page whose propor-
tions are i : i.62 (the golden section) carries a textblock whose
proportions are i : i.8 [ 5 : 9]. This difference constitutes a primary
visual chord which generates both energy and harmony in the
 page. It is supplemented by secondary harmonies created by the
proportions of the margins and the placement of the textblock
- not in the center of the page but high and toward the spine.
The textblock itself, in this example, is symmetrical, but it is
placed asymmetrically on the page. The lefthand page is a mirror
image of the right, but no mirror image runs the other way. The
The two-page spread is symmetrical horizontally - the direction in
Textblock which the pages turn, either backward or forward, as the reader
consults the book - but it is asymmetrical vertically - the direc-
tion in which the page stays put while the reader's eye repeatedly
works its way in one direction: down.
This interlocking relationship of symmetry and asymmetry,
and of balanced and contrasted shape and size, was not new when
this example was designed (in Venice in 1501). The first European
typographers inherited some two thousand years' worth of re-
search into these principles from their predecessors, the scribes.
Yet the principles are flexible enough that countless new typo-
graphic pages and page-spreads wait to be designed.

Page spread, probably by Francesco Griffo, Venice, 1501. The text is Virgil's
Aeneid, set entirely in a crisp, simple italic lower case, 12/12 x 16, with
roman small capitals, approximately 5 pt high. The original page size is
10.7 x 17.3 cm.
8.5 MARGINS & SATELLITES

8.5.1 Bring the margins into the design.

In typography, margins must do three things. They must lock the

textblock to the page and lock the facing pages to each other through
the force of their proportions. Second, they must frame the text- Shaping
block in a manner that suits its design. Third, they must protect the
the textblock, leaving it easy for the reader to see and convenient Page
to handle. (That is, they must leave room for the reader's thumbs.)
The third of these is easy, and the second is not difficult. The first
is like choosing type: it is an endless opportunity for typographic
play and a serious test of skill.
Perhaps fifty per cent of the character and integrity of a
printed page lies in its letterforms. Much of the other fifty per
cent resides in its margins.

8.5.2 Bring the design into the margins.

The boundaries of the textblock are rarely absolute. They are

nibbled and punctured by paragraph indents, blank lines between
sections, gutters between columns, and the sinkage of chapter
openings. They are overrun by hanging numbers, outdented para-
graphs or heads, marginal bullets, folios (page numbers) and often
running heads, marginal notes and other typographic satellites.
These features - whether recurrent, like folios, or unpredictable,
like marginal notes and numbers - should be designed to give
vitality to the page and further bind the page and the textblock.

8.5.3 Mark the reader's way.

Folios are useful in most documents longer than two pages. They
can be anywhere on the page that is graphically pleasing and easy
to find, but in practice this reduces to few possibilities: (1) at the
head of the page, aligned with the outside edge of the text block (a
common place for folios accompanied by running heads); (2) at
the foot of the page, aligned with or slightly indented from the
outside edge of the text; (3) in the upper quarter of the outside
margin, beyond the outside edge of the text; (4) at the foot of the
page, horizontally centered beneath the textblock.
The fourth of these choices offers Neoclassical poise but is not
the best for quick navigation. Folios near the upper or lower outside
 corner are the easiest to find by flipping pages in a small book. In
large books and magazines, the bottom outside corner is generally
more convenient for joint assaults by eye and thumb. Folios placed
on the inner margin are rarely worth considering. They are invisible
when needed and all too visible otherwise.
It is usual to set folios in the text size and to position them
Margins near the textblock. Unless they are very black, brightly colored or
and large, the folios usually drown when they get very far away from
Satellites the text. Strengthened enough to survive on their own, they are
likely to prove a distraction.

8.5.4 Don't restate the obvious.

In Bibles and other large works, running heads have been stan-
dard equipment for two thousand years. Photocopying machines,
which can easily separate a chapter or a page from the rest of a
book or journal, have also given running heads (and running
feet, or footers) new importance.
Except as insurance against photocopying pirates, running
heads are nevertheless pointless in many books and documents with
a strong authorial voice or a unified subject. They remain essential
in most anthologies and works of reference, large or small.
Like folios, running heads pose an interesting typographic
problem. They are useless if the reader has to hunt for them, so
they must somehow be distinguished from the text, yet they have
no independent value and must not become a distraction. It has
been a common typographic practice since 1501 to set them in
spaced small caps of the text size, or if the budget permits, to print
them in the text face in a second color.

8.6 PAGE GRIDS & MODULAR SCALES

8.6.1 Use a modular scale if you need one to subdivide the page.
Grids are often used in magazine design and in other situations
where unpredictable graphic elements must be combined in a
rapid and orderly way.
Modular scales serve much the same purpose as grids, but
they are more flexible. A modular scale, like a musical scale, is
a prearranged set of harmonious proportions. In essence, it is
a measuring stick whose units are indivisible (or are treated as

166
 Shaping
the
Page

Standard grid for three-column magazine

such) and are not of uniform size. The traditional sequence of

type sizes shown on page 45, for example, is a modular scale.
The single- and double-stranded Fibonacci series discussed on
pp 157-158 are modular scales as well. These scales can, in fact,
be put directly to use in page design by altering the units from
points to picas. More examples of modular scales are shown on
the following page.
It is perfectly feasible to create a new modular scale for
any project requiring one, and the scale can be founded on any
convenient single or multiple proportion - a given page size, for
example, or the dimensions of a set of illustrations, or something
implicit in the subject matter. A work on astronomy might use a
modular scale based on star charts or Bode's law of interplanetary
distances. A book on Greek art might be laid out using intervals
from one or more of the Greek musical scales or, of course, the
golden section. A work of modernist literature might be designed
using something more deliberately arcane - perhaps a scale based
on the proportions of the author's hand. Generally speaking, a
scale based on two ratios (1: <p and 1: 2, for example) will give
more flexible and interesting results than a scale founded on
just one.
The Half Pica Modular scale illustrated overleaf is actually a See Le Corbusier,
miniaturized version of the architectural scale of Le Corbusier, The Modular
(ind ed., 1954).
which is based in turn on the proportions of the human body.
 68 68

Page Grids
and 55 'iS
)4
Modular
Scales ) I

46
44.5 -15

42

37

34 34 34
33

30 30

27 5
28
27
26

27) 23
21 21
?O
19
17
16
l)
14 14 5
13 13

10 10 5 10 10
9
8 8 8
7
6 6.5 6 6
4 4 4 4 5 4 s
2 5 3
2 I', 2
0) 0 5
A B c D

Four examples of modular pica sticks (shown at half actual size). A Whole
Pica Modular scale. B Half Pica Modular scale. These are both two-stranded
Fibonacci series, based on the ratios i : cp and i : 2. C Medieval Interval scale,
based on the proportions 2 : 3 and l : 2. D Timaean Scale, a simplified ver-
sion of the Pythagorean scale outlined in Plato's Timaeus.

168
 Shaping
the
Page

Use of the modular scale. These pages and textblocks have been subdivided
usingthe Half Pica Modular scale. The pages are 52 x 55 picas (85/8" x 9Y8''),
with margins of 5, 5, 5 & 8 picas. The basic textblock is 42 picas square.
Thousands of different subdivisions are possible. (For more complex ex-
amples on similar principles, see Le Corbusier, The Modular.)
 8.7 EXAMPLES

The formula for designing a perfect page is the same as the for-
mula for writing one: start at the upper left hand corner and
work your way across and down; then turn the page and try
again. The examples on the following pages show only a few
Examples of the many kinds of typographic structures that might evolve
along the way.
In fact, the weaving of the text and the tailoring of the page are
thoroughly interdependent. We can discuss them one by one, and
we can separate each in turn into a series of simple, unintimidat-
ing questions. But the answers to these questions must all, in the
end, fold back into a single answer. The page, the pamphlet or the
book must be seen as a whole if it is to look like one. If it appears
to be only a series of individual solutions to separate typographic
problems, who will believe that its message coheres?
In analyzing the examples on the following pages, these
symbols are used:

Proportions: P =page proportion: h/w

T = textblock proportion: d/m

Page size: w =width of page (trim-size)

h = height of page (trim-size)

Textblock: m = measure (width of primary textblock)

d =depth (height) of primary textblock
(excluding running heads, folios, etc)
A= line height (type size plus added lead)
n = secondary measure (width of secondary column)
c = column width, where there are even multiple
columns

Margins: s = spine margin (back margin)

t =top margin (head margin)
e =fore-edge (front margin)
f = foot margin
g = internal gutter (on a multiple-column page)

Page and textblock proportions (P and Tin the examples)

are given here as single values (1.414, for example). To find the
same values in the table on page 148, look up the corresponding
ratio (1 : 1.414, for example).
 Shaping
the
Page

P = variable; T = 1.75. Margins: t = h/12;f = 3t/2; g = t/2 or t/3. Text col-

umns from Isaiah Scroll A, from Qumran Cave l, on the Dead Sea. The
column depth is 29 lines and the measure is 28 picas, giving a line length
of roughly 40 characters. Elsewhere in the scroll, column widths range
from 21.5 to 39 picas. Paragraphs begin on a new line but - in keeping
with the crisp, square Hebrew characters - are not indented. (Palestine,
perhaps first century Be.) Original size: 26 x 725 cm.

P = 1.5 [ 2: 3 ]; T = 1.7 [tall pentagon]. Margins: s = t = w/9; e = 2s. The

text is a fantasy novel, Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, set
in a roman font cut by Francesco Griffo. (Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1499.)
Original size: 20.5 x 31 cm.
 Examples

P = 1.62 [golden section]; T = 1.87 [tall hexagon]. Margins: s = w/9; t = s;

e = 2s. Secondary column: g = w/75; n = s. The text is in Claude Garamond's
14 pt roman; the sidenotes are 12 pt italic. The gutter between main text and
sidenotes is tiny: 6 or 7 pt against a main text measure of 33.5 picas. But
the differences in size and face prevent any confusion. The text is a history
of the Hundred Years' War. (Jean Froissart, Histoire et chronique, Jean de
Tournes, Paris, 1559.) Original size: roughly 21 x 34 cm.

This grid is
analyzed on the
facing page.

172
 Shaping
the
Page

P = T = 1.5 [ 2: 3 ]. Margins: s = w/9; t = h/9; e = 2s;f = 2t. The margins

are thus in the proportions: t: e :f = 2: 3: 4: 6. A sound, elegant and Scribes employ-
basic medieval structure, which will work for any proportion of page and ing this format
often designed
textblock, so long as the two remain in unison. Spine and head margins their pages so
may be ninths, tenths, twelfths or any other desired proportion of the that the line
page size. Twelfths, of course, give a fuller and more efficient page, with height was an
even factor of the
less white space. But if the page proportion is 2: 3 and the spine and spine margin. If
head margins are ninths, as shown here, the consonance of textblock ).. = s /3, the depth
and page is considerably deepened, because d = w, which is to say, the of the textblock
will be 27 lines. If
depth of the textblock matches the width of the page. Thus m : w = ).. = s /4, the depth
d: h = w: h = m: d = s: t = e :f = 2: 3. Point a, where the half and full of the textblock
diagonals intersect, is one third of the way down and across the textblock will be 36 lines.

and the page. Jan Tschichold, 1955, after Villard de Honnecourt, France,
c. 1280. See Tschichold's The Form of the Book (1991).

FACING PAGE: P = 1.5 [2: 3]; T = 2 [double square]. Margins: s = e =

w/5; t = s/2. The text is a book of poems, set throughout in a chancery

italic with roman capitals. The designer and publisher of this book was a
master calligrapher, certainly aware of the tradition that the inner margins
should be smaller than the outer. He followed that tradition himself with
books of prose, but in this book of poems he chose to center the textblock
on the page. The text throughout is set in one size. Titles are set in the
capitals of the text font, letters paced about 30%. There are no running
heads or other diversions. (Giangiorgio Trissino, Canzone, Ludovico degli
Arrighi, Rome, c. 1523.) Original size: 12.5x18.75 cm.

173
 Examples

P = 1.5 [ 2 : 3]; T = 1.54 [pentagon textblock ]. Margins: s = w/20; t = s=

h/30; e = w/15 = 4s/3;f = 2t. This is the format used for the index to the
fifth edition of the Times Atlas of the World (London, 1975). The page is
a standard medieval shape. The text is set in 5.5 pt Univers leaded 0.1 pt
on a 12-pica measure, in five subdivided columns per page. Columns are
separated by thin vertical rules. Keywords and folios, at the top of the
page, are in 16 pt Univers semibold. (Because of their prominence, these
running heads are included here in calculating the size and shape of the
textblock.) The text is 204 lines deep, yielding an average of 1000 names
per page for 217 pages. This index is a masterpiece of its kind: a potent
typographic symbol, an efficient work of reference, and a comfortable text
to browse. Original size: 30 x 45 cm.

This grid is
analyzed on the
facing page.
=

174
 Shaping
the
Page

P= 1-414 ['12]; T= 1.62 [<p, the golden section]. Margins: S= t= w/9

and e = f = 2s. This is a simple format for placing a golden-section
textblock on an 1so page, locking the two together with margins in the
proportions 1 : 2. Two possible locations for folios are shown: in the up-
per outside margin and (as an alternative) underneath the lower outside
corner of the textblock. There is also ample room for sidenotes in the
fore-edge if required. If the spine and top margins on these pages are
increased to w/8, while the textblock and page are held at their original
proportion, the relationship of the margins becomes e = f = <p s, another
golden section.

FACING PAGE: p = 1.1; T = 0.91; c = w/6. Margins: s = w/14; e = 2s; t = 3s;

f = 3s/2; g = m/20. The proportions of the textblock are the reciprocal of
the proportions of the page: 0.91 = 1/1.1, which is to say that the textblock
is the same shape as the page, rotated 90°. But ifthe gutters are removed
from the textblock and the four columns closed up solid, the textblock
collapses to the same shape in the same orientation as the page. In other
words, the textblock has been expanded from the same shape to the
reciprocal shape of the page entirely by the addition of white space. The
text is the Greek Bible, lettered in uncials, about 13 characters per line.
There are no spaces between the words, but there is some punctuation,
and the text has a slight rag, with line breaks carefully chosen. This subtle
piece of craftsmanship was produced in Egypt in the fourth century. It
is the Codex Sinaiticus, Add. Ms. 43725, at the British Library, London.
Original size: 34.5 x 38 cm.

175
Examples

P = 1.414 [ ,/2 ]; T = 2 [double square]. Margins: s = w/12;f = 2t = h/9;

e = w/3. The wide fore-edge of this manuscript book had a purpose: it was
deliberately left free for sidenotes to be added by the owner. The text is a
sequence of short poems by the Roman poet Horace, written in Caroline
minuscule. (Ms. Plut. 34.1, Laurentian Library, Florence; tenth century.)

P = 1.176 [truncated pentagon page]; T = 1.46. Margins: s = h/11; t = 5s/6;

e = 5s/2;f = 3s/2. Columns: c = 3w/10; g = s/4. The text (set in Friedrich
Poppl's Pontifex, 11/13 x 17 RR) is a series of essays on twentieth-century
art, published in Canada in 1983, with many full-page illustrations. Original
size: 24 x 28 cm.
8.8 IMPROVISATIONS & ADJUSTMENTS

8.8.1 Improvise, calculate, and improvise some more.

Numerical values - used by all typographers in their daily work

- give an impression of exactness. Careful measurement and
accurate calculation are indeed important in typography, but Shaping
they are not its final purpose, and moments arise in every proj- the
ect when exactness bumps its head against approximation. On Page
the mechanical side, paper expands and contracts, and printing
presses, folding machines and trimming knives - not to speak
of typesetting hardware and software - all have their margins of
error. The typographer can rarely profit from these variations
and cannot entirely prevent them. On the planning side, however,
imprecision can often be put to better use.
Some typographers prefer to design by arithmetic from the
outset, in a space composed of little invisible bricks called points
and picas. Others prefer to work in the free two-dimensional
space of a sketchpad, converting their layouts afterward to ty-
pographic measure. Most work involves a combination of these
methods, with occasional collisions between the two. But the
margins of inexactness that crop up in the rounding of units, in
conflicts between optical and arithmetic spacing and centering,
in combining proportions, and in translating from one form of
measurement to another should be welcomed as opportunities,
not as inconsistencies to be ignored, glossed over or begrudged.
The equal temperament of the typesetting machine and the just
intonation of the sketchpad should be used to test and refine one
another until the final answer sings.

8.8.2 Adjust the type and the spaces within the textblock using
typographic increments, but rely on free proportions to adjust the
empty space.

Proportions are more flexible than picas, and it is usually conve-

nient and appealing to work in even units. A margin of 5.32 picas,
for example, begs to be altered to 5 or 5\4 or 5Vi. But picas per se are
less important than proportions, and the system of typographic
sizes and units serves the interrelations of letterforms better than
it serves the interrelations of empty space. As a general rule, it is
better to make incremental jumps in the textblock first and to re-

177
 adjust the margins thereafter - paying more attention in the latter
case to absolute proportion than to convenient units of measure-
ment. When space is measured purely in points, the temptation
to rearrange it into even picas is miraculously lessened.

8.8.3 Keep the page design supple enough to provide a livable

Improvisa- home for the text.
tions and
Adjustments Architects build perfectly proportioned kitchens, living rooms
and bedrooms in which their clients will make, among other
things, a mess. Typographers likewise build perfectly propor-
tioned pages, then distort them on demand. The text takes pre-
cedence over the purity of the design, and the typographic tex-
ture of the text takes precedence over the absolute proportions
of the individual page.
If, for instance, three lines remain at the end of a chapter,
looking forlorn on a page of their own, the design must flex to
accommodate them. The obvious choices are: (1) running two of
the previous spreads a line long (that is, adding one line to the
depth of two pairs of facing pages), which will leave the final page
one line short; (2) running half a dozen of the previous spreads a
line short, thereby bumping a dozen lines along to the final page;
or (3) reproportioning some non-textual element - perhaps an
illustration or the sinkage, if any, at the head of the chapter.
Spacious chapter heads stand out in a book, as they are meant
to. Reproportioning the sinkage is therefore a poor option unless
all chapter heads can be reproportioned to match. And running
six spreads short is, on the face of it, clearly a greater evil than
running two spreads long.
If there are only a few pages to the document, the whole thing
can, and probably should, be redesigned to fit the text. But in a
book of many pages, widow lines, orphaned subheads, and the
runt ends of chapters or sections are certain to require repropor-
tioning some spreads. A rigid design that demands an invariant
page depth is therefore inappropriate for a work of any length.
Altering the leading on short pages to preserve a standard depth
(vertical justification, it is sometimes called) is not a solution.
Neither is stuffing extra space between the paragraphs. These
antics destroy the fabric of the text and thus strike at the heart
of the book.
THE STATE OF THE ART

The state of the art has more by far to do with the knowledge
and skill of its practitioners than with the subtleties of their
tools, but tools can constrain that skill or set it free. The limita-
tions of the tools are therefore also of some interest. They are of
special interest now, because they are subject to rapid change.

9.1 THE HUNDRED-THOUSAND CHARACTER ALPHABET

9
It is often said that the Latin alphabet consists of 26 letters, the
Greek of 24 and the Arabic of 28. If you confine yourself to one
case only, a narrow historical window and the dialect in power,
this assertion can hold true. If you include both caps and lower
case, accented letters and a global set of consonants and vowels -
aa. a a a a'! a.a~ ce ~ u cadet n n i:i o s s ~ l:l\'.i u 11 wy u z
and all the rest - the Latin alphabet is not 26 letters long after all;
it is closer to 600 and able to increase at any time. The alphabet
that classicists now use for classical Greek, with its long parade
of vowels and diacritics - a a a a a a a a a a a <;t q., and so on - is
modest by comparison: fewer than 300 glyphs altogether.
To the 600-character globalized Latin alphabet, mathemati-
cians, grammarians, chemists and even typographers are prone to
make additions: arabic numerals, punctuation, technical symbols,
letters borrowed from Hebrew, Greek and Cyrillic, and, where the
letterforms require or invite them, a few typographic ligatures
Printing enthu-
and alternates as well. There is no hope at this stage of counting siasts sometimes
the number of sorts or glyphs precisely, but the total is clearly speak of the lay
of the case as if
over a thousand.
it were universal
At the end of the eighteenth century, an English-speaking law - but the lay
hand compositor's standard lower case had 54 compartments, of the case is as
holding roman or italic a to z, arabic numerals, basic ligatures, localized as the
lay of the land.
spaces and punctuation. The upper case had another 98, contain- Hand compos-
ing caps and analphabetics. That total, 98 + 54 = 152, is the Eng- itors often set not
lish-speaking hand compositor's minimum basic allotment. When from paired but
from single cases.
more sorts are required, as they very often are, supplementary These have been
cases are used. Two pair give 304 compartments; three pair give reduced to as few
as 89 compart-
456; four pair give 608. This has been the ordinary typographic
ments but some-
ballpark for some time. How Gutenberg's cases were arranged we times contain 400
do not know, but we know how big they were. He used not 26 or more.

179
 but 290 different sorts, in one face and one size, in an unaccented
script, to set his 42-line Bible. The Monotype machine, built five
centuries later, with 255 (later 272) positions in a standard matrix
case, had fallen only a little ways behind.
Many computer Early computers and e-mail links were, by comparison, living
keyboards have in typographic poverty. The alphabet they used was the basic char-
over 100 keys, but
only 47 are tied to acter set defined by the American Standard Code for Information
characters. (This Interchange, or ASCII. Each character was limited to seven bits of
odd number is binary information, so the maximum number of characters was
made even by the
spacebar.) Each 27 = 128. Thirty-three of those were normally subtracted for con-
character key has, trol codes, and one was the code for an empty space. This leaves
at minimum, a 94: not even enough to hold the standard working character set of
plain and a shift
position, reaching Spanish, French or German. The fact that such a character set was
94 characters in long considered adequate tells us something about the cultural
all: ordinarily the narrowness of American civilization, or American technocracy,
94 basic ASCII
characters. But in the midst of the twentieth century.
the keys can be The extended ASCII character set, which has been in general
remapped and use since 1980, is made from eight-bit characters. This gives
can easily be
coded to reach 2" = 256 slots altogether. As a rule, glyphs are assigned to some
four characters 230 of these. Editing and composition software often limits the
each instead working selection to 216 or less. The upper register of this set
of two. (An
example of such - altogether invisible on a normal computer keyboard - is usu-
a keyboard ally filled out with characters selected from the Latin 1 Character
is shown on Set established by ISO (the International Organization for Stan-
page 92.) When
more than 47 x 4 e
dardization, Geneva). These characters - ii~ ii and so on - are
= 188 characters identified and discussed in appendix B, page 301.
are needed at one The allotment of 216 or 230 characters is meagre but adequate
time, more than
one keyboard for basic communication in all the 'official' languages of Western
map is in order Europe and North America. This ignores the needs of mathema-
as well. Function ticians, linguists and other specialists, and of millions of normal
keys are normally
used to jump human beings who use the Latin alphabet for Czech, Hausa, Hun-
from one map to garian, Latvian, Navajo, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Vietnamese,
another: Latin to Welsh, Yoruba, and so on. The extended ASCII character set is
Greek to Cyrillic
to Hebrew for the alphabet not of the real world nor of the UN General Assem-
example. bly but of NATO: a technological memento of the them-and-us
mentality that thrived in the Cold War.
Good, affordable software that would handle thousands of
characters efficiently was for sale (and in fact was widely used) in
the early 1980s. Standardization within the industry shrank this
palette down, then enormously increased it. Some typographic
tools have not caught up. Typographically sectarian and culturally
stunted software is widespread.

180
 Earlier typographers were free to cut another punch at any
time and cast another character. The freedom to do likewise ex-
ists with the computer. But finding room for all these letters in a
shared standard alphabet involves, in the digital world, a shift from
eight-bit to sixteen-bit characters. When we make this change, the
alphabet increases to 216 = 65,536 characters. The first version of
a standard set of characters this size - known as Unicode - was The State
roughed out at the end of the 1980s and published in the early of the Art
1990s. By the year 2000, the rudiments of Unicode were em-
bedded in the operating systems of home computers, and major
digital founders had adopted it as the new encoding standard.
It is, like any standard, less than perfect, but it forms a working See The Unicode
protocol both for a global Latin alphabet and for the technologi- Standard,
Version 4.0.0
cal coexistence of Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, (2003), on line at
Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Latin, Thai, Tibetan and hundreds of www.unicode.org.
other scripts. It was soon clear, however, that 65,000 characters
wasn't enough. To extend the set, 210 = 2,048 of the original al-
lotment were assigned to function in pairs. This permits an ad-
ditional 1024 2 = 1,048,576 characters. In its latest published form
(version 4.0.0, issued in 2003), Unicode defines 96,382 characters, a 6
sets 137,468 aside for private use, and still has roughly 878,000
free for future allocation. ® ¥

Few of us may need (and few may want to memorize) 100,000 ..:.. ~ V·
characters. Typographers working in Chinese have often mastered
20,000; those who work in Korean learn 3,000 or more; most Ii y ~
literate humans learn a thousand characters or fewer. Yet authors, "::! f I
editors, typographers and ordinary citizens who just want to be
able to spell Dvorak, Milosz, M'}'ii or al-FarabI, or to quote a line m ti -z
of Sophocles or Pushkin, or the Vedas or the Sutras or the Psalms, i'I ~
or to write <p -:;:. n, are beneficiaries of a system this inclusive. So w
w TI;
is everyone who want to read their e-mail in an alphabet other
than Latin or a language other than English. 'l? &
There may also never be a font of 100,000 well-made char-
acters designed by one designer. But good fonts with well over
6\ 8J
ten thousand characters, keyed to the Unicode system, are now 1...(5"
-
readily available. Computer operating systems now support them.
More importantly, fonts for particular symbol sets and alphabets
il x
can be linked and tuned to one another by adjusting weight, let- ~
terfit and scale. This kind of typographic diplomacy is a task of
some importance - and when character sets are joined in this way,
sharing typographic space whether or not they are all on one font,
Unicode can serve as a coordinating mechanism.

181
 Unicode is relatively new, but many of the resources it cata-
logues are ancient. Composition software, communication links
and keyboards are just starting to catch up.

9.2 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE FONT

Within the tiny confraternity of metal typefounders and letter-

press printers there is a subtribe that can argue day and night
Type metal is about recipes for type metal. In such a company, the question of
typically 60% to whether to add or subtract five per cent of tin or antimony, or
80% lead, 15% to
20% antimony one per cent of copper, can lead to a long and heated exchange.
and 5% to 10% tin. In the community of digital founders and programmers, there is
Some founders a corresponding subtribe capable of arguing till death about the
also like to add a
trace of copper. merits of one digital format versus another.
Between i980 and 2000, several digital formats were in-
troduced. Each format's sponsors claimed their product was
superior to its predecessors, and sometimes they had grounds
to make such claims. In every case, however, it has turned out
that what genuinely matters is not the format used so much as
the level of hands-on workmanship, good sense and attention to
detail. In metal and digital founding alike, the standard is set by
the human who does the work, not by the recipe or by the brand
name of the tools.
Bitmapped fonts came into use in the i97os. Fonts of this
sort are defined by simple addition and subtraction: this pixel
on, that pixel off, these pixels on, those pixels off. In i982, with the
introduction of Postscript, bitmapped printer fonts rapidly gave
way to fonts defined as scalable outlines. A decade later came the
TrueType format, which differs from Postscript in two essential
respects. First, PostScript and TrueType take a quite different ap-
proach to hinting (that is, they have different ways of addressing
the problems caused by inadequate resolution). Second, their
descriptive mathematics are different. Both interpret letterforms
in terms of Bezier splines (that is to say, they rely on algebraic
techniques developed by Paul de Casteljau and Pierre Bezier in
France in the i96os and i97os) - but PostScript splines are cubic,
while TrueType's are quadratic.
In mechanics, a spline is a flexible strip that will bend under
tension. Boatbuilders and furniture makers use them for laying
out curves. In mathematics, a spline is a curve that behaves as if
it had fiber: sturdy enough to hold itself up yet limber enough to
straighten and bend, stretch and retract.
 Think of a curve as a tensile line, bent by means of a lever
attached to each end. Such a curve can be mathematically de-
fined in terms of four points. Two of these are the endpoints of
the curve. The other two, at the far ends of the levers, are known
as the curve's control points. If the two imaginary levers can be
controlled independently, then cubic equations [as for example,
f(t) = (1- t) 3E 1 + 3t(1- t) 2 c 1 + 3t 2 (1- t)c 2 + t 3E 2 ] will be required The State
to describe the curve, and it is called a cubic spline. of the Art
The levers themselves are not part of the curve, and the control
points are usually off the curve. In the simplest case, however, these
imaginary levers have a length of zero. Then the control points
and the endpoints coincide, and the curve is a straight line.
One way to simplify a cubic spline is to tie the levers together
so that both control points coincide (or so that one control point
has a fixed relation to the other). If that is done, the mathematical A simple cubic
description can be simplified from cubic to quadratic [along the spline, above, and
the same curve
lines,j(t) = (1 - t) 2 E 1 + 2t(1 - t)c + t 2 E 2 ]. (more or less) re-
There are some other complications. A cubic spline, for in- conceived as two
stance, can have additional anchors or points of inflection; a quadratic splines,
below.
quadratic spline cannot. In brief, cubic splines can be simple or
complex; quadratic splines can only be comparatively simple. So
translating a cubic spline to quadratic form can mean convert-
ing one spline into several (and the translation even then may be
imperfect). A TrueType letterform will therefore often have more
splines than the equivalent form in PostScript, but these are usu-
ally defined by fewer points, and mathematically speaking, the
points are usually simpler to describe.
I All quadratic
I I splines can be
I I
I I perfectly ex-
I I pressed as cubic
I I splines, but not
I I
I I vice versa. In
I I quadratic equa-
I I
I
tions, the highest
I
I I power is two (e.g.,
I x squared: x'); in
I
I
I I cubic equations,
- - -1- - - -..;;;=<..;~ --,-----...:=-:~-
it is three (e.g.,
I I
I x cubed: x').

The eon the left, encoded in Postscript, is described by way of 18 cubic

splines defined by 60 points. Thee on the right, encoded in TrueType, is
described by way of 23 quadratic splines defined by 52 points. Endpoints
are represented by squares, control points by circles.
 Several font formats based on PostScript have developed
over the years. The one that has prospered is the early version
known as Type One. Postscript fonts are accordingly referred to
as rs, T-1 or rs-i. (For most purposes, these are synonymous.)
Tens of thousands of fonts are now available in this format. Many
are available now in True Type (TT) format too (often directly
The converted from Postscript). In both, the level of technical quality
Substance ranges - like the design - from pathetic to superb.
of the A promising amplification of rs-1, developed at the begin-
Font ning of the 1990s, is known as Multiple Master (MM). Fonts in the
MM format are continuously adjustable along any of several axes,
determined by the designer. These axes can include, for example,
width, weight, optimal size, extender length, terminal shape or
serif formation. To date, however, relatively few such fonts have
actually been made.

aaaaaaaaaa
In Adobe's ter- Adobe Jenson MM is scalable both for weight and for optimal size. Here
minology, the one letter of uniform weight is scaled from 6 to 72 pt optimal size. The
size axis is called
optical, not opti- forms are then resized to the same x-height so their shapes and effective
mal size. What is weights can be compared. If each letter is set at the size intended, optical
at issue, however, balance is achieved.
is physical scale,
which is visceral
as much as The initial TrueType format led to two important variations.
optical. These are Graphic Extension (Gx) fonts, first released in 1994,
and TrueType Open (TTO ), dating from 1995· These formats are
significant for their ability to accommodate large character sets
together with automatic contextual substitution of variants and
ligatures. Both these capabilities are essential for many Asian
scripts (Arabic, Devanagari, Tibetan and Malayalam for example).
They are also vital to many historical forms (and possibly some
future forms) of Greek and Latin script.
Makers of editorial and composition software did not respond
to these advances as eagerly as hoped. Partly for this reason, an
agreement was reached in the late 1990s between the originators
of Postscript (Adobe Systems) and the inheritors of TrueType
(Microsoft) on yet another font format known as OpenType
(OT or OTF ). Outwardly, an OpenType font resembles a Gx or
TTO font. It can include a colossal character set with multiple
encodings. (It can hold, for example, thousands of Chinese or
Korean characters, and a complete pan-European set of Latin,
Greek and Cyrillic with regional variants.) Several styles of fig-
ures and several sets of small caps can reside on the same font
with the u&lc. The font can also include a set (or many sets) of
rules for automatic substitution of alternates and ligatures and
automatic repositioning of glyphs in certain contexts. And the
letterforms within an OT font can be described in either cubic or The State
quadratic terms. The kernel of the font, in other words, can be of the Art
either PS or TT.
The composition software has to work with such a font to
bring its features into play. When run with parochial software, an
OT font's OT features disappear. It behaves like a normal T-1 or
TT font with 216 or fewer accessible characters.
Several thousand OT fonts have now been issued - and again,
the quality ranges from dismal to superb. Some OT fonts in fact
take no advantage of the format's capabilities; they are function-
ally identical to plain vanilla PS or TT fonts. Others are rich
and subtle. Without opening the package and checking out the
contents, there is no real way to tell.
Typography and typefounding will not save the world. But
peaceful coexistence and exchange among all the world's writing
systems could be a gesture in that direction. Even this modest
goal is a good ways off and may never be reached. But it is now
a perceptible goal, which is something in itself.

9.3 THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL FONT

9.3.1 Glyphs and Characters

Typographers are frequently surprised to learn that small caps,

text figures, swashes and other things they need and use are no-
where to be found in the lengthening Unicode catalogue. But Uni-
code lists textual not typographic symbols. Its aim is to embrace
all linguistically meaningful signs, not all their typographically
desirable forms and permutations. Because of inconsistencies in
its original design, and because it has absorbed inconsistent ISO
standards, even the recently purified version of Unicode includes
some lingering compound characters. In theory, however, authors,
editors and denizens of Unicode think and transmit elemental
signs (f + f + i, for instance, rather than ffi), and typographers
transform these underlying abstract entities into their endlessly
varying outward manifestations.
 This mode of thinking about text transmission and typogra-
phy has proven very fruitful, especially in relation to non-Latin
scripts. And it has prompted type designers and founders to
distinguish with some care between a character set and a glyph

zyz palette. The plain and swash forms of z in Arrighi or Poetica, for
example, are different glyphs (or different sorts, a hand composi-
tor would say) that correspond to a single character. In fact this

zzz_, distinction between characters and glyphs has been familiar to

scribes for millennia. It was also familiar to Gutenberg.
In the early days of letterpress, punchcutters frequently cut
multiple versions of common letters and other characters (such
as the hyphen), so that their subtle, often subliminal, variations
would invigorate the page. A hand compositor reaching into the
typecase for an e might then come up with any of several similar
but not identical forms. Few readers may have consciously noticed
the difference, yet each of these slyly variant letters contributed
its mote of vitality to the page. After five hundred years on the
library shelf, that vitality remains. It comes in part from the art-
istry of the cutters, and in part from the use of a system that lets
the glyphs outnumber the characters.
For the origins Matthew Carter's Sophia, to take a more recent example, is
of Sophia, see
a digital face consisting only of capitals, yet it includes multiple
Stanley Morison,
Politics and Script glyphs for many characters. There are four forms of T, three forms
(1972): 98-103, each of E, F and R, two forms of A, C, G, H, I, Kand many other
and the review
letters. Some of the variant forms are independent; others are
of Sophia and
Mantinia in Print components used in custom-building ligatures. Sophia's stake
48.2 (New York, in the character set is small, because it has no lower case, but
1994): 121-22.
its glyph palette is relatively large (and Carter has been urged to
make it larger).
Apart from special cases like Sophia and Zapfino, most fonts
of Latin type are limited at present to only one glyph for most
characters, and a few contextual glyphs like ff and ffi. At the level
of the family there are several glyphs per character: a, a, A, a, a
and sometimes many more. But in English the rules for choosing
among these glyphs are editorial as much as typographic. In the
Arabic alphabet, by contrast, multiple glyphs are essential in every
font, and the choice of glyph is governed mostly by scriptorial
or typographic rules. There are no capitals, small caps or italics
in Arabic script, but ligatures are frequent, and even a font of
simplified Arabic type contains about a hundred basic glyphs
for the 28 Arabic letters, because most letters have four different
forms: initial, medial, final and free-standing.

186
THE INTELLECT Of ffiAN

IS FORCED TO CHOOSE+ The State

of the Art

PERFECTION °f THE LIFE

OR 0 f THE- WORK, +
- AND If IT TAI'E THE

SECOND MUST REFUSE+

A HEAVENLY ffiANSION,

RAGING IN THE DARI'+

WJlLIAffi BUTLER YEATS

Matthew Carter's Sophia ( Carter a( Cone, 1993) is a face with alternate
glyphs for many characters. Many of these alternates form ligatures.
 This explains the necessity for'private use' characters in Uni-
Lexical ligatures code. Typographic ligatures, text figures, small caps, swashes and
(re, er, G, etc) are other alternate glyphs are placed in that domain. The composition
those whose us-
age is defined by software must then be taught to find them.
lexicographers
and grammar- 9.3.2 Manual, Random and Programmed Variation
ians. These are
in Unicode. Typo-
graphic ligatures The text is a string of characters; the font is a palette of glyphs
(ff, Ii, d, etc) are - along with all the information (width tables, kerning tables and
those whose
usage is primar- so on) needed for stringing the glyphs to match the characters.
ily a matter of If we think about typography in these terms, it is clear that every
typographic style. font could offer the typographer a different range of choices: a
The distinction
is by no means different palette of glyphs, in other words, mapped perhaps in
absolute. many different ways, to the same set of standard characters.
Zuzana Licko's type family Mrs Eaves (Emigre, 1996) is an
example. There are five basic members of the family: roman,
italic, bold roman, and two sizes of small caps. The roman, italic
How many and bold are each equipped with a supplementary battery of 71
ligatures is a lot? ligatures. Some of these are subtle, some distinctly cheeky. A
There are only 10
or 12 nowadays supporting piece of software, engineered by Just van Rossum,
(re, er, IE, CE, G, lets the compositor decide which ligatures to use, then implants
Ii, fl, ff, ffi, ftl; them automatically wherever the equivalent string of characters
sometimes fj and
flj) in a normal appears. This is how most systems for handling optional ligatures
Latin text font, ought to work - and how, perhaps, one day, they will.
but there are
36 in the font
for Gutenberg's
42-line Bible
ae re 4Y ee ffy ffr gg ggy gi
(c. 1455), 45 in
Robert Granjon's
second civilite
ip it sp fs fs Th rt tty ty
~ oe re
(c. 1570), 55 in
Robert Slimbach's
Poetica (1992),
ae ~ C9 a &! fb ffffy !fr ft ggy gz gy zp
70 in Francesco
Griffo's first
it 9 oe re @ sp Js ft f!Y tt f!y !Y tw
italic (1499), and
about 350 in each
font of Claude Some of the ligatures in Zuzana Licko's typeface Mrs Eaves. There are 30
Garamond's ligatures for the caps, 40 for the lower case, and one hybrid (Th). Each
Royal Greeks of these exists in three forms: roman, italic and bold. The face (though
(c. 1541).
not its complement of ligatures) is based on john Baskerville's roman
and italic. It is named for Sarah Ruston Eaves (Mrs Richard Eaves), who
for sixteen years was Baskerville's resident housekeeper and lover, and
for another eleven years (after the death of her first husband) was his
lawful wedded wife.

188
 If every font can have a slightly different set of glyphs, it is
pointless to expect the composition software by itself to choose
effectively among them. Three other possibilities suggest them-
selves: (1) the choice of glyphs can be left to the typographer, who
picks them and inserts them each by hand; (1) where there are
variant forms of single letters, the choice can be left to chance;
(3) the rules for choosing glyphs can be tailored to the typeface The State
and embedded in the font itself. of the Art
The first of these options has been the normal practice with
foundry type for centuries. Poetica, Sophia and Zapf Renais-
sance, in their ordinary PostScript incarnations, belong to the
same tradition. By including extra glyphs for certain characters,
these faces offer digital typographers the same degree of freedom
(and require in return the same investment of skill and attention)
that hand compositors have enjoyed since the days of Gutenberg,
Ratdolt and Jenson.
The second option - letting the designer's chosen variants as-
sert themselves at random - is an old and distinguished method
too. Francesco Griffo, Claude Garamond and Simon de Colines
are three of many early masters who cut multiple forms of letters.
Some alternates (with forms like,.,, and n_,) were used selectively
at the beginnings and ends of words, in contexts where their extra
width was useful to the line. Others, which differed among them-
selves scarcely enough to reach the threshold of visibility, could David Pye
serve - and did serve - to enliven the text at random. discusses the
importance of
Another kind of random variation involves the interaction of the threshold of
the craftsman's skill and the texture of materials. The letterforms visibility in his
of Griffo and Colines were cut with immense care. But the letters perceptive book
The Nature
they cut were struck by hand in brass, then cast and dressed and and Art of
set by hand, inked by hand with handmade ink and printed by Workmanship
hand in a handmade wooden press on handmade paper. Every (1968).

step along the way introduced small variations planned by no

one. In the world of the finely honed machine, those human-scale
textures are erased. A sterile sameness supervenes.
The computer is, on the face of it, an ideal device for reviving
the old luxury of random variations at the threshold of perception
(quite a different thing from chaos). But conventional typesetting
software and hardware focuses instead on the unsustainable ideal
of absolute control - and has been hamstrung in the past by the
idea of a single glyph per character. There have been several recent
attempts to introduce a layer of random variation, but all have had
to work against the grain of technological development.
 An early example was Erik van Blokland and Just van Ros-
sum's typeface Beowolf. In its first experimental version (1990 ),
this face relied on the output device to create truly random per-
turbations from a single set of letterforms. Though it would not
work on all systems, and the evolving hardware and software
quickly passed it by, it remains an important landmark in the
effort to teach computers what typography really entails.
In the Open-
Type version of
Hermann Zapf's
eeeeeeeee eeeeeeeee eeeeeecee
Zapfino, the Beowolf (FontShop, i990) is at root a statuesque text roman drawn by
sequence p + p
can automatically Erik van Blokland. The letterforms are sent to the output device through
convert top,+ p,, a subroutine, devised by just van Rossum, that provokes distortions of
but there are sev- each letter within predetermined limits in unpredetermined ways. Three
eral other options.
Four of these are degrees of randomization are available. Within the specified limits, every
shown below letter is a surprise.

Those are two options: manual and random substitution.

There is still the third: building glyph-selection rules into the
font itself. This gives predictable variation. It is now the reigning
method for achieving typographic variation, because this is the
{~er method adopted by the sponsors of Gx, TTO and OT fonts.
For now, therefore, the goal of pleasing randomness - con-
strained but unplanned variation - goes begging in computer-
>1zre1- ized typography. Is it worth pursuing? Communication requires
control, just as life requires control, but it also requires a context
beyond its control. Unpremeditated grace is as crucial to the liveli-
ness of the page as it is to the liveliness of the garden.

9.4 METHODS OF JUSTIFICATION

9-4·1 Use the best available justification engine.

Most of the type set in the past five hundred years is justified type,
and most of it has been justified line by line, by the simple expedi-
ent of altering the space between the words. There are, however,
better ways. Scribes justify text as they write, by introducing ab-
breviations and subtly altering the widths of letters. Gutenberg
replicated the feat by cutting and casting a host of abbreviations
and ligatures along with multiple versions of certain letters, dif-
fering modestly in width. In the early 1990s, Peter Karow and
Hermann Zapf devised a means of doing much the same in the

190
Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals FL/RR, with
composing them are numerous, free, and active; [nor cor- invariant word-
spacing, letter-
porations because of their market share and profits;] but spacing and
they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this glyph shape.
activity [or this market share and profit] are employed in
the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary
[hu]man, taken by himself. - MATTHEW ARNOLD [&EVE
SMITH]

Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals Justified by
composing them are numerous, free, and active; [nor cor- wordspacing
only.
porations because of their market share and profits;] but
they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this
activity [or this market share and profit] are employed in the
service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary [ hu] man,
taken by himself. - MATTHEW ARNOLD [&EVE SMITH]

Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals Justified by
composing them are numerous, free, and active; [nor corpo- letterspacing
only.
rations because of their market share and profits;] but they
are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity
[or this market share and profit] are employed in the service
of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary [hu]man, taken
by himself.- MATTHEW ARNOLD [&EVE SMITH]

Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals Justified by glyph
composing them are numerous, free, and active; [nor corpora- reshaping only.

tions because of their market share and profits;] but they are
great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity [or
this market share and profit] are employed in the service of
an ideal higher than that of an ordinary [hu] man, taken by
himself. - MATTHEW ARNOLD [&EVE SMITH]

Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals Justified by a
composing them are numerous, free, and active; [nor corpora- combination of
wordspacing, let-
tions because of their market share and profits;] but they are terspacing and
great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity [or glyph reshaping.
this market share and profit] are employed in the service of
an ideal higher than that of an ordinary [hu]man, taken by
himself. - MATTHEW ARNOLD [&EVE SMITH]
 digital medium - and without relying on scribal abbreviations.
When the method they had devised was first offered for sale, it
was rejected. Now it is being absorbed. The justification engine
used in setting this book is in essence the one imagined by Zapf
and engineered by Karow more than a decade ago: an electronic
version of what Gutenberg envisioned in the 1440s, as he analyzed
Methods of the work of master scribes.
Justification Unlike a Monotype or Linotype machine, the computer is
perfectly capable of calculating the pros and cons of linebreaks
over a whole paragraph. It can break a line in one place, then go
back and break it again, and again, and again, if subsequent lines
give it reason to do so. Hand compositors have been known to do
the same - but rejustification by hand is a tedious business. The
computer, once it learns the trick, can do it in an flash.
Another thing computer software can do - because Karow
taught it how - is justify text by making subtle alterations in the
widths of letters.
Good justification is calculated paragraph by paragraph
instead of line by line. And the best computer justification now
relies on microscopic adjustments to the space between and within
the letters as well as the space between the words. In this book,
for example, the justification engine has been permitted to vary
the intercharacter spacing by ±3% and to adjust the width of
individual glyphs by ±2%. The bulk of the work is still done by
adjusting the spaces between words, but there are more letters
than spaces in these lines. Tiny adjustments to spaces within and
between the letters therefore go a long way toward creating a page
of even color and texture.
In English, where on average there are five times more let-
ters than spaces on a page, the allowable elasticity in intra- and
intercharacter spacing should usually be held to around one fifth
of the elasticity permitted in the spaces between words.

9.5 PIXELS, PROOFS & PRINTING

If the text will be read on the screen, design it for that

9.5.1
medium.

Like a forest or a garden or a field, an honest page of letters can

absorb - and will repay - as much attention as it is given. Much
type now, however, is composed not for the page but for the screen
of a computer. That screen can be alive with flowing color, but the
best computer monitors have dismal resolution (about 140 dpi:
less than a quarter the current norm for laser printers and less
than 6% of the norm for professional digital typesetting). When
the text is crudely rendered, the eye goes looking for distraction,
which the screen is all too able to provide.
The screen mimics the sky, not the earth. It bombards the eye
with light instead of waiting to repay the gift of vision. It is not The State
simultaneously restful and lively, like a field full of flowers, or the of the Art
face of a thinking human being, or a well-made typographic page.
And we read the screen the way we read the sky: in quick sweeps,
guessing at the weather from the changing shapes of clouds, or
like astronomers, in magnified small bits, examining details. We
look to it for clues and revelations more than wisdom. This makes
it an attractive place for the open storage of pulverized informa-
tion - names, dates, library call numbers, for instance - but not
so good a place for thoughtful text.
The screen, in other words, is a reading environment even
more fugitive than the newspaper. Intricate, long sentences full
of unfamiliar words stand little chance. At text size, subtle and
delicate letterforms stand little chance as well. Superscripts and
subscripts, footnotes, endnotes, sidenotes disappear. In the harsh
light and coarse resolution of the screen, such literate accessories
are difficult to see; what is worse, they dispel the essential illusion
of speed. So the links and jumps of hypertext replace them. All
the subtexts then can be the same size, and readers are at liberty
to skip from text to text like children switching channels on TV.
When reading takes this form, both sentences and letterforms
retreat to blunt simplicity. Forms bred on newsprint and signage
are most likely to survive. Good text faces for the screen are there-
fore as a rule faces with low contrast, a large torso, open counters,
sturdy terminals, and slab serifs or no serifs at all.
If it has anything significant to say, a text that scrolls across
the screen still needs the typographer's attention, just like any
printed text. It may be that the reader, not the typographer, will
actually choose the typeface. The typographer may still have
some control over other factors of typographic rhythm - type
size, measure, leading. Most importantly, the typographer shapes
the virtual page, determining the form and frequency of heads,
the orientation and placement of illustrations, the disposition of
lists and paragraphs. The typographer gives outward and visible
form to the text's intrinsic, invisible order. This determines, in
large part, who will read the text and how.

193
 9.5.2 Check the type at every stage.

Digital letterforms can be printed directly on paper with laser

printers; they can be typeset onto photosensitive paper, negative
film or positive film, from which lithographic printing plates,
letterpress blocks or serigraphic stencils are then made; or they
Pixels, can be etched directly onto printing plates that run on an offset
Proofs and press. Each of these electrostatic and photographic transforma-
Printing tions provides an opportunity for overexposing or underexpos-
ing the type.
Check for accurate color and sharpness in the letterforms at
every stage, and check for consistency throughout. Inconsistent
exposure is often encountered when the work is set a section at
a time, or when corrected pages are rerun. But even when all the
work is run at once on one machine, inconsistencies can occur.
If, for instance, two shelf lots of film or photosensitive paper are
inadvertently mixed, the same machine settings will give two
different results.
Mechanical errors are also not unknown in the superficially
sanitized, high-tech world of computerized type. Many a finely
tooled page has been spoiled in the end by a loose roller or un-
lubricated ratchet. Check the output against a grid to make sure
the leading is consistent, multiple columns align as they should,
and the textblock is not trapezoidal unless it is meant to be.

9.5.3 Follow the work to the printer.

All typographic decisions - the choice of the type, the choice of

size and leading, the calculation of margins and the shaping of the
page - involve assumptions about the printing. It is well to find
out in advance whether these assumptions stand any chance of
being fulfilled. Good printers have much else to teach their clients,
and the best typographer can always find something to learn. But
the path from the editor's desk to the pressroom floor remains
a journey often fraught with danger and surprise. The reason is
that it is frequently a journey between economic realms. On the
one side, a singular thing, a manuscript, moves slowly through the
hands of individual human beings - author, editor, typographer
- who make judgements and decisions one by one, and who are
free (for a time at least) to change their minds. On the other
side, an immensely expensive commodity (blank paper) passes

194
at great speed and irreversibly through an immensely expensive
(and therefore obsessively hungry) machine.
Digital methods have helped to bring editing, typography
and type design back, in some respects, to the close relationship
they enjoyed in the golden age of letterpress. But everything the
writer, type designer, editor and typographer do is still contingent
on the skills and methods of the printer - and while typography, The State
for many, has returned to cottage scale, printing has enlarged to of the Art
the dimensions of heavy industry. The freedom afforded by cheap
and standardized typesetting hardware and software also comes
at a price. That price is the danger of weary sameness and thin-
ness in all the work the typographer does. The use of standard
industrial papers, inks, presses and binding machinery can easily
erase whatever remains of the typographer's personal touch. Yet
printing is what typography is usually thought to be for.
If only by default, it falls to the typographer more than to any-
one else to bridge this gap between a world focused on the perfect
final proof and the world of its industrial replication. No one else
works as close to that frontier as the typographer, and no one has
a greater need to understand what happens on both sides.
The margins of books cannot be calculated correctly until the
binding method is chosen, and they cannot be right in the end
unless the chosen method is followed. The type cannot be chosen
without coming to some decision about the kind of paper it will
be printed on, and cannot look right in the end if that decision is
later betrayed.A change of one eighth inch in the folding pattern
or trim size will ruin a precisely measured page.
Yet another way to undercut the type is to print it with the
wrong ink. Color control is important whether or not color is
used, for there are many hues of black, some veering toward red,
some veering toward blue. Redder blacks are acceptable on ivory
paper. If the paper is closer to gray or white, the black of the ink
should move closer to blue. But it will be process black by default
- and the density of the type will be at the mercy of the press
foreman's final color adjustments - if the text and process-color
illustrations are printed in one go.
Ink gloss is rarely a problem on uncoated paper. On coated
stock, the sheen of the ink is frequently out of control. For the
sake of legibility in artificial light, inks that are used for printing
text on a coated sheet should have less reflectivity than the paper,
rather than more.

195
 9.6 MAINTAINING THE SYSTEM

9.6.1 Consult the ancestors.

Typography is an ancient craft and an old profession as well as

a constant technological frontier. It is also in some sense a trust.
Maintaining The lexicon of the tribe and the letters of the alphabet - which
the System are the chromosomes and genes of literate culture - are in the
typographer's care. Maintaining the system means more than
merely buying the newest fonts from digital foundries and the
latest updates for typesetting software.
The rate of change in typesetting methods has been steep
- perhaps it has approximated the Fibonacci series - for more
than a century. Yet, like poetry and painting, storytelling and
weaving, typography itself has not improved. There is no greater
proof that typography is more art than engineering. Like all the
arts, it is basically immune to progress, though it is not immune
to change. Typography at its best is sometimes as good, and at its
worst is just as bad, as it ever was. The speed of certain processes
has certainly increased; some old, hard tricks have come to seem
easy, and some new ones have been learned. But the quality of
typography and printing, their faithfulness to themselves, and
the inherent grace and poise of the finished page, is not greater
now than it was in 1465. In several respects, digital typography
still lags far behind the methods and resources of Renaissance
compositors and medieval scribes.
Maintaining the system means openness to the surprises and
gifts of the future; it also means keeping the future in touch with
the past. This is done by looking with equal eagerness at the old
work and the new. Reproductions, of course, are fine as far as they
go, but you will never know what a fifteenth-century manuscript
or printed book is like until you touch one, smell one, hold one
in your hands.

9.6.2 Look after the low- as well as the high-technology end.

A digital typographer is now likely to use two rather flimsy but

capable pieces of hardware: a computer, with keyboard and screen,
and some kind of proofing device, usually a laser printer. The
rest of the system - another computer which imposes the work
for the press, and a high-resolution digital plate-maker or other
output device - may be miles away.
 In the typographer's computer there are likely to be a number
of interdependent pieces of software. These will probably include
a text editor, composition software, a library of digital fonts, a font
manager, and a font editor. There may also be a photo editor and
some electronic drawing tools. And the composition software will
nowadays include a host of tools for manipulating type, erasing
the ancient boundary between text and illustration. All these tools The State
are new, but the craft is old. of the Art
Outside the hardware, but no less essential to the system,
more primitive tools are still required: a pica stick, a sketch pad, a
drawing board and instruments, and a library of reference works
and examples of fine typography for discussion and inspiration.
It is the latter, low-technology end of most typesetting systems
that is usually in the most urgent need of upgrading.
One good typeface is better and more useful than an infinity
of poor ones. Here as always, good means several things. It means
that the letterforms themselves are clearly envisioned, lucidly ren-
dered and, beyond all that, convincing. It means they make mute,
irrefutable sense to both body and mind. It means that the fabric
in which these letterforms are held is well made too. If the type
is metal, it means that the metal is well cast - hard, sharp, free of
bubbles or sags - and evenly dressed. If the type is digital, it means
that the glyphs are correctly aligned and consistently sized, with
accurate widths and sensitive kerning instructions. A font of type
can be (and may or may not be in fact) an electronic artefact of
immense sophistication: not only a masterpiece of design but an
intangible piece of craftsmanship enriched by many skilled and
often uncredited eyes and minds.
Some observers are dismayed and some excited by the com-
plexity of the equipment most typographers now use. Some are
excited and others unnerved by the evident power of that equip-
ment and the ease of its operation. Yet inside that complexity,
typography persists as what it is: the making of meaningful, du-
rable, abstract, visible signs. When the system crashes, the craft,
its purposes, its values and all its possibilities remain.

197
 GROOMING THE FONT

Writing begins with the making of meaningful marks. That is to

10 say, leaving the traces of meaningful gestures. Typography begins

with arranging meaningful marks that are already made. In that
respect, the practice of typography is like playing the piano - an
instrument quite different from the human voice. On the piano,
the notes are already fixed, although their order, duration and
amplitude are not. The notes are fixed but they can be endlessly
rearranged, into meaningful music or meaningless noise.
Pianos, however, need to be tuned. The same is true of fonts.
To put this in more literary terms, fonts need to be edited just as
carefully as texts do - and may need to be re-edited, like texts,
when their circumstances change. The editing of fonts, like the
editing of texts, begins before their birth and never ends.
You may prefer to entrust the editing of your fonts, like the
tuning of your piano, to a professional. If you are the editor of a
magazine or the manager of a publishing house, that is probably
the best way to proceed. But devoted typographers, like lutenists
and guitarists, often feel that they themselves must tune the in-
struments they play.

10.1 LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS

10.i.1 Check the license before tuning a digital font.

Digital fonts are usually licensed to the user, not sold outright,
and the license terms vary. Some manufacturers claim to believe
that improving a font produced by them is an infringement of
their rights. No one believes that tuning a piano or pumping
up the tires of a car infringes on the rights of the manufacturer
- and this is true no matter whether the car or the piano has been
rented, leased or purchased. Printing type was treated the same
way from Bi Sheng's time until the 1980s. Generally speaking,
metal type and phototype are treated that way still. In the digital
realm, where the font is wholly intangible, those older notions of
ownership are under pressure to change.
The Linotype Library's standard font license says that "You
may modify the Font-Software to satisfy your design require-
ments:' FontShop's standard license has a similar provision: "You
do have the right to modify and alter Font Software for your cus-
tomary personal and business use, but not for resale or further
distribution:' Adobe's and Agfa Monotype's licenses contain no
such provision. Monotype's says instead that "You may not alter
Font Software for the purpose of adding any functionality.... You
agree not to adapt, modify, alter, translate, convert, or otherwise
change the Font Software ...." Grooming
If your license forbids improving the font itself, the only the Font
legal way to tune it is through a software override. For example,
you can use an external kerning editor to override the kerning
table built into the font. This is the least elegant way to do it, but
a multitude of errors in fitting and kerning can be masked, if
need be, by this means.

10.2 ETHICAL & AESTHETIC CONSIDERATIONS

10.2.1 If it ain't broke ....

Any part of the font can be tuned - lettershapes, character set,
character encoding, fitting and sidebearings, kerning table, hint-
ing, and, in an OpenType font, the rules governing character sub-
stitution. What doesn't need tuning or fixing shouldn't be touched.
If you want to revise the font just for the sake of revising it, you
might do better to design your own instead. And if you hack up
someone else's font for practice, like a biology student cutting up
a frog, you might cremate or bury the results.

10.2.2 If the font is out of tune, fix it once and for all.
One way to refine the typography of a text is to work your way
through it line by line, putting space in here, removing it there,
and repositioning errant characters one by one. But if these re-
finements are made to the font itself, you will never need to make
them again. They are done for good.

10.2.3 Respect the text first of all, the letterforms second, the type
designer third, the foundry fourth.

The needs of the text should take precedence over the layout of
the font, the integrity of the letterforms over the ego of the de-
signer, the artistic sensibility of the designer over the foundry's
desire for profit, and the founder's craft over a good deal else.

199
 10.2.4 Keep on fixing.

Check every text you set to see where improvements can be made.
Then return to the font and make them. Little by little, you and
the instrument - the font, that is - will fuse, and the type you set
will start to sing. Remember, though, this process never ends.
Ethical and There is no such thing as the perfect font.
Aesthetic
Consider- 10.3 HONING THE CHARACTER SET
ations
10.3.1 If there are defective glyphs, mend them.
If the basic lettershapes of your font are poorly drawn, it is
probably better to abandon it rather than edit it. But many fonts
combine superb basic letterforms with alien or sloppy supple-
mentary characters. Where this is the case, you can usually rest
assured that the basic letterforms are the work of a real designer,
whose craftsmanship merits respect, and that the supplementary
characters were added by an inattentive foundry employee. The
latter's errors should be remedied at once.
You may find for example that analphabetic characters such
as @ + ± x = · - - © are too big or too small, too light or too
dark, too high or too low, or are otherwise out of tune with the
basic alphabet. You may also find that diacritics in glyphs such
as a c; e fl 6 ii are poorly drawn, poorly postioned, or out of scale
with the letterforms.

I = 3 < 9 > 6+r · 2 X 4

+2
a + b =c · a@b · © 2007
I + 2 = 3 < 9 > 6+r · 2 X 4
a + b = c · a@b · © 2007
Jose Mendoza y Almeida's Photina is an excellent piece of design, but
in every weight and style of Monotype digital Photina, as issued by the
foundry, arithmetical signs and other analphabetics are out of scale and
out of position, and the copyright symbol and at sign are alien to the font.
The raw versions are shown in grey, corrected versions in black.

200
 -' ' A ,,,..,,,_, ~ ' """ ,,...,
euoa~euoa
Frederic Goudy's Kennerley 1s a homely but quite pleasant type, useful
for many purposes, but in Lanston's digital version, the letterforms are
burdened with some preposterous diacritics. Above left: four accented
sorts as issued by the foundry. Above right: corrected versions. All fonts Grooming
are candidates for similar improvement. Below left: four accented sorts the Font
from Robert Slimbach's carefully honed Minion, as originally issued by
Adobe in i989. Below right: the same glyphs, revised by Slimbach ten years
later, while preparing the Open Type version of the face.

..
a e 1u
/ " '
~
..
, '
ae1u "
10.3.2 If text figures, ligatures or other glyphs you need on a
regular basis don't reside on the base font, move them.

For readable text, you almost always need text figures, but most
digital fonts are sold with titling figures instead. Most digital fonts
also include the ligatures fi and fl but not ff, ffi, ffi, fj or ffj. You may
find at least some of the missing glyphs on a supplementary font
(an 'expert font'), but that is not enough. Put all the basic glyphs
together on the base font.
If, like a good Renaissance typographer, you use only upright
parentheses and brackets (see §s.3.2), copy the upright forms from
the roman to the italic font. Only then can they be kerned and
[f]
spaced correctly without fuss.

10.3.3 If glyphs you need are missing altogether, make them.

Standard 1so digital text fonts (PostScript or TrueType) have 256
slots and carry a basic set of Western European characters. Eastern
European characters such as '! c d e g h I ii 6 r ~ t' u are usually
missing. So are the Welsh sorts w and y, and a host of characters
needed for African, Asian and Native American languages.
The components required to make these characters may be
present on the font, and assembling the pieces is not hard, but
you need a place to put whatever characters you make. If you
need only a few and do not care about system compatibility, you
can place them in wasted slots - e.g., the /\ < > \ I - ' positions,

201
 which are accessible directly from the keyboard, or slots such as
¢ 7 1 2 3 '" a o/oo :, which can be reached through insertion utilities
or by typing character codes or by customizing the keyboard.
If you need to add many such characters, you will need to
make a supplementary font or, better yet, an enlarged font (True-
Type or OpenType). If these are for your own use only, the extra
Honing the characters can be placed wherever you wish. If the fonts are to
Character be shared, every new glyph should be labeled with its PostScript
Set name and Unicode number.

10.3.4 Check and correct the sidebearings.

The spacing of letters is part of the essence of their design. A

well-made font should need little adjustment, except for refining
the kerning. Remember, however, that kerning tables exist for the
sake of problematical sequences such as J*, gy, ''.4, To, Va and 74.
If you find that simple pairs such as oo or oe require kerning, this
is a sign that the letters are poorly fitted. It is better to correct the
sidebearings than to write a bloated kerning table.
The spacing of many analphabetics, however, has as much to
do with editorial style as with typographic design. Unless your
fonts are custom made, neither the type designer nor the founder
can know what you need or prefer. I habitually increase the left
sidebearing of semicolon, colon, question and exclamation marks,
and the inner bearings of guillemets and parentheses, in search
of a kind of Channel Island compromise: neither the tight fitting
preferred by most anglophone editors nor the wide-open spacing
customary in France. If I worked in French all the time, I might
increase these sidebearings further.

abc: def; ghx? klm! «non»

abc: def; ghx? klm! «hmm»
ab<;: def; ghx? klm ! « oui »
Three options for the spacing of basic analphabetics in Monotype digital
Centaur: foundry issue (top); French spacing (bottom); and something in
between. Making such adjustments one by one by the insertion of fixed
spaces can be tedious. It is easier by far, if you know what you want and
you want it consistently, to incorporate your preferences into the font.

202
10.3.5 Refine the kerning table.

Digital type can be printed in three dimensions, using zinc or

polymer plates, and metal type can be printed flat, from photos
or scans of the letterpress proofs. Usually, however, metal type is
printed in three dimensions and digital type is printed in two.
Two-dimensional type can be printed more cleanly and sharply Grooming
than three-dimensional type, but the gain in sharpness rarely the Font
equals what is lost in depth and texture. A digital page is there-
fore apt to look aenemic next to a page printed directly from
handset metal.
This imbalance can be addressed by going deeper into two
dimensions. Digital type is capable of refinements of spacing and
kerning beyond those attainable in metal, and the primary means
of achieving this refinement is the kerning table.
Always check the sidebearings of figures and letters before
you edit the kerning table. Sidebearings can be checked quickly
for errors by disabling kerning and setting characters, at ample
size, in pairs: 11223344 ... qqwweerrttyy.... If the spacing within
the pairs appears to vary, or if it appears consistently cramped or
loose, the sidebearings probably need to be changed.
The function of a kerning table is to achieve what perfect
sidebearings cannot. A thorough check of the kerning table
therefore involves checking all feasible permutations of charac-
ters: 1213141516 ... qwqeqrqtqyquqiqoqpq ... (a(s(d(f(g(h(j(k(l
... )a)s)d)f)g ... -1-2-3-4-5 ... TqTwTeTrTtTyTuTiToTp ... and
so on. This will take several hours for a standard 1so font. For a
full pan-European font, it will take several days.
Class-based kerning (now a standard capability of font edit-
ing software) can be used to speed the process. In class-based
kerning, similar letters, such as a aaii aaaaaq, are treated as
one and kerned alike. This is an excellent way to begin when you
are kerning a large font, but not a way to finish. The combina-
tions Ta and Ta, Ti and Ti, ii and ii, i) and 1), are likely to require
different treatment.
Kerning sequences such as Tp, Tt and f( may seem to you
absurd, but they can and do occur in legitimate text. (Tpig is the
name of a town in the mountains of Dagestan, near the southern
tip of the Russian Federation; Ttanuu is an important historical
site on the British Columbia coast; sequences such as y = j(x)
occur routinely in mathematics.) If you know what texts you
wish to set with a given font, and know that combinations such as

203
 "Ask Jeff'' or 'Ask Jeff'. Take the chef d 'reuvre !
Two of [of] (of) 'of' "of' of? ofl of*. Two of
[of] (of) 'of' "of' op ojl of*. Ydes, Yffignac
and Y grande are in France: so are Ypres, Les
The font on this Woevres, the Foret de Wrevres, the Voire and
page is straight
off the shelf: a Vauvise. Yves is in heaven; D' Amboise is in
magnificently
complex piece of jail. Lyford's in Texas & L' Anse-aux-Gritfons in
digital engineer-
ing capable of
Quebec; the Lyna in Poland. Yriarte, Yciar and
setting bad type
in five different
Ysaye are at Yale. Kyoto and Ryotsu are both
scripts and over a in Japan, Kwikpak on the Yukon delta, Kvreven
hundred different
languages. in Norway, K yulu in Kenya not in Rwanda....
On the facing Walton's in West Virginia, but «Wren» is in
page is a well-
groomed version
Oregon. Tlalpan is near Xochimilco in Mexico,
of the same font: The Zygos & Xylophagou are in Cyprus. Zwettl
the same big set
of plain vanilla in Austria, Fren0 in Denmark, the V 0ringsfosscn
letterform;, tuned
to set type well. and Vrerny in Norway. Tchula is in Mississippi,
Some but not
the Tittabawassee in Michigan. Twodot is here
all of the lapses
in the original
in Montana, Ywamun in Burma. Yggdrasil and
kerning table are Ymir, Yngvi and Voden, Vidrio and Skeggjold
circled.
and Tyr are alJ in the Eddas. T0rberget and Vag,
of course, are in Norway, Ktipas and Tmolos
in Greece, but Vazquez is in Argentina, Vreden
in Germany, Von-Vincke-StraBe in Munster,
Vdovino in Russia, Ytterbium in the periodic
table. Are Toussaint L'Ouverture, Wolffiin,
Wolfe, Milosz and Wu Wu all in the library?
1510~1620, 11:00 pm, and the 1980s are over.

Part of a text file designed to test for missing or dislocated glyphs and for
lapses in the kerning table. Raw font at left; groomed fo nt at right.
There are many versions of Times New Roman. The version tested
here is Times New Roman PS MT, version 2.76, the default text font in
recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. This is a

204
"Ask Jeff" or 'Ask Jeff'. Take the chef d'reuvre !
Two of [of] (of) 'of' "of" of? of! of*. Two of
[of] (of) 'of' "of" of? of! of*. Ydes, Yffignac
and Ygrande are in France: so are Ypres, Les
Woevres, the Foret de Wrevres, the Voire and
Grooming
Vauvise. Yves is in heaven; D'Amboise is in the Font
jail. Lyford's in Texas & L'Anse-aux-Griffons in
Quebec; the Lyna in Poland. Yriarte, Yciar and
Ysaye are at Yale. Kyoto and Ryotsu are both
in Japan, Kwikpak on the Yukon delta, Kvreven
in Norway, Kyulu in Kenya, not in Rwanda ....
Walton's in West Virginia, but «Wren» is in
Oregon. Tlalpan is near Xochimilco in Mexico.
The Zygos & Xylophagou are in Cyprus, Zwettl
in Austria, Fren0 in Denmark, the V0fingsfossen
and Vrerny in Norway. Tchula is in Mississippi,
the Tittabawassee in Michigan. Twodot is here
in Montana, Ywamun in Burma. Yggdrasil and
Ymir, Yngvi and V6den, Vidrio and Skeggjold
and Tyr are all in the Eddas. T0rberget and Vag,
of course, are in Norway, Ktipas and Tmolos
in Greece, but Vazquez is in Argentina, Vreden
in Germany, Von-Vincke-Stral3e in Miinster,
Vdovino in Russia, Ytterbium in the periodic
table. Are Toussaint L'Ouverture, Wolffiin,
Wolfe, Milosz and Wu Wu all in the library?
15rn-1620, 11:00 PM, and the 1980s are over.

TrueType-flavored OpenType font, including pan-European Latin, Greek,

Vietnamese, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic glyphs. It lacks the text figures,
ligatures and small caps typical offull-featured OpenType fonts, and its
OT features are actually limited to the Arabic character set. The kerning is

good as far as it goes, but it does not go nearly far enough.

205
 these will never occur, you can certainly omit them from the table.
But if you are preparing a font for general use, even in a single
language, remember that it should accommodate the occasional
foreign phrase and the names of real and fictional people, places
and things. These can involve some unusual combinations. (A few
additional examples: McTavish, FitzWilliam, O'Quinn, dogfish,
Honing the jack o'-lantern, Hallowe'en.)
Character It is also wise to check the font by running a test file - a spe-
Set cially written text designed to hunt out missing or malformed
characters and kerning pairs that are either too tight or too loose.
On pages 204-205 is a short example of such a test file, showing
the difference between an ungroomed font and a groomed one.
It is nothing unusual for a well-groomed 1so font (which
might contain around two hundred working characters) to have
a kerning table listing a thousand pairs. Kerning instructions for
large OpenType fonts are usually stored in a different form, but if
converted to tabular form, the kerning data for a pan-European
Latin font may easily reach 30,000 pairs. For a well-groomed
Latin-Greek-Cyrillic font, decompiling the kerning instructions
can generate a table of 150,000 pairs. Remember, though, that the
number isn't what counts. What matters is the intelligence and
style of the kerning. Remember too that there is no such thing
as a font whose kerning cannot be improved.

10.3.6 Check the kerning of the word space.

The word space - that invisible blank box - is the most common
character in almost every text. It is normally kerned against slop-
ing and undercut glyphs: quotation marks, apostrophe, the letters
A, T, V, W, Y, and often to the numerals 1, 3, 5. It is not, however,
normally kerned more than a hair either to or away from a pre-
ceding lowercase fin either roman or italic.
A cautionary example. Most of the Monotype digital reviv-
als I have tested over the years have serious flaws in the kerning
tables. One problem in particular recurs in Monotype Baskerville,
Centaur & Arrighi, Dante, Fournier, Gill Sans, Poliphilus & Blado,
Van Dijck and other masterworks in the Monotype collection.
These are well-tried faces of superb design - yet in defiance of
tradition, the maker's kerning tables call for a large space (as
much as M/4) to be added whenever thef is followed by a word
space. The result is a large white blotch after every word ending
inf unless a mark of punctuation intervenes.

206
 Is it east of the sun
and west o( the moon - or
is it west of the moon
and east ofthe sun?
Monotype digital Van Dijck, before and after editing the kerning table. This error -
As issued, the kerning table adds 127 units (thousandths of an em) in documented
in methodical
the roman , and 228 in the italic, between the letter f and the word space. tests of Mono-
The corrected table adds 6 units in the roman, none in the italic. Other, type fonts in
less drastic refinements have also been made to the kerning table used 1991 - was still
present in fonts
in the second two lines. purchased from
Agfa Monotype
Professional typographers may argue about whether the in the summer
of 2004.
added space should be zero, or ten, or even 25 thousandths of an
em. But there is no professional dispute about whether it should
be on the order of an eighth or a quarter of an em. An extra space
that large is a prefabricated typographic error - one that would
bring snorts of disbelief and instantaneous correction from
Stanley Morison, Bruce Rogers, Jan van Krimpen, Eric Gill and
others on whose expertise and genius the Monotype heritage is
built. But it is an easy error to fix for anyone equipped with the
requisite tool: a digital font editor.

l0.4 HINTING

10-4-1 If the font looks poor at low resolutions, check the hinting.

Digital hints are important chiefly for the sake of how the type will
look on screen. Broadly speaking, hints are of two kinds: generic
hints that apply to the font as a whole and specific hints applicable
only to individual characters. Many fonts are sold unhinted, and
few fonts indeed are sold with hints that cannot be improved.
Manual hinting is tedious in the extreme, but any good font
editor of recent vintage will include routines for automated hint-
ing. These routines are usually enough to make a poorly hinted
text font more legible on screen. (In the long run, the solution is
high-resolution screens, making the hinting of fonts irrelevant
except at tiny sizes.)

207
 l0.5 NAMING CONVENTIONS

The presumption of common law is that inherited designs, like

inherited texts, belong in the public domain. New designs (or in
the USA, the software in which they are enshrined) are protected
for a certain term by copyright; the names of the designs are also
Grooming normally protected by trademark legislation. The names are of-
the Font ten better protected, in fact, because infringements on the rights
conferred by a trademark are often much easier to prove than
infringements of copyright. Nevertheless there are times when a
typographer must tinker with the names manufacturers give to
their digital fonts.
Text fonts are generally sold in families, which may include a
smorgasbord of weights and variations. Most editing and typeset-
ting software takes a narrower, more stereotypical view. It recog-
nizes only the nuclear family of roman, italic, bold and bold italic.
Keyboard shortcuts make it easy to switch from one to another of
these, and the switch codes employed are generic. Instead of say-
ing "Switch to such and such a font at such and such a size;' they
say, for instance, "Switch to this font's italic counterpart, whatever
that may be:' This convention makes the instructions transfer-
able. You can change the face and size of a whole paragraph or file
and the roman, italic and bold should all convert correctly. The
slightest inconsistency in font names can prevent this trick from
working - and not all manufacturers name their fonts according
to the same conventions. For the fonts to be linked, their family
names must be identical and the font names must abide by rules
known to the operating system and software in use.
If, for example, you install Martin Majoor's Scala or Scala
Sans (issued by FontShop) on a PC, you will find that the italic
and the roman are unlinked. These are superbly designed fonts,
handsomely kerned and fully equipped with the requisite text
figures and small caps - almost everything a digital font should
be - but the PC versions must be placed in a font editor and re-
named in order to make them work as expected.

208
PROWLING THE SPECIMEN BOOKS

Type is idealized writing - yet there is no end of typefaces, as

11
there is no end to visions of the ideal. The faces discussed in this
chapter cover a wide historical range - Renaissance, Baroque,
Neoclassical, Romantic, Modern and Postmodern. They also
constitute a wide stylistic variety - formal, informal, fluid, crisp,
delicate and robust. The emphasis, however, is on types I like to
read and to reread. Each face shown seems to me of both historical
and practical importance, and each seems to me one of the finest
of its kind. Each also has its limitations. I've included some very
well-known types, such as Baskerville and Palatino; some others,
such as Romulus Sans, Heraklit, and Manuscript Cyrillic, that are
undeservedly forgotten; and several that are new enough they
have not yet had time to establish themselves. Some, like Photina
and Vendome, have long been known in Europe but are rarely
seen in North America; others, such as Deepdene, have had just
as unbalanced a reception the other way round.
Most readers of this book will have access to digital cata-
logues, maintained on font vendors' websites. Now that type
is principally a digital commodity, printed type specimens are
quickly disappearing. Yet they remain an invaluable resource.
because the Web, like the subway, is not a destination. Printing is
still what type is for. By giving printed samples here, and pointing
out some landmarks as well as hidden features, I hope to make it
easier to navigate at will among the disembodied spectres.
Almost all faces listed in this chapter now exist in digital
form, though a few are still missing essential components - text
figures, for example - in their digital incarnations. Many such
shortcomings have been remedied in recent years because typog-
raphers have made their wishes known. Yet some digital foundries
continue making faces in abbreviated, deformed or pirated form.
The presence of a typeface in this list is by no means an endorse-
ment of every or any marketed version. (I have noted some of the
instances, but not all, in which a font I wanted to include seemed
first to require drastic editing.)
Buyers of type should be aware that they are always buying
a copy of someone's original design. Licensed copies are prefer-
able to unlicensed copies for two important reasons. First, if the
designer is still alive, the license implies that the fonts are being

209
 Canaiao, leggiaaretto, er caro guitnto;
Che copria netto auorio ,er frefche rofo;
Chi viilial monJo miti ft ilolci JPoglie?
Cofi hitue{r'io Jelbel veloitltrctitnto·
0 inconfiitntia Je l'humitne cofo-
P ur~o e'forto; ~vie,ch'io mene JPoglie·
Four Italic
Benchmarks
flro, (7 domino Iefi1 Cbriffo.Gr.ttias ago deo meo f emper pre>
uobis d<' gratia dci,quie data eft uobis per Cbriftu Ie{um ,quod
in omnibus diwi eftis per ip[um,in omni {mnone, (7 omni co1
gnitione(quibus re6us tefiimonium Ie{u cbrifti confirmatu fuit
in uobis) adeo ,ut no deftituamini in ullo dono,expeflates reu~

N ucfa Catus Marti,ac fufg

T bermocfoontiaca munita
Le genie etonnant qui lui donna naissance.
Toi qui SUS concevoir tant de plans alafois,
A l'immortalite pourquoi perdre tes droits?

Many thousands of types, including thousands of copies of earlier foundry

types, are currently for sale. This page shows four of the thousands of
excellent types that are not for sale. None of these fonts now exists in
original form - and to the best of my knowledge, no reasonably faithful
metal, photographic or digital copies of these fonts have yet been made.
From top to bottom, they are:
l The Petrarca Italic: a 12 pt Al dine italic designed and cut by Francesco
Griffo in 1503 for Gershom Soncino, who printed with it at Fano, on the
For more about Adriatic coast, east of Florence. (Note the two forms of d throughout.)
Co lines, see Kay
Amert, "Origins 2 The Froben Italic: a 12 pt Aldine italic cut for Johann Froben by the
of the French unidentified Master of Basel (possibly Peter Schoeffer the Younger).
Old Style: The Froben started using this type in 1519.
Types of Simon
de Colines" 3 The Colines St Augustin Italic [enlarged]: a 13 pt italic designed and cut
(1992), and by Simon de Colines, Paris. Colines had cut several romans by the time
Fred Schreiber, he finished this type, in 1528, but it may have been his first italic.
Simon de
Colines (Provo, 4 Firmin Didot Italic N° l: a 12 pt Neoclassical italic cut by the 19-year-old
Utah, 1995). Firmin Didot in his father's shop in Paris, 1783.

210
sold with the designer's permission and that royalties from the
sale are being paid. Second, the license gives some hope - though
rarely, alas, a guarantee - that the fonts are not being sold in
truncated or mutilated form.

II.I NOMENCLATURE & SYNONYMY

Prowling
Only one guiding principle is stated in this chapter: the
Specimen
11.u Call the type by its honest name if you can. Books

The oldest types usually come to us without distinctive names

and with only meager clues to who designed them. Setting this re-
cord straight, establishing the chronology, and giving credit where
credit is due is the basic work of typographic history. People who
admire the old types like to talk about them too. For that purpose
they need names. These are bestowed for pure convenience, but
out of pure affection.
Newer types, and copies of the old ones, need names too. As
objects of commerce, they are almost always named by those who
sell them, with or without the designer's cooperation. Early in his
career, Hermann Zapf designed a type that he called Medici. After
some consultation between founder and designer, that name was
scrapped. When the first fonts were advertised for sale, they were The name
known as Palatino. Palatino alludes
to the 16th·
That, however, is not the end of the story. A decade after its re- century Italian
lease as both a foundry type and Linotype machine face, Palatino calligrapher
became the object of commercial envy among the manufacturers Giovanni Battista
Palatino, but the
of fonts for photo type machines. Zapf's design - or rather, his two type is not based
quite different designs, one for the Linotype, one for the foundry on any alphabet
- were then copied right and left, and the copies were sold under Palatino himself
designed. The
names like Pontiac, Patina, Paladium and Malibu. A more recently ultimate source
plagiarized version is sold as Book Antiqua. Max Miedinger's of the name is the
Helvetica - though not so distinguished a face nor so original a Mons Palatinus
- the Palatine hill
design in the first instance - has also been an object of widespread in Rome, site of
commercial envy. It is copied to this day under names such as a major temple
Vega, Swiss and Geneva. Zapf's Optima is plagiarized as Oracle; of Apollo and of
several imperial
Friedrich Poppl's Pontifex is plagiarized as Power, and so on. palaces.
The problem is not new. Nicolas Jenson's roman and Greek
types were copied by other printers in the 1470s. So were Griffo's
types, and Caslon's and Baskerville's and Bodoni's in their days.
So are they now; though now, with these artists safely dead and

211
 their work in the public domain, we are free both to make the
copies honest and to give them honest names.
Part of the problem is that, in most jurisdictions, type designs
themselves are not effectively protected as intellectual property.
Courts have not learned to distinguish between typographic art-
istry and typographic plagiarism. Names, however, can easily be
Nomen- registered as trademarks. Competitors who plagiarize designs can
clature and then be forced to give their copies different names. In the literary
Synonymy world, the law works the other way around. It is the substance and
the text, not the title, of a story, poem or book that is protected
by copyright legislation.
Other complications sometimes spring from this anomaly in
the law. The first sizes and weights of Paul Renner's Futura were
issued by the Bauer Foundry, Frankfurt, in 1927. The type was a
commercial as well as artistic success, and other founders soon
copied the design. Sol Hess at Lanston Monotype redrew the face
and called it Twentieth Century; AT F sold its own imitation as
Spartan. But the Futura that the Bauer Foundry had issued was
a timid incarnation of Renner's original design. Renner drew
o-
-v many alternate characters; Bauer issued, for each letter, only the
single most conventional of Renner's several forms. In 1993, when
David Quay and Freda Sack at The Foundry, London, made a
digital translation of Renner's original design, the conventions
of the trade prevented them from calling it Futura. Their version
- artistically the earliest known version of Futura, though com-
mercially one of the latest to be produced - was sold instead under
the trade name Architype Renner. Though it was not Renner's
choice, this is a serviceable name to the serious typographer,
because it plays no invidious tricks and it plainly acknowledges
the originating designer.

cordta ua[e
Type categories such as roman and italic are not fixed. This is the enlarged
trace of a 16 pt serifed type cut in central Italy in 1466-67, probably by
Konrad Sweynheym. It is the second type used by Sweynheym and his
partner Arnold Pannartz, who printed books with it at Rome from 1467 to
1473· Like Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse's Alcuin type, designed five centuries
later, it is really neither roman nor italic. It is rooted in the Carolingian
scriptorial tradition, which precedes any such division.

212
 The balance of this chapter is a litany of names, with the
briefest of histories attached. Part of every font's history is that
it was born in a certain medium. At the beginning of each entry,
that medium is shown by a simple code:

H = originally a metal type for hand composition

M = originally for machine composition in metal Prowling
P = originally designed for photosetting the
D = originally designed in digital form Specimen
Books
11.2 SERIFED TEXT FACES

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifghijop

Albertina P This graceful, understated text family - embracing
Latin, Greek and Cyrillic - was designed in 1965 by the Dutch
calligrapher Chris Brand. The Latin portion of the family was •
issued by Monotype, not in metal but as one of the corporation's
first proprietary faces for photocomposition. Technology then
moved on, and Albertina was left behind. The Latin component
was issued anew in digital form by DTL (the Dutch Type Library)
in 1996, complete with its requisite text figures and both roman
l
and italic small caps. The Cyrillic and Greek followed at last in
2004. The forms are quiet and alert, the width economical, and
the axis is that of the humanist hand. The crisp italic, with its
subtly elliptical dots, slopes at a modest 5°. There is a full range
of weights. (See also pp 275, 280.)

A Q 123 abc;defghijklmnopqrstUvwxyz
abcefghijop AQ 123 ABCEFGHJJOP
Alcuin D A strong and graceful Carolingian face designed in 1991
by Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse and first issued by URW. As a genuine
Carolingian, Alcuin is rooted in handwritten scripts that predate
by 600 years the separation of roman and italic. It is neither of
these itself, though it contains the seeds of both. As such, it does
le

not have and does not need a sloped companion face. There is
instead an extensive range of weights with text figures and small
caps. This is everything required for setting excellent text. The
face should not be used where editorial inflexibility demands the
use of roman and italic. (See also pp 120, 212.)

213
 D1g1tal trans-
lations of
Palat1no (on aa bb cc
the left) and
Aldus (on the
, ~

ee ff gg
right). These
are two related
faces designed
in 1948-53 by
Hermann Zapf.
To illustrate
the difference

fiil 00 tt
in proportion,
selected char-
acters of both
are shown here
at 72 pt. The
basic alphabets
(Palatino above,

CCHH
Aldus below)
are also shown
at 18 pt.

(Note that
neither of these
cuts was ever abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
intended to be
seen at the 72 pt abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
size. Display
sizes offoundry 123456789o·ABCDEFG
Palatino are
more delicate 123456789o·ABCDEFG
than this, and
Aldus is a text ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
face for which
no display sizes ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
were designed.
But the enlarge- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ments facilitate
comparison.) abcdefghij klmnopqrstuvwxyz

214
abcefghijop 12 3 AQ abcefghijop
Aldus M Roman and italic, designed in 1953 by Hermann Zapf as
a text-size Linotype companion for his new foundry face, Palatino.

a
Aldus is narrower than Palatino and has a lower midline (smaller
x-height). It is a crisply sculptured and compact text face, rooted
in Renaissance scribal tradition. Small caps and text figures are
essential to the spirit of the face, but it needs no ligatures. Digi-
tal Aldus preserves the Linotype equality of set-width in roman
and italic. Palatino, Michelangelo and Sistina are the allied titling
faces, and Palatino bold can be used when a bold companion is
required. (See also pp 64, 104, 214.)

abcefghijop i23 AQabcefghijop

Amethyst D Canadian printer and punchcutter Jim Rimmer de-
signed the caps for this face in Vancouver in 1994 and initially
called the face Maxwellian. He rechristened it Amethyst in 1999,
when he drew the lower case. In 2002, after the first printing
trials, Rimmer revised the book weight, darkening it by roughly
a
2%. It became a working typeface at that point. The fonts come
rough from the foundry and must be edited in order to set text.
It is worth the effort. Rimmer's affection for Frederic Goudy is
visible in Amethyst and in some of his other faces - Albertan, for
example. It is also visible in Kaatskill, a transgenerational collabo-
ration for which Goudy drew the roman and Rimmer the italic.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghij6p

Apollo P Adrian Frutiger's Apollo was commissioned for the
Monophoto machine in 1960 and produced in 1962. Frutiger
used the opportunity to rethink his first text face, Meridien, drawn
eight years earlier. Apollo lacks the sharpness of Meridien, but its
smaller eye, blunter serifs and reduced modulation can make it a
n
better choice for text, and it comes with the f-ligatures, text figures
and small caps that Meridien lacks. (See also page 238.)

abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcijghijop

Arrus D This is an elegant and graceful text face designed by cal-
ligrapher Richard Lipton for Bitstream in 1991. It is distinguished
by the symmetrically notched roman foot serifs and asymmetri- n
215
 cally notched head serifs. There is a full range of weights, with text
figures and small caps. The same designer's Cataneo, an equally
graceful chancery italic (Bitstream, 1994), makes an excellent
companion face for Arrus.

abcefghijop 123 AQabcifghy.op

Baskerville H John Baskerville designed this roman and italic

g
in the 1750s. The initial versions were cut by John Handy under
Baskerville's watchful eye. The result is the epitome of Neoclassi-
cism and eighteenth-century rationalism in type - a face far more
popular in Republican France and the American colonies than in
eighteenth-century England, where it was made.
Many of the digital faces sold under Baskerville's name are
passably faithful to his designs, but small caps and text figures,
often omitted, are essential to the spirit of the original, and to an
even flow of text. The digital version shown here is Monotype
Baskerville. At least two Cyrillic versions also exist: one produced
by Monotype and one produced by ParaType under license from
ITC. (See also pp 13, 56, n, 84, 97, 129, 280.)

abcefghijop 12s A Q abcifghijop

Bell H The original Bell type was cut in London in 1788 by

a
Richard Austin for a publisher named John Bell. It was warmly
greeted there and in the USA and was widely used at Boston and
Philadelphia in the 1790s. It remains useful for period design
work, as an alternative to Baskerville. Monotype cut a facsimile
in 1931, and this version has been digitized. Bell has more varia-
tion in axis than Baskerville, but it too is an English Neoclassical
face. The serifs are very sharp, but the overall spirit is neverthe-
less closer to brick than to granite, evoking Lincoln's Inn more
than St Paul's, and Harvard Yard more than Pennsylvania Avenue.
Bell numerals are three-quarter height, neither hanging nor fully
ranging. (See also pp 47, 129.)

abcefghij op I 2 3 AQ abcifghijopy

a Bembo H Bembo was produced by Monotype in 1929, based on

a roman cut at Venice by Francesco Griffo in 1495· The fifteenth-
century original had no italic, and Monotype tested two possi-
bilities as a companion face. One was Fairbank italic; the other

216
was the softer Bembo italic shown here. This italic is in essence Bembo is named
for the Venetian
a revision of Blado (the italic cut for Poliphilus), with sidelong
writer Pietro
reference to a font designed in Venice in the 1520s by Giovanni Bembo (1470-
Tagliente. Bembo roman and italic are quieter and farther from 1547) because
the roman on
their sources than Centaur and Arrighi. They are nevertheless
which it is based
serene and versatile faces of genuine Renaissance structure, and was first used
they have in some measure survived the transition to digital in Bembo's little
book De Aetna,
composition and offset printing. Text figures and small caps are
published by
essential. The bold fonts are irrelevant to the spirit of the face. Aldus in 1496.
(See also pp 51, 122, 124, 242.)

abcefghijopy~ AQ abcefghijopy
Berling H Designed by the Swedish typographer and calligrapher
Karl-Erik Forsberg. This face was issued in 1951 by the foundry
from which it takes its name, the Berlingska Stilgjuteriet in Lund,
Sweden. It is a neohumanist design, with vigorous modulation of
the stroke.Ascenders and descenders are even more frequent in
fl e

Swedish than in English, and Berling's descenders are unusually

short. The ascenders are of normal height but designed to require
no ligatures. The face has a Scandinavian sharpness and clarity,
with sharply beaked f, j, y and ! in the roman. The titling figures
are well formed, but the text figures (omitted from every digital
cut I have seen) are decidedly better. (See also page 84.)

abcefghijop I 23 AQ abcefghijop
Badoni H Giambattista Bodoni of Parma, one of the most prolific
of all type designers, is also the nearest typographic counterpart to
Byron and Liszt. That is to say, he is typography's arch-romantic.
His hundreds of faces, designed between about 1765 and his death
a
in 1813, embrace considerable variety, and more than 25,000 of

g
his punches are in the Bodoni Museum in Parma. The revivals
issued in his name reflect only a tiny part of this legacy, and many
are simply parodies of his ideas. The typical features of Bodoni
revivals are abrupt hairline serifs, ball terminals, vertical axis,
small aperture, high contrast and exaggerated modulation. The
ITC Bodonis, digitized in 1994-95 under the direction of Sumner
Stone, are the closest of all the revivals to Bodoni's mature style.
(There are three versions, based on 6, 12 and 72 pt originals.)
Other favorites are the Bodoni cut by Louis Hoell for the Bauer
Foundry, Frankfurt, in 1924, and the Berthold Foundry version,

217
 produced in 1930. Both have been issued in digital form. Small
caps and text figures are essential to all of these designs. The ver-
sion shown is the Bauer. (See also pp 13, 131.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifghijop

Bulmer H William Martin of Birmingham was the brother of
Robert Martin, Baskerville's chief assistant. He may have learned
to cut punches from Baskerville's punchcutter John Handy and

0 may have got his first lessons in type design from Baskerville him-
self. He moved to London in 1786 and in the early 1790s started
cutting types full of Baskervillean shapes yet considerably harsher
than Baskerville's. The serifs were abrupt and the contrast much
increased. This was the inception of English Romantic typogra-
phy. Martin's types were sponsored and promoted by the printer
William Bulmer, whose name overshadowed that of the designer.
They were copied in 1928 by Morris Benton for ATF, and then by
Monotype and Intertype. Several digital versions now exist. The
most comprehensive of these is the one released by Monotype
in 1994. (See also page 131.)

abcefghijop i23 AQ abcefghijop

Caecilia D This face, first issued by Linotype in 1991, was de-
signed in the Netherlands by Peter Matthias Noordzij, whose wife
is named Cecile. An earlier bearer of the name, Caecilia Metella,
was the fourth wife of the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla

p
(c.138-78 BC), whose army plundered Athens in 86 BC. On his
return from that campaign, he led the winning side in the Roman
civil war of 82 and was installed as Roman Dictator. In 81 BC, his
wife Caecilia was stricken with an unidentified disease - caught,
some Romans claimed, from Sulla himself. As Caecilia lay dying,
her husband divorced her and had her carried out of the house
to avoid contamination. A later Caecilia, also a native of Rome,
is revered in the Christian tradition as the patron saint of music.
The type that shares the name of these three women is a graceful,
sturdy face, useful for text of many kinds. It is a neohumanist slab-
serif, perhaps the first of its kind, with a slab-serifed true italic to
match. The italic is built to Renaissance parameters, sloping at a
modest 5°. There is a range of weights, with small caps and text
figures. Licensed versions are sold as PM N Caecilia. There is no
face called Sulla. (See also page 112.)

218
 abcefghijop i23 AQ abcefghijop
Californian H The ancestor of this face is Frederic Goudy's The diacritics
University of California Old Style, cut as a proprietary typeface have been
repositioned in
in 1938. Lanston Monotype issued it publicly in 1956 under the these fonts of F B
name Californian. The digital version shown is FB Californian, Californian.
made in 1990 by David Berlow for the Font Bureau, Boston. It
is useful to compare this with ITC Berkeley, a more pasteurized
interpretation of the same original, produced in 1983 by Tony
Stan for photocomposition. While Berkeley retains many virtues
of the original type, it has lost much of its character. It also lacks
the text figures and small caps required by the design. These are
present in Berlow's version. (See overleaf.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcifghijop

Carmina o Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse designed this face, released
by Bitstream in i987. While it builds upon her earlier text faces,
Diotima and Nofret, Carmina is more versatile and lyrical (hence
the name: carmina are songs or lyrical poems). There is a good
range of weights. Like many early digital fonts, however, it was
a
issued in a Procrustean character set making no provision for
text figures. Such figures were a part of the original design but
still have never been released.

abcefghij6p 123 AO abcefghij6p

Cartier P Canadian typographer Carl Dair began working on
this face in the Netherlands in 1957. At his death in 1967, the dis-
play version of the roman was effectively complete, but the italic
was still an overwrought and over-narrow draft. No text weight
or small caps had been drawn. The type was hurriedly issued for
filmsetting nevertheless, in time for the Canadian centenary in
1967. Cartier roman then became, despite its weaknesses, the de
facto Canadian national typeface, often used for stamps and other
celebratory projects. It was in principle a roman with enough
0
French Gothic flavor to assert a crucial difference between Ot-
tawa and Washington. The letterforms are rooted in Dair's study
of fifteenth-century Parisian and Florentine printing, especially
the work of Ulrich Gering and Antonio Miscomini.
In the 1970s, British typographer Robert Norton confused
things slightly by producing a tamed and sanitized version of

219
 FB Californian
(on the left) and
1Tc Berkeley
(on the right)
are both derived
aa bb cc
from Frederic
Goudy's
University
of California
Old Style.
To facilitate
comparison,
these two cuts

(FB
are shown
here at slightly
different
sizes: 74 pt
Californian)
ftfl 66 tt
and 77 pt

AAHH
(1Tc Berkeley).
In the lower
half of the page,
both fonts are
shown at 18 pt
(Californian
above, Berkeley abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
below).
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
I23456789o·ABCDE
1234567890·ABCDE
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

220
Cartier and giving it the name of an English colonial partisan:
Raleigh. (Raleigh, however, is almost never seen as a book face
because Norton gave it no italic.) In the 1990s another Canadian,
Rod McDonald, undertook to rescue the design. He gave Dair's
roman and italic the editing required to make them useful at text
size, supplied the missing small caps, semibold and bold weight,
and gave the type its first meticulous fitting. The result, called
Cartier Book, began to circulate in 1998 and was issued by Agfa
Monotype in 2000. Greek and Cyrillic companion faces are now
underway. So is a suite of fleurons (maple leaf, spruce limbs, etc)
for which Dair made some preliminary drawings.

abcefghijop 123 AQabcifghijop Adobe Caslon,

shown at 20 pt

abeefghijop 12 3 foJo abcf/gh!/Op

Great Primer
Founder's
Caslon, at 24 pt

abcefghij6p 123 fo/o abcifghijop Pica Founder's

Cas/on, at 2i pt

abcefghijop 12 3 fofa ahclfghij8p Brevier Founder's

Caslon, at 2i pt

Caslon H William Caslon designed and cut a large number of

romans, italics and non-Latin faces between 1720 and his death
in 1766. His work is the typographic epitome of the English Ba-

a
roque and is remarkably well preserved. He published thorough
specimens, and a large collection of his punches is now in the St
Bride Printing Library, London. There is not much doubt that
Caslon was the first great English typecutter, and in the English-
speaking world his type has long possessed the semilegendary,
unexciting status of the pipe and slippers, good used car and
favorite chair. Typographic opportunists have therefore freely
helped themselves to Caslon's reassuring name, and many of the
faces sold as Caslons now are merely parodies. Adobe Caslon,
drawn by Carol Twombly in 1989, is a respectful, sensitive and
well-made digital descendant of the originals, equipped not only
with text figures and small caps, but with optional swash caps,
ornaments and other antiquarian accessories. It is now made as
an OpenType font with a pan-European Latin character set but
without Greek and Cyrillic. (No one, alas, has yet made a digital
version of Caslon's handsome polytonic Greeks.)
For those in search of more historical veracity, Justin Howes
has produced digital versions directly from printed specimens

221
 of several sizes of the original Caslon types. These preserve, in
their perfectly static way, a taste of the dynamic, rugged texture
of printing in Caslon's time. They are issued as Founder's Caslon,
by H.W Caslon & Co. (See also pp 12, 51, 66, u3, 126.)

a abcefghi jop I2 3 A Q abcifghij8p

Centaur & Arrighi H Centaur roman was designed by Bruce
Rogers in 1912-14, based on the roman type cut at Venice by
Nicolas Jenson in 1469. In 1928, the face was mildly sanitized in
William Morris's the course of transposition to the Monotype machine. Frederic
Golden Type. cut
in 1890, was the Warde drew the Arrighi italic in i925, based on a chancery font
first modern at- designed by the calligrapher Ludovico degli Arrighi in the 1520s.
tempt to recreate In 1929, after several revisions, Rogers chose Warde's face as the
jenson's roman. A
more successful companion italic for Centaur, provoking more revisions still. The
version was the fonts are used both separately and together.
Doves Roman, Printed letterpress, Centaur and Arrighi are unrivalled in their
drawn by Emery
Walker and cut power to re-evoke the typographic spirit of the Venetian Renais-
by Edward Prince sance. In the two-dimensional world of digital composition and
in 1900. But offset printing, this power is easily lost. The problem is aggravated
Walker's type
has vanished just by weaknesses in the digitization of Arrighi, destroying the balance
like Jenson's own. achieved when the faces were married in metal.
After using it for Morris Benton's Cloister Old Style (ATF, 1913-25), George
sixteen years,
Thomas Cobden- Jones's Venezia (Shanks, 1916; Linotype 1928), Ernst Detterer's
Sanderson threw Eusebius (Ludlow, 1924), Ronald Arnholm's Legacy (ITC, 1992)
it surreptitiously and Robert Slimbach's Adobe Jenson (Adobe, 1996) are other
into the Thames
from Hammer- significant attempts to do some justice to the same original. (See
smith Bridge. also pp 12, 16, 67, 79, 84, 105, 122, 124, 186, 202.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcefghijop

Chaparral D The evergreen oaks of the California foothills are

p
known in Spanish as chaparros. The lean and sunny landscape in
where they thrive is known as chaparral. Carol Twombly com-
pleted this extraordinarily clean and seemingly imperturbable
typeface in 1997 and retired soon thereafter as staff designer
at Adobe. Most good text types owe their power in part to the
rhythmic modulation of the line. Here there is some modulation,
but very little, and the power comes from the path of the stroke:
the subtle out-of-roundness of the bowls and microscopic taper
of the stems. There is a range of weights, and the character set is
pan-European Latin.

222
AQ abcdefghijklm:fiopqrstuvwxyz

c
Clarendon H Clarendon is the name of a whole genus of Vic-
torian typefaces, spawned by a font that Benjamin Fox cut for
Robert Besley at the Fann Street Foundry, London, in 1845. These
faces reflect the hearty, stolid, bland, unstoppable aspects of the
British Empire. They lack cultivation, but they also lack menace
and guile. They squint and stand their ground, but they do not
glare. In other words, they consist of thick strokes melding into
thick slab serifs, fat ball terminals, vertical axis, large eye, low
contrast and tiny aperture. The original had no italic, as the face
had nothing of the fluent hand or sculpted nib left in its pedigree.
(Stephenson Blake did however issue a sloped roman version of
Besley's original Clarendon - known to them as Consort - in
foundry metal in 1953.)
Hermann Eidenbenz drew a version of Clarendon for the
Haas Foundry in Miinchenstein, Switzerland, in 1951, and in 1962
the foundry finally added the light weight that transformed the
series, paring it down from premodern ponderousness to post-
modern insubstantiality. In this guise, as a kind of nostalgic steel
frame from which all the Victorian murk has been removed, the
face has many genuine uses. Monotype Clarendon lacks the pres-
ence of Haas Clarendon, which is the version shown.
A related face - a kind of muted Clarendon - is Morris Fuller
Benton's Century Schoolbook, issued by ATF in 1924 and in ma-
chine form by Monotype in 1928. This too is now available in a
light weight and in digital form. (See also pp 106, 132.)

abcefghij6p 123 AQabcefghijop

Comenius P The seventeenth-century Czech theologian Jan
Amos Komensky, or Comenius, is remembered for his efforts
to establish universal public education throughout Europe and
for his insistence that there is no incongruity between sacred
and secular learning. The typeface aptly named for him is dis-
tinguished by its lucid blend of humanist and rationalist forms.
It was designed by Hermann Zapf and first released by Berthold
in 1980. The axis in the roman varies, and the bowls are asym-
metrical. The result is a face alive with static energy. The italic is
consistent in its axis and full of vibrant motion. There are two
bold weights, both graceful and dramatic in their contrast. The
requisite text figures were designed but have never been issued.

223
Diotima roman
(on the left)
and the normal
weight of
Nofret roman
aabbcc
ee ff gg
(on the right):
two related
faces designed
some thirty
years apart by
Gudrun Zapf-
von Hesse.

fifi 60 tt
Diotima was
designed as a
foundry face
for letterpress
printing. Nofret
was designed
initially for the

AAHH
medium of
phototype. They
are shown here
for comparison
at 70 pt and
i8 pt, both in
digital form. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1234567890
1234567890
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

224
abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcefghijop
Dante H Roman and italic, designed by Giovanni Mardersteig
and cut by hand in steel in 1954 by Charles Malin. Monotype
adapted the face for machine setting in 1957 and in the early
1990s produced a digitized version. In its foundry form, Dante is
one of the great achievements of twentieth-century typography:
a finely tooled and stately neohumanist roman coupled with a
very lively and lucid italic.
Mardersteig was the greatest modern scholar of Francesco
Griffo's work, and his Dante - though not in fact a copy of any
of Griffo's types - has more of Griffo's spirit than any other face
now commercially available. Used with a reduced size of the
upright roman capitals, Dante italic is also the nearest modern
counterpart to a true Aldine italic. The Monotype digital version
is, however, somewhat coarser than its metal antecedents. Small
caps and text figures are, of course, quintessential to the design.
(See also page 1J3.)

abcefghijop i23 AQabcefghijop

Deepdene M This may be the gentlest and most lyrical of Frederic
Goudy's many book faces. The aperture is larger than usual with
Goudy, the x-height is modest, the axis is serenely neohumanist,
and the drawing is graceful and even. Goudy drew the roman in
1927, naming it after his house in Marlborough, New York. (The
house was named in turn for Deepdene Road on Long Island.)
The italic - which slopes at only 3° - was completed the following The alignment
year, when the face was issued by Lanston Monotype. Light as it and character fit
of Lanston digital
is, the italic also has the strength to function as an independent Deepdene have
text face. Small caps and text figures (included in the Lanston been edited to
digital version) are requirements of the design. The swash char- produce the font
used here.
acters available on supplementary fonts are less an asset than a
temptation.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Diotima H Designed by Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse and cut by the
Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt, in 1953, Diotima is now issued by
Linotype-Hell in digital form. The roman is wide and the italic
markedly narrow. There are small caps but no bold weights. The
face is named for the earliest woman philosopher on record:

225
 Diotima of Mantinea, whose metaphysic of love is recited in
Plato's Symposium by her former student, Socrates. Diotima is
part of an extended family of faces by the same designer that
has accrued over more than thirty years. Its relatives include the
Nofret series, Ariadne (a font of swash initials) and the handsome
inline titling face, Smaragd. (See also page 224.)

abcefghijop i23 AQabcifghijop

Documenta D Frank BlokJand started work on this sturdy, open
text face in 1986. It was issued by his firm, DTL, in 1993. Small
caps and text figures are supplied for the full range of weights.
An equally unpretentious and well-made sanserif companion
face was released in 1997.

abcefghijop 12 3 AQ abcefghijop
Electra M Several early twentieth-century book faces are cre-
ative variations on Neoclassical and Romantic form. This makes
them seem, in retrospect, significant precursors of postmodern
design. Three were created in the USA for the Linotype machine
and became immediate staples of American publishing. One is
Rudolph Ruzicka's Fairfield, issued in 1940. The others are WA.
Dwiggins's Electra, issued in 1935, and his Caledonia, issued in
1938. In their original Linotype form, Electra was the liveliest of
the three, though in digital form this may no longer be the case.
Electra was first issued with a sloped roman in lieu of an italic,
but in 1940 Dwiggins himself replaced this sloped roman with
the simple, crisp italic now normally used. Small caps and text
figures are inherent in the design. (See also page 113.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ ahcefghijop

a
Esprit P Designed by Jovica Veljovic in Beograd and issued
through ITC, New York, in 1985. A sharply serifed roman and italic
of variable axis, large x-height and small aperture. The strokes
and bowls of the lower case are full of oblique lines and asym-
metric curves which add further energy to the basically rowdy
Neobaroque structure. A related but somewhat simpler face is
the same designer's earlier Veljovic. Small caps and text figures
are implicit in the design- but the italic text figures, drawn long
ago, have yet to be released. (See also pp u3, 135.)

226
AH Qi2 3 ah~difghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Fairbank M In 1928, when English calligrapher Alfred Fairbank
designed this face and offered it to Monotype, the corporation
considered it as a possible companion for their new Bembo ro-
man. It is narrow and has a slope of only 4°, yet it is full of ten-
sile strength, and in the estimation of Monotype's typographical
advisor, Stanley Morison, even after it was tamed by Monotype
draftsmen, it overpowered the dignified and soft-spoken roman
to which it was betrothed. A new and milder italic - the present
Bembo italic - was cut to replace it. Fairbank's italic has since re-
mained a typographic loner, routinely misdescribed (against its
designer's explicit wish) as 'Bembo Condensed Italic:
In fact, a typographic loner is what it needs to be. The human-
ist italics from which it descends - those of Griffo, the Master
of Basel, and Arrighi - were employed on their own for setting
extended texts, not as helpmeets to existing roman faces. Fairbank
has the same rich potential.
When Robin Nicholas and Carl Cossgrove at Monotype
finally digitized the face, in 2003, they returned to Fairbank's
drawings, restoring the original upright capitals and the long ex-
tenders of the lower case. They also added several needless but
legitimate swash characters and a wholly illegitimate set of lining
figures that has no basis whatsoever in chancery tradition or in
Fairbank's personal aesthetic. To make a working digital version
of this highly useful type, Fairbank's own text figures must be
moved from the swash font to the base font.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Fairfield M A text face designed by Rudolph RuZicka for the Li-

g
notype machine and issued in 1939 . Fairfield has a rationalist axis,
like the Electra of RuZicka's friend and colleague WA. Dwiggins,
and it remained, like Electra, a standard text face in American
publishing for roughly forty years. Alex Kazcun digitized Fairfield
in 1991, replacing the narrow Linotype italic f and j with kerning
characters and narrowing the set of the italic. He also increased
the contrast of the face (thereby delicately tilting it from a pre-
to a postmodern design), added additional weights to the range,
and included Ruzicka's alternate italic, oddly rechristened the
'caption font:

2 27
 abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop
Figural H The real Figural was designed in Czechoslovakia by
Oldfich Menhart in 1940 and finally cut and cast by the Grafo-
techna Foundry, Prague, in 1949· A digital version was created
by Michael Gills and issued by Letraset in 1992. Except to a few
fortunate letterpress printers, this muffled digital version is the
only form in which the type is currently available.
Menhart was the master of Expressionism in type design, and
Figural is among his finest creations: a rugged but graceful roman

a
and italic, deliberately preserving the expressive irregularity of
pen-written forms. The same designer's Manuscript is similar in
character but rougher, and his Monument is a congenial titling
face for use with either Manuscript or Figural. Though digital
Figural lacks the marvellous abrasiveness of the original, it is still
a good text face for use at modest size. But like all of Menhart's
work, Figural deserves a more authentic digital revival. (See also
page 109.)

abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcefghijop

CFGIT·CFGIJOQT
Fleischmann H This is a digital family based on roman and italic

0 fonts cut by Johann Michael Fleischman !sic) in Amsterdam in

1738-39. Fleischman was a prolific, and skilled punchcutter and
founder whose work, like Bodoni's, covers considerable range.
In the late 1730s, he and his competitor Jacques-Frarn;:ois Rosart
both cut text types that are truly Rococo. The architecture of
these fonts is fundamentally Baroque, but exaggerated contrast
is found in the roman and italic o and g, and in all the round up-
percase letters. The serifs on the caps are ostentatious and abrupt.
Erhard Kaiser's digital interpretation, issued by DTL in 1995, is a
little tamer than the metal. It includes text figures, small caps and
a range of ornamental ligatures. (See also page 128.)

abcefghij6p 12 3 A Q abcifghijop
Fournier H The typefaces of Pierre-Simon Fournier come from
the same historical period - and much the same rationalist spirit
- as Baskerville's designs and the Bell type of Richard Austin. Yet
these faces are by no means all alike. The types of Fournier are as

228
French as Bell and Baskerville are English, and Fournier's type is
Fournier's, speaking subtly of the man himself.
Fournier is also famous for his use of ornaments. Like Mozart,
he moves between pure, and surprisingly powerful, Neoclassi-
cism and airy Rococo. His letters have more variation of axis
than Baskerville's, his romans are a little narrower, and his italics
are sharper. Late in his Jife, he cut some of the first condensed
roman faces. And like Mozart, he delights in sliding backward
from the Neoclassical forms he pioneered to the older forms of
the Baroque, which he admired and inherited.
In one important respect, however, Fournier turned his back
on the Baroque. He cut his romans and italics as coequal, inde-
pendent fonts which differ quite deliberately in x-height. In 1925, X XOO
Monotype cut two separate series based on his work. These were
issued in metal as Monotype Fournier and Monotype Barbou.
Only the former has been digitized, but both series preserve
Fournier's disparate proportioning of roman and italic. Mod-
bh~p
em editorial convention is still stuck in the Baroque and often
demands that roman and italic be mixed on a single line. But
Fournier should be used, I think, in Fournier's fashion, or else it
should be recut. (See also page 129.)

abcefghij6p 123 AQabcefghijop

Galliard P Galliard was once the name of a type size - 9 pt - as

a
well as a dance and its musical form. The family of type now
known by this name was designed by Matthew Carter, issued
initially by Mergenthaler in 1978, and later licensed by ITC. It is
a crisp, formal but energetic roman and italic, based on the de-
signs of the sixteenth-century French typecutter Robert Granjon.
Enough of Granjon's work survives, both in steel and in print, to
prove that he was one of the finest punchcutters who ever lived.
Galliard is Carter's homage to the man as well as to his work. It is
also the preeminent example of a Mannerist revival typeface.
Text figures and small caps are implicit in the design. For
period typography, additional sets of Mannerist ligatures and
swash capitals are available as well. The best of the several digital
versions appears, not surprisingly, to be Carter's own, released
in 1992 by Carter & Cone. The obvious titling face is Carter's
Mantinia (page 284) - another act of homage to an artist of
extraordinary intellect, precision and exemplary technical skill.
(See also page 125.)

229
 Garamond (1) H Claude Garamond (or Garamont), who died in
1561, was one of several great typecutters at work in Paris during
the early sixteenth century. His teacher, Antoine Augereau, and

f
his gifted contemporaries are remembered now only by scholars,
while Garamond suffers posthumous fame. Many of his punches
and matrices survive in museum collections, and his style is not
hard to learn to recognize. This has not prevented people from
crediting him with type he could not possibly have designed and
would not, perhaps, have admired.

a
Garamond's romans are stately High Renaissance forms with
humanist axis, moderate contrast and long extenders. He cut sev-
eral beautiful italics as well, with some of the first sloped capitals,
but he took no apparent interest in the radical new idea of actu-
ally pairing italics with romans. Revivals of his roman faces are
often mated instead with italics based on the work of a younger
The large sorts artist, Robert Granjon. Three Garamond and Garamond/Granjon
above are from revivals worthy of serious consideration are:
William Ross
Mills's "1520 1 Stempel Garamond, issued by the Stempel Foundry in 1924 and
Garamond;' a later digitized by Linotype;
titling face 2 Granjon, drawn by George William Jones and issued by Linotype
closer than any
other digital in 1928 - now also in the Linotype digital library- and
version to 3 Adobe Garamond, drawn by Robert Slimbach, issued in digital
Garamond's form by Adobe in 1989, and re-released in 2000 in the form of
actual designs.
It is issued by pan-European Latin OpenType.
Tiro Typeworks, Jan Tschichold's Sabon, listed separately on page 231, is also
Vancouver. closely based on Garamond's originals. Small caps and text figures
exist and are essential to all of these designs.
18 pt Stempel
Garamond abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop
18 pt Linotype
Granjon abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcefghijop
18 pt Adobe
Garamond abcefghij6p 12 3 AQ abcifghijop
Stempel Garamond is the only one of these in which the italic

a
as well as the roman is based on a genuine Garamond. (The model
used, Garamond's gros romain italic, is reproduced on page 74.)
The rhythm and proportions of the Stempel face are, however,
much changed from the original, and the f's are deformed.
An entirely separate strain of designs, based on the work of
Jean Jannon, is also sold under the name Garamond. These are
discussed in the following entry. (See also pp 101, 122, 232.)

23 0
 Garamond (2) H Jean Jannon, born in 1580, was the earliest of
the great typographic artists of the European Baroque. He was
also a French Protestant, printing illegally in a Catholic regime,

a
and the type he cut and cast during the early seventeenth century
was seized in 1641 by agents of the French crown. (Jannon may
later have been reimbursed.) After two centuries in storage, it was
revived and misidentified as the work of Claude Garamond. The
surviving punches are still at the Imprimerie Nationale, Paris.
Jannon's type is elegant and disorderly: of widely varying axis

a
and slope, sharply serifed and asymmetrical. The best revivals of
these lovely, distinctly non-Garamondian letters are:
l ATF 'Garamond,' drawn by M.F. Benton and issued in 1918-20;
2 Lanston's 'Garamont; which was drawn by Frederic Goudy and
issued in 1921;
3 Monotype 'Garamond; issued in 1922; and
4 Simoncini 'Garamond; drawn by Francesco Simoncini and issued
in metal by the Simoncini Foundry, Bologna, in 1958.
Monotype has been particularly thorough in Jannon's case,
issuing two different cuts of italic, both in metal and in digital
form. Monotype 156, in which the slope of the caps varies ram-
bunctiously, is closer to Jannon's originals. Monotype 176 was
the corporate revision: an attempt to bring the unrepentant
French typecutter, or at least his italic upper case, back into line.
But irregularity lies at the heart of the Baroque, and at the heart
of Jannon's letters, just as it may lie at the heart of his refusal to
conform to the state religion of his day. I prefer Monotype 156
italic (called 'alternate' in digital form) for that reason.

abcefghijop 123 A Q abcifghij6p 18 pt Monotype

'Garamond'

abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcifgh!Jop 18 pt Simoncini

'Garamond'

Yet another version of Jannon's type is sold as 'Garamond 3: As issued,

This is the ATF 'Garamond' of 1918 as adapted in 1936 for the Simoncini
Garamond lacks
Linotype machine, now re-revised for digital composition. It is text figures and
perfectly serviceable as a text face, but it lacks both the slightly small caps. They
disheveled grace of Monotype 'Garamond' and the more carefully have been added
to the version
combed and erect grace of the Simoncini version. shown here.
IT C 'Garamond; designed in the 1970s by Tony Stan, also has
nothing to do with Garamond's type. It is a radically distorted
form of Jannon's: distant from the spirit of the Baroque and of
the Renaissance alike. (See also pp 101, 126, 232.)
 Stempel
Garamond
roman (on the
left) is indeed
based on the
aa dd ee
ff 06 50
work of Claude
Garamond
(though its f,
in both roman
and italic, is
distorted in
a misguided

rr kk xx
attempt to
escape the need
for ligatures).
Monotype
'Garamond'
(on the right)
is based on the

AAHH
work of jean
jannon. These
two excellent
types come
from different
centuries and
spirits as well as abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
different hands.
Surely they abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
also therefore
· merit different 123456789o·ABCDEFG
names. They
are shown here 123456789o·ABCDEFG
side by side,
the Stempel at ABCDEFGHIJKLMT
70 pt and the
Monotype at ABCDEFGHIJI<LMNT
78 pt, and one
above the other, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
both at i8 pt.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

232
 abcefghijop 123 A Q abcefghijop
Haarlemmer M Jan van Krimpen drew this face for Monotype
in 1938 to fulfill a private commission. It was issued at last in
1996, in digital form, by DTL . The roman is based on Romulus.
The italic however was a new design in 1938. In the 1940s, Van
Krimpen revised Haarlemmer into Spectrum. While digitizing
a
the face, Frank Blokland created an unserifed companion, based
largely on Van Krimpen's Romulus Sans. This was issued in 1998
as Haarlemmer Sans. (See also page 248.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcefghijop

Hollander D Few things are more useful in the typographic
world than plain, sturdy, unpretentious and good-natured fonts
of type. Hollander is one of several families of such type designed
by Gerard Unger in 1983, but not issued until 1986. The same
designer's Swift (1985) and Oranda (1992) are similar. Hollander
a
has greater bulk than Swift but also sharper serifs. It therefore
suffers more from harsh commercial treatment (low resolution,
low-grade presswork, low-grade paper).

]annon See Garamond (2), page 231.

Janson See Kis, page 235.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifghijop

Jenson H Many types of many kinds claim to be inspired by the
roman cut at Venice in 1469 by Nicolas Jenson. Some of these de-
rivatives are masterpieces; others are anything but. Bruce Rogers's
Centaur is deservedly the best known recreation of Jenson's ro-
a
a
man, but Monotype's digital Centaur is a two-dimensional ghost
ofRogers's three-dimensional homage to the original Jenson type.
Adobe Jenson, drawn by Robert Slimbach and issued in 1995, re-
traces Rogers's steps and also Frederic Warde's. The italic is based
on the same model as Warde's Arrighi italic - a separate design
later revised to serve as Centaur's italic. When only the digital
fonts are compared, it is clear - to me at least - that Adobe Jenson
has better balance between roman and italic and is generally more
tolerant of the fundamental flimsiness of two-dimensional print-
ing, though it is otherwise when the two are printed letterpress

233
 (using polymer plates for Adobe Jenson). Other families of type
with which these should be compared are M.F. Benton's Cloister
and Ronald Arnholm's Legacy. (Adobe Jenson and Cloister are
closer than Adobe Jenson and Centaur in some interesting re-
spects.) The family has been issued both in Multiple Master and
OpenType form. The OT versions include small caps, text figures,
swash italic, a few fleurons, and a pan-European Latin character
set. (See also pp 16, 112, 186.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

p
Joanna H Designed by the English artist Eric Gill and cut by
the Caslon Foundry, London, in 1930. The Monotype version
was produced in 1937. This is a face of spartan simplicity, with
flat serifs and very little contrast but considerable variation in
stroke axis. The italic has a slope of only 3° and is full of roman
forms, but it is sufficiently narrower than the roman to minimize
confusion. Text figures are essential to Gill's design. Gill Sans is
an obvious and very satisfying companion face.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

f Journal D A rough and eminently readable face designed by Zu-

zana Licko, issued in 1990 by Emigre. Text figures and small caps
are part of the design. There is a wide version known as Journal
Ultra as well as a range of weights. (See also page 134.)

abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcefghijop

Kennerley H This was Frederic Goudy's first successful typeface,
designed in 191i. (Goudy was 46 at the time, but his career as a
type designer was just beginning.) By his own account, the de-
signer wanted a new type with some of the flavor of Caslon - and
Kennerley has Caslon's homey unpretentiousness, though it has
returned to Renaissance forms for its underlying architecture and
many of its structural details. The italic was drawn seven years
after the roman, but Goudy had found his style; the two mate
well. The text figures and small caps required by the design are
included in Lanston's digital version.
(The spelling 'Kennerly' appears in some type catalogues,
but the face was commissioned by and named for the publisher
Mitchell Kennerley, 1878-1950.) (See also page 2oi.)

234
 abcefghijopz 123 AQ abcifghijlop
Kinesis D Designed by Mark Jamra and issued by Adobe in
1997. Kinesis breaks several conventions of type design quite
handsomely. The descenders have prominent, canted bilateral
g
lf l
serifs. The ascenders, however, have no serifs at all: only an
asymmetrically flared termination of the stroke, which is lightly
cupped in the roman and beveled in the italic. Dots of i and j are
tapered; so are the cross strokes off and t, and all the unilateral
serifs (except in the roman lowercase z). All the bilateral serifs,
however, are blunt and nearly uniform in stroke-width. The italic
includes some sloped roman forms (i, /) along with the cursive,
triangular bowls of Mannerist calligraphy. The OpenType version
of the family, issued in 2002, includes text figures and small caps
in a wide range of weights but no East European characters.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifghijnBp

Kis H The Hungarian Miklos Kis is a major figure in Dutch
typography, as well as that of his own country. He spent most of

n
the 1680s in Amsterdam, where he learned the craft and cut some
wonderfully toothy and compact Baroque type. For many years
Kis's work was incorrectly ascribed to the Dutch punchcutter An-
ton Janson and taken to be the epitome of Dutch Baroque design.
Commerce has no conscience, and to this day, Kis's type is sold,
even by people who know better, under Janson's name.
Some of Kis's original punches and matrices found their
way to the Stempel Foundry in Frankfurt, and Stempel Foundry
Janson is in consequence Kis's actual type, with German sorts
(a, 6, ii, etc) rather clumsily added by other hands. Linotype
Janson was cut in 1954, based on the Kis originals, under the
supervision of Hermann Zapf. Monotype Janson and Mono type
Erhardt are also adapted - less successfully, I think - from Kis's
designs. Linotype Janson Text (1985) seems to me the most suc-
cessful digital version. It was prepared under the supervision of
Adrian Frutiger, based on Kis's originals and on Zapf's excellent
Linotype machine version. (See also page 126.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Legacy D Ronald Arnholm's Legacy (ITC, 1992) is, I think, the
blandest of the many twentieth-century attempts to give new,

235
 two-dimensional life to the old three-dimensional type of the
master typographer Nicolas Jenson. Blandness, however, is not
always a disadvantage in a printing type, and Legacy is of inter-

a
est on other grounds. It marries a redrawing of Jenson's roman
with a redrawing of one of Garamond's italics, rather than one of
Arrighi's, and it is the only revival of Jenson's roman that exists
in both serifed and unserifed forms.
The model underlying the roman is reproduced on page 16
and the model underlying the italic on page 74. Legacy has a sub-
stantially larger eye than either, and in this respect it violates both
Jenson's and Garamond's sense of proportion. It is nevertheless a
family with many merits and uses. (See also page 258.)

abcefghijop 123 AO abcefghijop

abcefghijop 123 AO abcefghijop
bpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbp
Lexicon D Designed by Bram de Does in 1992 and issued in
digital form by Enschede. Lexicon was commissioned, as the name
suggests, for a new Dutch dictionary. It was therefore designed to
be as compact as a Bible type but to function in a range of sizes
and to allow many shades and degrees of emphasis. There are six
weights (A-F), with both roman and italic small caps in every
weight, and in each weight there are two forms of roman and
italic lower case: N° I with short extenders; N° 2 with extenders of
normal length. Lexicon 2A (the light weight with normal extend-
ers) makes an excellent text face for a variety of uses, and Lexicon
lB (the second weight with short extenders) a good companion
face for notes and other compact matter.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Manuscript H This was designed in Czechoslovakia by Oldfich

g Menhart during World War I I and issued by Grafotechna, Prague,

in i951. Manuscript is even rougher than the same designer's Fig-
ural, but its rough forms are painstakingly chosen and juxtaposed.
The roman and italic are perfectly balanced with each other and
within themselves. The numerals are large, but their alignment
satisfyingly uneven. There is a matching Cyrillic. (The version
shown is a trial digitization by Alex White.)
 abcefghijop i23 AQ abcefghijop
Mendoza D Designed by Jose Mendoza y Almeida, Paris, and
released by ITC in 1991. This is a forceful and resilient neohu-
manist text face with low contrast and a spartan finish, closer
in some ways to the tough and lovely text romans and italics of
a
sixteenth-century Paris than anything else now to be found in
digital form. Mendoza prospers under careful handling but is
robust enough to survive printing conditions lethal to other text
faces. Small caps and text figures are implicit in the design, but
the ligatures are best recut or forgotten. There is also an extensive
range of weights. (See also pp 101, 108, 112.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Meridien H/P This was Adrian Frutiger's first text face, designed
in 1954 for Deberny & Peignot, Paris. The roman was cut and
cast for hand composition, but the italic, despite its impeccable
balance and flow, was forced to wait. It was then released (with
a new incarnation of the roman) only in the form of phototype.
The roman caps, which have unusual authority and poise, make an
excellent titling face in themselves. The same designer's Frutiger
makes a useful sanserif companion. But in the absence of small
caps and text figures, the related Apollo is often more useful for
text. (See also pp 58, 101, 105, 238.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

a
Minion D The first version of this family, designed near San
Francisco by Robert Slimbach, was issued by Adobe in 1989.
Multiple Master and OpenType versions have been issued more
recently. Minion is a fully developed neohumanist text family
which is, in the typographic sense, especially economical to set.
That is to say that it gives, size for size, a few more characters per
line than most text faces without appearing squished or com-
pressed. Small caps and text figures are essential to the design,
and these are available across the range, in several weights of both
roman and italic. The OpenType form of the face, called Minion
Pro, includes a set of typographic ornaments, swash italics, and
upright and cursive Greek and Cyrillic. Slimbach's chancery italic,
Poetica, is a useful companion face. (Minion Pro is the face in
which this book is set. See also pp 106, 107, 201, 280.)

237
 Digital
versions
of Adrian
Frutiger's
Meridien (on
aa bb cc
ee ff
the left) and
Apollo (on the
right). The
former - ini-
tially a foundry
face, though
matricies were

gg PP tt
only engraved
for the roman
- was finished
in 1954· Apollo,
designed for
filmsetting, was
completed in

CCHH
1962. Selected
letters are
shown here at
72 pt (Meridien)
and 80 pt
(Apollo). The
basic alpha- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
bets (Meridien
above, Apollo abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
below) are both
shown at 18 pt. 1234567890·ABCDE
123456789o·ABCDE
ABCDEFGHIJI<LMNO
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
abcdefg hzjklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop
Nofret P Nofret, which means 'beautiful one: was a popular
woman's name in early Egypt. In 1984 an exhibition prepared
by the Cairo Museum opened in Munich under the title Nofret:
Die Schone: Die Frau in A/ten Agypten, and in that year, Gudrun
Zapf-von Hesse's typeface Nofret was released by the Berthold
Foundry. It is in many respects a rethinking of the same designer's
Diotima, drawn three decades earlier. It is more compact than
Diotima in the roman, but of similar width in the italic. There
is a wide range of weights, and even the heaviest of these retains
e
its poise. This is not in the typographic sense an egyptian; it is
an answer to the question, What might happen to a typographic
egyptian if it acquired feminine grace? Small caps and text figures
are implicit in the design. (See also pp 135, 224.)

abcefghijop 123 AO abcefghij6p

Officina D Designed by Eric Spiekermann and colleagues, and

e
issued in 1990 through ITC. This is a narrow and plain yet robust
text face, inspired by the typewriter and useful for setting much
matter that might, in an earlier age, have stayed in typescript form.
It is sturdy enough to withstand rough treatment (low-grade laser
printing, for example) yet sufficiently well-built to prosper under
better printing conditions. There is a sanserif counterpart. Cyrillic
versions of both Officina Serif and Officina Sans were designed
in 1994 by Tagir Safaev and issued in digital form by ParaGraph
(now ParaType). (See also page 136.)
18 pt digital
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop Pa/atino Linotype
18 pt Linotype
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop digital Aldus

Palatino H/M This roman and italic were designed in 1948 by

Hermann Zapf. The foundry version was cut in steel by August
Rosenberger at the Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt. Zapf then
adapted it for the Linotype machine. In photo and digital form,
it has become the most widely used of all neohumanist faces,
among typographic professionals and amateurs alike. As the
most universally admired of Zapf's designs, it is also the most
heavily pirated.
In its authentic incarnations, Palatino is a superbly balanced,

239
 powerful and graceful contribution to typography - but its close
relative, Aldus, which was designed expressly for text setting, is
often a better choice for that purpose, in company with Palatino

e
as a display face. There is a bold weight, designed in 1950. A bold
italic was added, evidently to combat existing forgeries, nearly
thirty years later. The extended Palatino family includes two sets
of display capitals (Michelangelo and Sistina), a text Greek (Her-
aklit) and Greek capitals (Phidias). Small caps and text figures
are essential to the face.
Because it was first designed as a display face for handsetting
in metal, then adapted for use in text sizes on the Linotype ma-
chine, there are two fundamentally different yet authentic versions
of Palati no italic. There is a wide version, originally matching the
roman letter-for-letter in set-width, as required by the Linotype
machine, and a narrower, more elegant version intended for
hand composition. The current digital versions are based on the
foundry design. The OpenType digital fonts (known officially as
'Palatino Linotype' rather than Linotype Palatino) include a new
Greek and Cyrillic along with a full pan-European character set
and, in some incarnations, also chuqu6c-ngU, the Latin character
set employed for Vietnamese. (See also pp 15, 59, n, 97, 104, 133,
211, 214, 254, 278, 281.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Photina P A text face with predominantly rationalist axis, small

y
aperture and narrow set-width but unmistakable calligraphic en-
ergy. It was designed by Jose Mendoza y Almeida and first issued
by Monotype in 1972 for photocomposition. There is a range of
weights, and the bold versions are gracefully designed. Photina's
proportions are deliberately close to those of Univers, which
makes an excellent sanserif companion. This is one of the first
and one of the finest postmodern text faces. Small caps and text
figures are implicit in the design. (See also page 200.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

6>fY'B-~Yolr,.hlf&Jo~~&>rooo
Plantagenet n William Ross Mills designed the initial version
of Plantagenet in the mid 1990s. It was issued by his firm, Tiro
Typeworks, in 1996. In 2004, he produced a thorough revision,

240
released as Plantagenet Novus. The new version includes pan-
European Latin and Greek character sets with additional sorts
for Native American languages that are written in Latin letters,
a matching set of Cherokee syllabics, and a range of ornaments
and swashes. Why should a face with Neoclassical structure and a
character set that links classical Greece and Native America bear
the nickname of the Anglo-Norman family that gave England
all her kings from Henry 11 in u54 to Richard III in 1485? I do
not know. But Plantagenet is an old French name for the broom
plant (in modern French, la plante genet). It is said that Geoffrey
of Anjou, founder of the family and an avid hunter, wore a sprig
of it in his hat and had it planted as cover for birds. Broom was
brought, along with the Latin alphabet, from Europe to North
America, where both have since run wild.

AQ}23 AQdbcdifghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
reaq§,~ghg6gliinof Q,'U .91 ..StytrU
Poetica D A chancery italic designed by Robert Slimbach and
issued by Adobe in 1992. The basic family consists of four varia-
tions on one italic, with varying amounts of swash. There are also
five fonts of swash capitals, two of alternate lowercase letters, two
fonts of lowercase initials, two of lowercase terminals, two sets
of small caps (ornamented and plain), a font of fractions and
standard ligatures, another of ornamental ligatures, one font of
analphabetic ornaments, and one font entirely of ampersands. The
basic face is a plain neohumanist italic, well suited for extended
text. The supplementary fonts permit any desired degree of ty-
pographic play or ostentation. (See also page 125.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcifghij8p

Poliphilus & Blada u Poliphilus, meaning 'Multiple Love; is the
name of the lead character in Francesco Colonna's fantasy novel
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, "The Dream-Fight of Poliphilus;'
which Aldus Manutius printed in 1499 in a newly revised roman
type by Francesco Griffo. In 1923, Monotype tried to replicate this
font for use on their machine. The result was Monotype Poliphilus.
It was an early experiment in the resuscitation of Renaissance
designs, and the Monotype draftsmen copied the actual letterpress
impression, including much of the ink squash, instead of par-
 Bembo
(on the left)
and Poliphilus aa bb cc
(on the right):
two attempts at
,,
ee ff gg
reproducing a
fifteenth-century
/
Venetian type
in twentieth-
century terms.
Both of these
types are based
A
on the same
original lower
case, but on
two d 1fferent
"' "'
nn "
00 tt
sets of original
capitals. They

AA cc
are shown
here at 74 pt
and at 18 pt.

(Poliphilus, of
course, was
never meant to abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
be seen in public
enlarged to this abe defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
degree. It was
created as a text 123456789o·ABCDEFG
face only. The
largest size cut 123456789o·ABCDEFG
in metal matrix
form is 16 pt.) ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ing back the printed forms to restore what the punchcutter had
carved. The result is a rough, somewhat rumpled yet charming

a
face, like a Renaissance aristocrat, unshaven and in stockinged
feet, caught between the bedroom and the bath. In the squeaky
clean world of offset printing, this roughness has finally come
into its own.
Six years after producing Poliphilus, Monotype repeated
its experiment with a very different result. Monotype Bembo
(1929) is based on an earlier state of the same original: the same
lower case with an earlier set of capitals. The differences between
lowercase Monotype Bembo and Poliphilus, great as they are, are
entirely differences of interpretation, not of design.
Blado, the italic companion to Poliphilus, is not based upon
any of Griffo's own superb italics (one of which is shown on
page 210) but on a font designed in a very different intellectual
milieu, by Ludovico degli Arrighi about 1526. (Arrighi died soon
after finishing that type - probably his sixth italic - and it was
acquired by the master printer Antonio Blado of Rome. No type
called Arrighi existed when the 1923 revival was made. Monotype
chose nevertheless to name their revival of the face for the printer
who used it, not the calligrapher who designed it.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifghijop

Pontifex P Designed by Friedrich Popp! in Wiesbaden and issued
in 1976 by Berthold in Berlin. Pontifex is one of several eminent
twentieth-century faces built on Mannerist lines. Other exam-
ples include Adrian Frutiger's Meridien, Georg Trump's Trump
a
Mediaval, and Matthew Carter's Galliard. These are four quite
different faces, designed by four quite different artists for three
different typographic media, but they share several structural pre-
sumptions. All have a humanist axis in the roman but an unusu-
ally large x-height, a tendency toward sharpness, angularity and
tension in the conformation of individual letters, and a consider-
able slope - 12° to 14° - in the italic. These are features inherited
from French Mannerist typecutters such as Jacques de Sanlecque,
Guillaume Le Be and Robert Granjon. Galliard is in fact a revival
of Granjon's letters, while Pontifex, Trump and Meridien are inde-
pendent modern creations sympathetic in spirit to the earlier
Mannerist work. Together, these faces demonstrate the consid-
erable range and depth of what one could call the neomannerist
aspect of the Modernist tradition. (See also pp 78, 133.)

243
 abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifBhij6p
Quadraat D Fred Smeijers's Quadraat, issued by FontShop in
1993, is a study in contrasts: a tensile and large-eyed yet smoothly
flowing roman married co an angular, broken but robust italic.
The creative ingenuity involved here extends to the matching
Cyrillic and the companion sanserif as well. The fonts as issued
are expertly kerned and sold with the requisite parts - small caps
and text figures - intact. Some fine types were made during the
late twentieth century, and this is one. It is not pretty; its beauty
is deeper and stranger than that. (See also pp 260, 281.)

abcefghi jop 12 3 A Q_qbcefghijop

Requiem D Requiem is pretty where Quadraat is not, but its
beauty runs deeper than prettiness too. In its way, this is the
equal of the great neohumanist book types of the early twenti-
eth century: Bembo, Centaur and Dante. It is however the fruit
of a later age, more self-conscious and self-involved. Its models
are also therefore later: scripts of the High Renaissance, which
were likewise acutely self-aware. And Requiem, unlike Bembo,
Centaur and Dante, was born in the digital medium, where
two dimensions have to do the work of three. It was created by
Jonathan Hoefler in New York City, who drew the caps in the
early 1990s and completed the family in 1999. It grew out of a
commission from a magazine suspiciously entitled Travel and
Leisure, but like any good type, it savors of self-discipline no less
than self-indulgence. The italic, like Robert Slimbach's Poetica,
is indebted to the work of Ludovico degli Arrighi and includes
a set of artful, playful ligatures to prove it. The roman caps, with
which the project started, are grounded in Arrighi's work as well.
The roman lower case owes more to another sixteenth-century
calligrapher, Ferdinando Ruano. (See also pp 51, 285.)

abcefghijop I 2 3 AQ_qbce~tJhijop
22 pt Rialto
(for titling)

2 1 pt (sic] Rialto
Piccolo (for text) abcefghijop 123 AQ_qbcefitJhijop
Rialto o Requiem is pretty; Rialto is prettier still, but again, its
beauty is deeper than that. Named for the best-loved bridge in
Venice, it is the product of joint effort by Venetian calligrapher
Giovanni de Faccio and Austrian typographer Lui Karner. The

244
result is a face of extraordinary calligraphic loveliness which is
nevertheless strong enough (properly used) for the texts of sub-
stantial books. Proper use begins with remembering that there
are two sets of fonts. Rialto itself is actually a titling face, happiest
at 18 pt and above. Rialto Piccolo is the better choice at 16 pt and
below - which is to say, the choice for all text sizes. Besides the
roman and italic there are small caps and semibold, a full set of
ligatures and good italic alternates. The italic slopes at 2°, and the
roman and italic share a single set of caps. It was issued in 1999
by dfType in Texing, near Vienna. (See also page 285.)

abcefghijop 123 AO abce[Bhijop

Romance H Designed by Jan van Krimpen and cut in steel by Paul
Helmuth Radisch at the Enschede Foundry in Haarlem, Neth-
erlands. The roman owes much to the spirit of Garamond. Van
Krimpen designed it in 1928 as a companion for an italic cut in
the middle of the seventeenth century by another of Garamond's
admirers, Christoffel van Dijck. But Van Krimpen remained dis-
satisfied with the relationship between the two faces, cut in the
same land three hundred years apart. In 1948 he designed an italic
of his own - his last type - to mate with Romanee roman. The
new italic is distinguished by its prominent descenders, serifed
on both sides, and it has much less slope than the italic of Van
Dijck. Like the italics of the early sixteenth century - and unlike
the italics of both Garamond and Van Dijck - it mates a cursive
lower case with upright capitals.
"United they fall, apart they stand as fine designs;' said Van
Krimpen's younger colleague, Sem Hartz. And it is true that Ro-
manee italic stands very well on its own. Perhaps these faces are
best used in the Renaissance manner - not the manner of Van
Dijck but the manner of Garamond, his predecessors and col-
leagues - with the italic set in separate passages rather than laced
into the midst of roman text. Digital Romanee, though it has now
existed for years, is still awaiting commercial release.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Romulus H It has been said with some justice that Jan van
Krimpen designed three roman types: Lutetia (1925), Romanee
(1928), and a third to which at various times in the 1930s and
1940s he gave the names Romulus, Haarlemmer, Sheldon and

245
 Spectrum. The italic sequence is different: Lutetia (1925), Cancel-
leresca Bastarda (1934), Haarlemmer (1938), Spectrum (c. 1942)
and Romanee (1949). For Romulus, Van Krimpen initially de-
signed no italic. Instead, on Stanley Morison's advice, he drew a

a
second version of the roman that slopes at u 0 • He soon atoned
for this however by designing the most elaborate and technically
challenging italic of his career, the Cancelleresca Bastarda, and
incorporating it into the Romulus family.
Regarded solely as a roman and sloped roman, Romulus looks
like a well-made but impoverished type. In reality, it is part of a
large family issued in part between 1931and1936: the forerunner
of other large families such as Legacy, Scala and Quadraat. As
of 2004, DTL has digitized only the serifed roman and oblique.
These will be of greater use when they are joined by rest of the
family: Cancelleresca Bastarda, Romulus Sans, Romulus Greek,
and Romulus Open Capitals. (See also pp 58, 248.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Saban H/M Designed by Jan Tschichold. The foundry version
was issued by Stempel in 1964, followed by Monotype and Lino-

p
type machine versions in 1967. The series consists of a roman,
italic, small caps and semibold, based broadly on the work of
Claude Garamond and his pupil Jacques Sabon, who was once
employed, after Garamond's death, to repair and complete a set of
his teacher's punches. The structure of the letterforms is faithful
to French Renaissance models, but Tschichold's face has a larger
eye than any but the tiniest sizes cut by Garamond. The type
was intended as a general-purpose book face, and it serves this
purpose extremely well, though it is bland in comparison with
Garamond's originals. (See also pp 34, 52, 104.)

abcefghijop 12 3 AQ abcifghijopy
Scala D A crisp, neohumanist text face with sharp serifs and
low contrast, designed by Martin Majoor in the 1980s for the
Vredenburg concert hall in Utrecht. (This may explain why it is
named after an opera house in Milan.) It was publicly issued by
FontShop International, Berlin, in 1991. This face has many of
the merits of Eric Gill's Joanna - not to mention several merits
distinctively its own - without Joanna's eccentricities. Small caps
and text figures are implicit in the design - and the basic licensed
fonts of FF Scala come pre-equipped with text figures and a full
set of ligatures, as if they were really meant for setting type instead
of merely typing. There is also an unserifed branch of the family.
(See also pp 260, 262-63.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Seria D Like Scala, this is the work of Martin Majoor, issued by
FontShop in 2000. The designer has written that after completing
Scala he wanted to produce a more "literary" face. Whether Seria
is really more literary than Scala, I cannot say. Its small eye and
long extenders do make it a less utilitarian face, but I have used
a
it myself - and its matching sanserif - with great satisfaction
for both literary and nonliterary texts. The italic slopes at only
one degree. Italic and roman alike have upright caps, but not the
same upright caps. Those of the italic are slightly but recognizably
cursive. (See also page 261.)

ab~defghijklmnopqrsmvwxyz 123
AQAQAQN€IDEEGGMMM
Silentium D Designed by Jovica Veljovic and issued in OpenType
form by Adobe in 2000. This is a Carolingian face, like Gudrun
Zapf-von Hesse's Alcuin. There is necessarily no italic, but there
are four sets of caps (one written, three drawn, including one
inline and one reversed set, useful for versals), many scribal al-
ternates and ligatures, and an impressive set of ornaments.

abcefghijop 1234689 AQabcefshijop

Spectrum H/M This is a refinement of Haarlemmer, designed by
Jan van Krimpen in the early i94os, then delayed by the Second
World War and issued by both Enschede and Monotype in i952.
It was Van Krimpen's last general text face and is now the one
most widely used. The roman and italic are reserved, elegant and
a
well matched. The axis is humanist, the aperture large, and the
serifs simultaneously sharp and flat (a feature neither unwelcome
nor contradictory in typography). Small caps and the distinctive
Spectrum text figures, with their very short extenders, are essential
to the design. A semibold was added by Sem Hartz and cut by
Monotype in i972. (See also pp i33, 248.)

247
 Digital ver-
sions of three
types by Jan
van Krimpen:
Romulus (left),
Haarlemmer
aaa bbb
(middle) and
Spectrum
(right). Selected
characters
of Romulus
are shown
bbb CCC
here at 78 pt,
Haarlemmer at
72 pt.Spectrum
at 82 pt. The
basic lowercase
alphabets of all
three are shown

CCC III
at i8 pt.

The italics and

the numerals of
these three faces
are quite distinct,
but in the roman, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
the differences
are such as one abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
might expect
to find among abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
different sizes of
a single hand- 1234567890
cut type.
I 234567890I1234567890

abcdefgh1jklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefBhijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
 abcefghijop 123 AQabcefghij6p
Swift D This large-eyed face was designed by Gerard Unger
and first issued in 1987 by Rudolf Hell in Kiel. It is avowedly
a newspaper type, but it has many additional uses. Though the
eye is large and the set is narrow, the letters are crisp and open,
with chisel-tipped, wedge-shaped terminals and serifs. The axis
is humanist and the aperture large. The italic is taut and fluent,
a
with a slope of 6°. The torso of these letterforms is large enough
that Swift can function well without text figures and small caps,
but these have now been issued by Elsner & Flake. Unger's san-
serif family Praxis and his erect sanserif italic Flora make useful
companion faces for Swift.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Trajanus H/M Warren Chappell's Trajanus was issued in 1939
as a foundry face by Stempel and in machine form by Linotype.

a
The angular, black forms echo the early humanist scripts of the
Renaissance and some of the earliest roman printing types, used
in Italy and Germany until they were superseded by the early
Venetian whiteletter and then by the Aldine roman and italic. But
Trajanus is a remarkably graceful face, and the roman is matched
by an equally crisp and fluent italic. The figures, like those of Bell,
are three-quarter height lining forms.
There is a companion bold face designed by Chappell and
a Trajanus Cyrillic designed by Hermann Zapf. Chappell's own
sanserif, Lydian, is another related design, slightly darker than
Trajanus but of similar angularity. After long delay, Linotype is-
sued a digital version in 1997. The Cyrillic, however, exists only
as Linotype metal matrices.

Trinite P A text family designed in 1978- 81 by Bram de Does The sample

for the Enschede Foundry in Haarlem. The commission began of Trinite is
overleaf.
with a challenge: to create in the elastic and ephemeral world of
phototype something as resonant and reserved as the handcut
metal types of Jan van Krimpen. The impressive result was issued
in film form in 1982 by Bobst/Autologic in Lausanne but never
effectively distributed. Trinite was issued again in digital form by
the Enschede Font Foundry in 1991.
There are three weights of wide roman, two weights of nar-
row roman, two weights of small caps and two weights of italic.

249
 o._abbb~ddd~fffggg o
(hhhijijijkkklllmiiOppp)
serfe:~ A qqqrstiivwxyyyz IJ
Faces

+ 1234567890 =

<:z.Ubbbbfdddcfqfff.9880
lhhhfiij ij ijkkkklllCmnOpppy J
A qqqqrstilvwxyyyz IJ
+ 1234567890 =

Q_;lbbb~dddefffggg 0
(hhhijijijkkklllmiiOppp)
A qqqrstiivwxyyyz IJ
+ 1234567890 =
Trinite roman wide (above), italic (center) and roman narrow (below). All
three ranges of each roman face are shown together, and all four ranges
of the italic. In each range, only the extending letters vary.

250
All weights and widths of roman and italic come in three ranges:
with short, normal and long extenders. The capitals remain the
same in height; so does the torso of the lower case, but the ex-
tenders range to different depths and altitudes. Both weights of
italic are also issued in chancery form (with curved extenders).
The ordinary roman (Trinite 2, with the normal extenders, in
either the wide or the narrow width) makes a fine text face for Prowling
conventional use. The wide version is 9% wider than the narrow the
and keeps the same internal rhythm. (In wide and narrow ver- Specimen
sions alike, for example, the set-widths of the roman letters i, n Books
and m are in exactly the proportion 1: 2: 3.) The roman letters
slope at 1°, the italics at 3°.
There are no separate characters for ligatures in Trinite. They
construct themselves from parts. Thef + i and f + j, for instance,
combine to form the ligatures fi and jj. (This is the reason for the
dancing dots on i and j in different versions of the face. In Trinite
1 and 2, the dots meld with the arch of the f In Trinite 3, the tallest
version, the dots tuck under the arm off instead.) In its present
form, with pi fonts, expert sets and other variants, the full family
consists of 81 separate digital fonts. Half a dozen of these would
be ample for many normal texts. The technical complexities of the
series ought not to obscure the simple beauty of the face, which is
rooted in the heritage of Van Krimpen and of Italian Renaissance
forms. Even the arithmetical signs in Trinite have a slight scribal
asymmetry. This is sufficient to enliven the forms for text use yet
not enough to render them dysfunctionally ornate. Small caps and
text figures are essential components of the family.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghij6p

Trump Mediiival H/M This is a very robust text face, designed by
Georg Trump. It was first issued in 1954 by the Weber Foundry,
Stuttgart, as a foundry type, and in machine form by Linotype.
It is a strong, angular roman and italic with humanist axis but
Mannerist torque and proportions. The aperture is moderate; the
a
serifs are substantial and abrupt. The numerals, both in text form
and in titling form, are notably well designed. The digital version
retains the Linotype non kerning f There is a range of weights
but only a partial set of ligatures. A number of Trump's excellent
script faces - Codex, Delphin, Jaguar, Palomba and Time Script,
for example - and his slab-serifed titling face called City, are
potentially useful companions. (See also pp 52, 84.)

251
 abcefghij6p 12 3 A QEbcifghijop
Van den Keere H This is a family of digital romans, modeled
on a 21 pt font that Hendrik van den Keere of Ghent cut in 1575

a
for Christophe Plan tin of Antwerp. There are several weights, all
with the requisite small caps and other components. But in his
long, illustrious career as a punchcutter, Van den Keere did not
cut a single italic. The italic paired here with his roman is based
on the work of his older friend and colleague Fran~ois Guyot.
The digital versions of these types were produced by Frank
Blok.land in 's-Hertogenbosch and issued by DTL in 1995-97.
(See also page 122.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcifghijop

Van Dijck H The type family now called Van Dijck - first issued
by Monotype in 1935 - is based on an italic cut in Amsterdam
about 1660 by Christoffel van Dijck and a roman which is prob-
ably also his. (Original matrices for the italic still survive; the
roman is known only from printed specimens.) These are calm
and graceful Dutch Baroque faces, modest in x-height, narrow
in the italic and relatively spacious in the roman. A comparison
of Van Dijck's work with that of Miklos Kis illuminates the range
of Dutch Baroque tradition, but there is plenty of range in Van
Dijck's work on its own. His black.letter types are very ornate, while
his romans and italics breathe a deep and deliberate serenity, not
unlike the works of his great contemporaries, the painters Pieter
de Hooch and Jan Vermeer. The digital version of Monotype Van
Dijck has unfortunately lost much of the power and resiliency of
the Monotype metal version. (See also pp 51, 207.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcefghij6p

Veljovic P Designed by Jovica Veljovic and issued in 1984 by

a
ITC .Veljovic is a lively postmodern face, with much inherent
movement wrapped around its rationalist axis, and much prickly
energy emerging in the long, sharp, abrupt wedge serifs. There is
a wide range of weights. Fonts with text figures are produced by
Elsner & Flake. Small caps, though part of the original design,
have evidently never been released. Veljovic makes an excellent
companion for the same designer's Gamma or Esprit and can be
mated with his fine script face Ex Ponto. (See also page 15.)

252
 16 pt Berthold
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcC.fghij6p Walbaum

pt Monotype
20
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifghijop Walbaum

Walbaum H Justus Erich Walbaum, who was a contemporary

of Beethoven, ranks with Giambattista Bodoni and Firmin Didot
as one of the great European Romantic designers of type. He

g
was the latest of the three, but he may well have been the most
original. Walbaum cut his fonts at Goslar and Weimar early in
the nineteenth century. His matrices were bought by the Berthold
Foundry a century later, and Berthold W alba um, in its metal form,
is Walbaum's actual type. Berthold digital W albaum is a close and
careful translation. Monotype Walbaum, different though it is, is
also quite authentic. The Berthold version is based on W albaum's The letterfit of
larger fonts, and the Monotype version on his small text sizes. Rerthold digital
Walbaum has
Each of the major Romantic designers had his own effect on been edited
design in the twentieth century. Firmin Didot's ghost is palpable extensively to
in Adrian Frutiger's Frutiger, Bodoni's ghost in Paul Renner's produce the fonts
used here.
Futura, and W albaum's spirit is alive in some of the later work of
Hermann Zapf. Yet each of these instances involves a real creative
leap, not imitation. (See also page 131.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcefghijop

~the_, f{µCL §j C-Yz:! ls&
Zapf Renaissance D Designed by Hermann Zapf in 1984-85 and
issued in 1986 by Scangraphic. This family returns, after forty
years, to many of the principles that animated one of Zapf's

a
first typefaces, Palatino. But Zapf Renaissance is designed for
the high-technology, two-dimensional world of digital imaging
instead of the slower, more multidimensional world of the artist
printer's handpress. The result is a less printerly and sculptural,
more scribal and painterly typeface - and one which at the same
time is more tolerant of digital typography's capricious, even li-
centious, freedom with size. The family includes a roman, italic,
small caps, semibold and swash italic with a rich assortment of
pilcrows and fleurons.
Palatino Linotype Greek - actually much closer in time to
Zapf Renaissance than it is to the original Palatino - makes a fine
Greek companion to this roman. (See also page 254.)

253
 Linotype
digital Palatine
(on the left)
and Zapf
Renaissance
aa bb cc
ee ff gg
(on the right).
Both are shown
here at 72 pt
and 18 pt.

These types
have much in

fifi 06 tt
common, but
Palatino was
first designed
as a foundry
face, with weight
and proportion
changing from

AAHH
size to size and
the expectation
that it would be
printed in three
dimensions. Zapf
Renaissance was
designed as a abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
freely scalable
digital face, in abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
which one pat-
tern serves for 123456789o·ABCDEFG
every size, and
with the expec- 123456789o·ABCDEFG
tation that it
would be printed ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
in two dimen-
sions only. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
254
 )Ri-nqs i-1Mi-Yqi- Z11mi-3n q.t q-l Z3
1"/.18RJ >IRY"1<U K11':t: '.J1'MtE> i-E ~R1~
)~H-l .RCJ Edit :it'1..i.K1 31~ Cl~"'1<l.Sl '1AI
A38>13 J.R81' CJE> :itd~ R1Y i-A)3:it t"11'
14 pt unserifed Etruscan cut by William Caslon for Oxford University Press,
about i745. Unserifed scripts are as old as writing itself, but this is one of Prowling
the earliest unserifed types. the
Specimen
11.3 UNSERIFED TEXT FACES Books

Unserifed letters have a history at least as long, and quite as

distinguished, as serifed letters. Unserifed capitals appear in the
earliest Greek inscriptions. They reappear at Rome in the third
and second centuries BC, and in Florence in the early Renais-
sance. Perhaps it is no more than an accident of history that the Many rotundas
unserifed letters of fifteenth-century Florentine architects and and Greek types
cut in the 1460s
sculptors were not translated into metal type in the 1470s. and 1470s in-
At Athens and again at Rome, the modulated stroke and bi- clude sanserif
lateral serif were the scribal trademarks and symbols of empire. forms, but none
is consistently
Unserifed letters, with no modulation or, at most, a subtle taper unserifed (A
in the stroke, were emblems of the Republic. This link between recent example
unserifed letterforms and populist or democratic movements re- on similar lines
is Karlgeorg
curs time and again, in Renaissance Italy and in the eighteenth Hoefer's San
and nineteenth centuries in northern Europe. Marco, shown on
Unserifed types were first cut in the eighteenth century, but page 252.)

they were cut at first for alphabets other than Latin. A sanserif
Latin printing type was cut for Valentin Haily, Paris, in 1786 - but The importance
Haily's type was meant to be invisible. It was designed to be of the Hauy italic
was first pointed
embossed, without ink, for the blind to read with their fingers. out by James
The first unserifed Latin type for the sighted - cut by William Mosley. For more
Caston Iv, London, about 1812 - was based on signwriters' letters on the history of
unserifed letters,
and consisted of capitals only. Bicameral (upper- and lowercase) see his essay
unserifed roman fonts were apparently first cut in Leipzig in the "The Nymph
1820s. and the Grat;'
Typographica n.s.
Most, though not all, of the unserifed types of the nineteenth 12 (1965), and
century were dark, coarse and tightly closed. These characteris- Nicolete Gray,
tics are still obvious in faces like Helvetica and Franklin Gothic, A History of
Lettering (1986)
despite the weight-reductions and other refinements worked on
them over the years. These faces are cultural souvenirs of some
of the bleakest days of the Industrial Revolution.
During the twentieth century, sanserifs have evolved toward

255
 much greater subtlety, and in this evolution there seem to be three
major factors. One is the study of archaic Greek inscriptions, with
their light, limber stroke and large aperture. Another is the pursuit
of pure geometry: typographic meditation first on the circle and
the line, then on more complex geometric figures. The third is the
study of Renaissance calligraphy and humanistic form - vitally
Unserifed important in the recent history of serifed and unserifed letters
Text alike. But in retrospect it seems that both type designers and
Faces founders were for many years strangely reluctant to believe that
one could simply write a humanist letter and leave the serifs off.
When this is done, everything happens and nothing happens: if
the stroke has width, the stroke-end too has shape and form; it
takes the serif's place.

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Caspari o Designed by Gerard Daniels and issued by the Dutch

fi
Type Library in 1993. This is a subtly crafted and simple text face
with the essential humanist attributes, including large aperture,
a genuine italic with a modest slope of 6°, text figures, small caps
and impressive economy of form. It was one of the first unserifed
faces issued in a form truly suitable for text work, with all working
parts in place. Daniels added a Cyrillic version in 2003. One thing
still missing is a book weight. (See also pp 264-65.)

AQ ab(aefgnijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Flora P/D Designed by Gerard Unger, released by Rudolf Hell
in 1985 and licensed through ITC in 1989. Flora is a true sanserif
italic - and it was, I believe, the first unserifed italic to approximate
chancery form. It can be used very happily alone but is designed
to function also as a companion to Unger's Praxis (unserifed
roman) and Demos (serifed roman and italic). Because its slope
is only 2.5°, Flora functions best with Praxis when it is used for
setting separate blocks of text.
See Gerard Unger, Unger has spoken persuasively about the importance of hori-
"Dutch Landscape
zontals in his type designs. He associates the strong horizontal
with Letters:· in
issue 14 of the thrust of Hollander and Swift with the flat Dutch landscape in
Dutch journal the midst of which he lives. But in most of his italics - Swift,
Gravisie (Utrecht.
Hollander and Flora included - it is verticals that seem to matter
1989): 29- 52.
most. (See also page 264.)
 18 pt Original
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop Frutiger

18 pt Frutiger
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghij6p Next

Frutiger P/D Adrian Frutiger designed this face in 1975, initially

for signage at the Paris-Roissy Airport. It was then issued by Mer-
genthaler for use on their photosetting machines and immediately I
prospered as a typeface. What it lacked in the way of humanist
structure it made up for in its open, fresh geometry, wide aperture
and balance. It also mated well with the same designer's Meridien
and Apollo, though such a mixture was not apparently part of the
original design plan, and the fonts did not match in weight or
body size. In the conversion from signage to typeface, a sloped
I
roman was added, rather than a genuine italic.
In 1999-2000, Frutiger redrew the face, adding a true italic,
incorporating subtle curves into the stems of the roman charac-
ters, and altering the range to include a book weight. There are
other small improvements - repositioning of the diacritics, for
example - which make the newer version better for text work,
though there are still, as in Meridien, no text figures or small
caps. The revised version, issued by Linotype in 2001, is known
as Frutiger Next. (See also pp 105, 264-65.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Futura u This was the first and remains the best of the geometric
sanserif faces, designed by Paul Renner in 1924-26 and issued by
the Bauer Foundry, Frankfurt, in 1927. Futura is a subtly crafted
face, but many copies have been made, under various names,
in metal, film and digital form. By no means all these cuts are
fl
equally well made - and not all weights that have been added to
the family are Renner's own designs.
Geometric though it is, Futura is one of the most rhythmical
sanserifs ever made. Its proportions are graceful and humane
- close to those of Centaur in the vertical dimension. This helps
to make it suitable - like all the unserifed faces examined here
dd
- for setting extended text. (Which is not, of course, to say that it
is suitable for texts of every kind.) The new digital version issued
by Neufville in Barcelona includes text figures and small caps,
ff
which were part of Renner's original design but never issued in
metal. (See also pp i4, 106, 133, 212, 264.)

257
 abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcefghijop
Gill Sans M Designed by Eric Gill and issued by Monotype in

fi
1927. Gill Sans is a distinctly British but highly readable sanserif,
composed of latently humanist and overtly geometric forms. The
aperture varies (it is large in c, moderate in roman s, smaller in
roman e). The italic, like Fournier's, cut two centuries before,
was a revolutionary achievement in its time. Books have been set
successfully in Gill Sans, though it requires a sure sense of color
and measure. Text figures and small caps - very useful when the
face is used for text work - were finally added by the Monotype
design staff in 1997· (See also pp 264, 2n.)

abcefghijop 123 AQabcefghijop

Haarlemmer Sans D Frank Blokland at the Dutch Type Library

e
created this face as a digital companion to Jan van Krimpen's
Haarlemmer while digitizing the latter in the mid 1990s. Haarlem-
mer itself, cut by Monotype, began as a private commission. So
did Haarlemmer Sans, six decades later. The face has been pub-
licly available since i998. Small caps and text figures are implicit
in the design. (See also page 233 - and compare Van Krimpen's
Romulus Sans, page 260.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Legacy Sans D Designed by RonaldArnholm and issued via ITC

e
in i992. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only published
attempt to make an unserifed version of Nicolas Jenson's roman.
Arnholm drew the serifed version first, and in the process made
some drastic changes to Jenson's proportions, yet resemblances
remain. The italic is based not on Arrighi but on Garamond's gros
romain. There is more modulation of the stroke in Legacy Sans
than in most unserifed types. Text figures and small caps are part
of the design. (See also pp 235, 264.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghij6p

Lucida Sans D This admirable sans, designed by Kris Holmes
and Charles Bigelow in 1985, is part of the largest type family in
the world. The Lucida tribe now includes not just serifed and
unserifed roman and italic but also Greek, Hebrew, Vietnamese,
pan-Asian and pan-European Latin and Cyrillic, a full phonetic
character set, a multitude of mathematical symbol sets, swash

e
italic, blackletter, script, a slightly rumpled offshoot known as
Lucida Casual, a higher-contrast series called Lucida Bright, a
series designed for crude resolutions, called Lucida Fax, a set of
fixed-pitch typewriter fonts, and another fixed-pitch font, called
Lucida Console, designed for terminal emulation. Yet the basic
text figures and small caps, which are essential for civilized text
work, are still omitted by every digital foundry that has merchan-
dised the face. (See also page 264.)

abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop 18 pt Original

Optima

18ptOptima
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcifghijop Nova

18 pt Original
BCD EFG H IJ KLMNOPRSW Optima

18pt Optima
BCD EFG H 1J KLMNOPRSW Nova

Optima H/M/D Designed by Hermann Zapf in 1952- 55 and is-

a
sued in 1958, both as a foundry face by Stempel and in the form of
metal matrices for the Linotype machine. The taper of the stroke
in these original metal versions derives from unserifed Greek
inscriptions and the unserifed roman inscriptions of Renais-
sance Florence, but in other respects the architecture of Optima
is Neoclassical. The original Optima 'italic' is pure sloped roman.

a
There is a range of weights and a matching text Greek, designed
by Zapf and issued by Linotype in 1971 (but the Greek, to the best
of my knowledge, has never been digitized.)
Optima Nova - digital a revision undertaken by Zapf and
Akira Kobayashi - was completed in 2003. It involves many
changes to the roman, including the sharpening of the terminals
(especially visible in a, c, f, s, C, G) and a return to the original
subtle taper of the mainstrokes. (This taper, present in the metal
typeface, was abandoned in the first conversion to digital format
because of the staircasing it caused at low resolutions.) Roman
text figures were also a part of the original foundry design, cut in
steel a trial size but not offered for sale. These are revived in Op-
tima Nova, and italic text figures have been added. The diacritics
have been repositioned, and the width of some roman letters (D
and W for instance) has noticeably changed. The italic is a new
design, drawn by Kobayashi under Zapfs supervision. Optima

25 9
 Nova italic slopes at 15° (compared with 11° in the original) and
includes cursive forms of a, e, f, g and I. (See also page 264.)

abcefghij6p 123 AQ abcefghij6p

Quadraat Sans D Fred Smeijers, a typographer based in Arn-
hem, Netherlands, is one of the few people trained as a type
designer first and self-taught as a punchcutter second. FontShop

a
International released the serifed version of his Quadraat in 1993
and the unserifed version in 1997. These are postmodern fonts, but
they are strongly rooted in Dutch Baroque tradition. Quirkiness is
a hallmark of the Baroque, and these are among the quirkier text
faces I have ever used. They are also among the most rigorously
designed. Quadraat Sans, like its serifed partner, is not pretty, nor
does it need to be. It is intelligent instead. Text figures and small
caps are standard equipment. (See also pp 244, 264.)

AQ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Romulus Sans H Jan van Krimpen's major project in the 1930s
was the large Romulus family: serifed and unserifed roman, chan-
cery italic, sloped roman, open titling, and Greek. Many designers
have now embarked on similar projects, but in 1930, no one had
done so. The most interesting part of the project was Romulus
Sans, meant to challenge the new and revolutionary sans of Eric
Gill (released in 1927). Four weights of the unserifed roman had
been cut in a single size (12 pt) when Van Krimpen's employer, the
Enschede Foundry, halted the project. Romulus Sans is the basis
for Frank Blokland's Haarlemmer Sans (page 258).

abcefghijop i23 AQ abcefghijopy

Scala Sans n A fine neohumanist sanserif designed by Martin

a
Majoor and issued by FontShop International, Berlin, in 1994. This
is as fully humanized as any sanserif I know. It has a crisp and
very legible italic and small caps. Text figures and the full array of
standard ligatures are present on the basic font. In the italic, even
the geometric letters at the tail of the Latin alphabet ( v, w, y) are
cursive in their sharp and bony way. The relationship between
the serifed and unserifed forms of Scala is studied in detail on
pp 262-63. (Scala Sans is the unserifed face used throughout this
book. See also pp 246, 264.)

260
 abcefghijop i23 AQ abcefghijop
Seria Sans D Like its serifed counterpart, Martin Majoor's Seria
Sans explores the common ground between Italian Renaissance

a
structure and the world of Dutch reserve. The extenders are long
and graceful, and the stroke weight subtly varied in fact though
optically uniform. Seria Sans goes a long way toward fulfilling the
dream of a pure sanserif type that began with Edward Johnston,
Eric Gill and Jan van Krimpen. The italic, like its serifed cousin,
slopes at only one degree and so shares many of its capitals with
the roman. The family was issued by FontShop, Berlin, in 2000.
(See also page 246.)

abcefghijop 123 AO abcefghii6py 17 pt Original

Syntax

17 pt "Linotype
abcefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijopy Syntax"

Syntax H/D This was the last sanserif text face commercially cast
in metal, and in my opinion the best. Hans Eduard Meier designed

a
the original version in Switzerland in the late 1960s, and it was cut
and cast at the Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt, in 1969. The roman
is a true neohumanist sanserif. Renaissance shapes that we are
used to seeing in company with serifs and a modulated stroke are
simply rendered in unserifed and (almost) unmodulated form.
The italic, however, is a hybrid: primarily sloped roman. Close
scrutiny reveals that in Syntax the roman is sloped too. The italic
slopes at 12° and the roman at something close to half a degree.
Half a degree, however, is enough to add perceptible vitality and
motion to the forms. The stroke width changes very subtly, and
the stroke ends are trimmed at a variety of angles. There are
several weights, but as usual in neohumanist faces, the weights For a Native
above semibold are severely distorted. American
For text use, the original Syntax was hampered by the absence variant of
Syntax, see Dell
of text figures and small caps. Meier redrew the entire family Hymes, "Victoria
in the late 1990s, adding these components, making very small Howard's 'Gitskux
adjustments to the roman and greater alterations to the italic. Jnd His Older
Brother';· in
The new italic letterforms are narrower than the old, and three Brian Swann, ed.,
of them - f, j, y - are more cursive than before. Meier also added Smoothing the
serifed and semiserifed versions of the face. These revisions add Ground. Essays on
Native American
substantially to the range and versatility of the type, but the core Oral Literature
of Meier's achievement remains exactly where it was: in the naked (Berkeley, 1983).
structure of the roman. (See also page 264.)
Martin Majoor's
Scala and Scala
Sans, shown
here at 74 pt and
18 pt.
aa bb cc
The serifed and
unserifed forms
ofScala are
closely related
and highly
compatible, but
ee ff gg
nn oo tt
there are
many subtle
differences as
well. Takingthe
serifs away from
an alphabet
changes the
relative widths
ofthe characters,
which changes
the rhythm
ofthe face. In
Scala roman, for
AAH H
example, the un- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
serifed caps are
uniformly nar- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
rower than the
serifed caps. The r23456789o·A BCDEFG
unserifed lower
case is slightly 1234567890·A BCDEFG
narrower too,
but most ofthe ABCDEFGH IJKLMN
difference comes
in the straight- ABCDEFGHI JKLMN
/egged letters h
through n. OPQRSTUVW XYZ
OPQRSTUVW XYZ
aa bb cc In Scala italic,
many lowercase
letters are
actually wider
in the sans than
in the serifed
form, though
the alphabet is
narrower overall.
And Scala Serif
has a clearly
modulated
stroke, while
Scala Sans
is optically
(not actually)
monochrome.
Thinned and
tapered strokes

AAHH
occur in the sans
and serifed forms
alike (in the
brow of roman a,
the bar of roman
e, and in the
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz roman and italic
g,for example) -
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz but the unserifed
stroke is never
1234567890 thinned as much
as the stroke
1234567890 with serifs.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
OPQRSTUVWXYZ
OPQRSTUVWXYZ
 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
F uTu RA: Cursive characters: none 0

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ORIGINAL FRUTIGER: Cursive characters: none 0
Italicization
Quotient abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
of Thirteen ORIG 1NAL OPTIMA: Cursive characters: none 0
Unserifed
'Italics' abcdefgh ii kl mnopqrstuvwxyz
ORIGINAL SYNTAX: Cursive characters: bcdpq

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
G 1LL SANS: Cursive characters: abcdfpq 7

obcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
OPTIMA NOVA: Cursive characters: abdefglpqu 10

abe defghij kl m nopq rstuvwxyz

CASPAR 1: Cursive characters: abcdeghmnpq 11

Flora and Lucida

Sans are shown
abed efg hij kl mno pq rstuvwxyz
here at 17 pt, all FLO RA: Cursive characters: abcdefghmnpqru 14
other samples
at 18 pt. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
LUCI DA SANS: Cursive characters: abcdefghmnpqru 14

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
SCALA SAN s: Cursive characters: abcdejhmnpqtuvwy 16

Triplex italic
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
- the most broken Cursive characters: abcdefghkmnpqrtuy
LEGACY SANS: 17
alphabet here
- appears to get
the highest score abcdefghijklmnopqrstuuwxyz
Conclusion.
brokenness can QUADRAAT SANS: Cursive characters: abcdefghjmnpquvwy 17
coexist with
cursiveness,
though the two
abcdefghtjklmnopqrstuvwxyz
are not the same. TR 1PL Ex: Cursive characters: abcdefghiklmnopqrtuvwxyz 24

264
S OME 1TAL1Cs are not italic at all - that is, they are not cursive.
Others are very italic indeed. This is one of the salient differ-
ences among sanserif types. We can measure this aspect of a
typeface, in a crude way, by counting how many letters in the
basic lower case have visibly cursive characteristics. This tells us noth-
ing whatsoever about how good or bad the typeface is. It tells us, instead,
something about the kind of goodness it may or may not possess. Prowling
The same analysis can be performed on serifed italics too. But 1t is the
normal, in a serifed italic of humanist form, for every letter in the lower Specimen
case to be noticeably cursive. There are no purely sanserif 1tal1cs for which Books
this seems to be true. (john Downer's Triplex italic lower case is close to
100% cursive 1n this sense, despite its highly geometric form - but it is
not 100% unserifed.)
The features that mark an unserifed letter as cursive are often very
subtle. In a letter such as b, h, m, p or r, for example, it is usually only the
shape of the bowl, or the angle and the height at which the curved strokes
enter or leave the stem, that reveals its cursive form.

bb pp rr· bb pp rr
In Frutiger (on the left, above), the oblique forms of b, p and rare no more
cursive than the upright. In Legacy Sans (on the right, above), the oblique
forms are visibly italic. They differ from the corresponding roman forms
in structure as well as in slope.
The g can be cursive or noncursive, no matter whether 1t has the
binocular form that is usual in serifed roman faces or the monocular
form that is typical both of chancery italics such as Trinite and of Realist
sanserifs such as Helvetica.

gg ggg· gg gg g
2 3 4 6

In Syntax (1), the oblique g keeps its essentially uncurs1ve roman form. In
Legacy Sans (2), the italic g differs more from the roman: it develops at
least a little bit of swing as well as a slope. The g from DTL Elzevir italic
(3) - a Baroque serifed face, based on the work of Christoffel van Dijck
- provides a comparison. The g of Frutiger (4) is monocular but not
cursive, even when it slopes. In Gerard Daniels's Caspari (5), the italic g
is monocular and cursive, like the gin Meridien italic (6).
 11.4 BLACKLETTERS

The first types cut in Europe, including all those used by Johann
Gutenberg, were blackletters. Scripts and printing types of this
kind were once used throughout Europe - in England, France,
Hungary, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain, as well as
Blackletters Germany - and some species thrived even in Italy. They are the
typographic counterpart of the Gothic style in architecture, and
like Gothic architecture, they are a prominent part of the Euro-
pean heritage, though they flourished longer and more vigorously
in Germany than anywhere else.

be IJeeft IJP Otl9 gl)euanbetbieuten

l)oglJm opge~amiaI nlicl)tel)ere
ben~mibietnbUptlmtitrefittirii
in bte fcl)emebea boota.om telepbi
A i4-point textura cut by Henrie Pieterszoon Lettersnider, probably at
Antwerp in i492. (Matrices for this font - likely the oldest set of matrices
in existence - are now in the Enschede Museum in Haarlem.)

Blackletter scripts, like roman scripts, exist in endless variety.

Blackletter types are somewhat simpler, and not all of them need
concern us here. But it is worth noting the presence of four major
families: textura,Jraktur, bastarda and rotunda. (Another variety
of blackletter often listed in type catalogues is Schwabacher. This
is bastarda by its domestic German name.) None of these fami-
lies is confined to a particular historical period. All four of them
have survived, like roman and italic, through many historical
variations. Their differences are many and complex, but they can
usually be distinguished by reference to the lowercase o alone.
Though it is written with only two penstrokes, the o in a textura
looks essentially hexagonal. In a fraktur, it is normally flat on the
left side, curved on the right. In a bastarda, it is normally pointed
at top and bottom and belled on both sides. In a rotunda, it is
essentially oval or round.

0000
Typical lowercase forms in textura, fraktur, bastarda and rotunda

266
 Blackletters can be used in many contexts for emphasis or
contrast - even in a world devoted to roman and italic - and need
not be confined to the mastheads of newspapers or the titles of
religious tracts. Type designers have also not abandoned them.
Some excellent blackletters have been drawn in the twentieth
century - by German artists such as Rudolf Koch and by the
American Frederic Goudy.

A0 ib\~efgbijklmftopqrstftvwxyz f3
Clairvaux D The blackletter of the White Monks. The Cister-
cian abbey of Clairvaux, about half way from Paris to Basel, was
founded by St Bernard in m5 and thrived throughout the twelfth
century. The typeface of the same name, designed by Herbert
Maring and issued by Linotype in 1990, has much of the simplic-
ity espoused by the old Cistercian order. It is also closer than any
other bastarda to the forms of the Caroline minuscule, and thus
more legible than most to modern eyes.

Due de Berry o A light French bastarda, designed by Gottfried

Pott, issued in digital form by Linotype in 1991. Jean de France,
the Duke of Berry (1340-1416) would, I think, have found these
letterforms familiar, but they are not based on the script in any
of the lavish Books of Hours he once owned.

Fette Fraktur H This heavy, Romantic fraktur was designed by

Johann Christian Bauer and issued by his foundry at Frankfurt
about 1850. It provides strong evidence that the Victorian 'fat face'
is inherently more congenial to blackletter than to roman.

~ <9 ab~dcfghijklmnopqrstfiom:xyz ij
Goudy Text M Designed by Frederic Goudy and issued by
Monotype in 1928. This is a narrow, smooth, lightly ornamented
textura, relatively legible in the upper as well as the lower case.
There is a second set of capitals, known as Lombardic caps. In
machine form and digital form alike, the type is poorly fitted, but
it is worth the work of salvage.
 A 0 abcdefghijklrnnopqr,etuvwxyz
Goudy Thirty M This was one of Frederic Goudy's last typefaces,
deliberately conceived as his memorial to himself. ('Thirty' is,
of course, journalists' code for 'end of story:) It is a light and
simple rotunda, designed in 1942, issued by Lanston Monotype
Blackletters in 1948 and now available from the Lanston Type Co. in digital
form. There are two versions, differing in the forms of a, s, w and
several of the capitals.

Rhapsodie H This is an energetic, legible Schwabacher (German

bastarda) designed by Ilse Schille and issued by Ludwig & Mayer,
Frankfurt, in 1951. There is an alternate set of ornamental capitals.
I have not found a digital version of the face.

1l e abcdcfgl)ijldmftopqrstiivw,y3 6
San Marco D Designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer and issued in digi-
tal form by Linotype in 1991. This is the first digital blackletter
inspired by the rotundas cut at Venice in the 1470s by Nicolas
Jenson. San Marco too is a rotunda - the genus of blackletter most
closely connected to Italy and structurally closest to roman forms.
It is named for the round-vaulted cathedral of San Marco, at the
ceremonial center of Jenson's city. (See also page 105.)

.R abcbefgbijtdmnopqrfstuuw~;
Trump Deutsch H Designed by Georg Trump and issued in metal
by the Berthold Foundry in 1936. This is a dark, wide, concave,
unornamented and energetic textura. Both upper and lower case
are open and easily legible fo rms. To the best of my knowledge,
it has never yet been digitized.

m
Wilhelm Klingspor Schrift H Rudolf Koch completed this narrow,
ornamental textura in 1925, naming it in honor of the recently
deceased co-owner of the Klingspor Bros. Foundry in Offenbach,
where Koch was chief designer. Not all the alternate glyphs in the
handsome metal versions have been digitized.

268
11.5 UNCIALS

Uncial letters were widely used by European scribes from the It is often said
fourth through the ninth century Ao, both for Latin and for that uncial (from
Latin uncia)
Greek, but they had vanished from common use in the time of means 'inch: The
Gutenberg. Uncials were not cut into type until the nineteenth two words are
century, and then only for scholarly or antiquarian purposes. In indeed related,
but a better
the twentieth century, however, many designers - Sjoerd de Roos, translation of
William Addison Dwiggins, Frederic Goudy, Oldrich Menhart, uncial is simply
Karlgeorg Hoefer and Gunter Gerhard Lange, among others 'small measure' or
'small standard:
- took an interest in uncial forms, and one artist and printer,
Victor Hammer, devoted his typographic life to them.
Historically, uncials are unicameral - they have only one case,
as all European alphabets did until the late Middle Ages - but
not all recent uncials are likewise. Early uncials, like recent ones,
are sometimes serifed, sometimes not, and may be modulated or
monochrome. They are now used chiefly for display, but some
are quiet enough for extended texts.

AQ 123 abc,;oefghijklrnnop
qnstilVUJXcYZ 123 tJGJQ 4S'6

American Uncial H This is the fourth type Victor Hammer

designed, the second for which he cut the punches, and the first
he produced after fleeing to the USA from Austria in 1939. All
Hammer's types are uncials. Only two - this one and its predeces-
sor Pindar - are bicameral. American Uncial was cast privately in
Chicago in 1945, then commercially by Klingspor and marketed
in Europe as Neue Hammer Unziale. Most digital types sold as
1\rnerican Uncial' are actually copies of a different face: a unicam-
eral uncial called Samson, which Hammer designed in Italy in the
1920s. Digital versions of the real American Uncial are sold, like
their metal forebears, under the name Neue Hammer Unziale.

AB~OEFGlJ11ktmAop
QRSTUVWXVZ 123 £<.£PD
Omnia D Lightly serifed, round, cursive uncials with a large
aperture and humanist axis, designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer. This
m
~I J
is a unicameral face, issued by Linotype in 1991.
 11.6 SCRIPT TYPES

In ordinary usage, script is what is not type; it is writing: the

mode of visual language used in public by calligraphers and in
private by other literate humans, including typographers them-
selves. When script hardens, breaks and starts to look like type,
Script we often call it printing - yet printing is what printers do with
Types type, even type that looks like script, which we are likely to call
script type, An innocent observer might conclude that English
is an undernourished language, whose speakers cannot generate
a new word even when they need one.
At the root of this confusion is a portion of good sense. Type
is writing edited or imitated, translated or paraphrased, honored
or mocked - but writing itself is a fluid and linear version of more
disconnected epigraphic signs. The difference between 'type' and
'script' reiterates the difference between glyphic and graphic, or
carved and written, characters. That difference was established
at least 1500 years before the printing press was born.
The craving to mate roman with italic appears to be an effort
to have type and script, or glyphic and graphic, at once. This ex-
plains in part why it is difficult to classify a typeface like Poetica.
Is it a script, or is it a solitary (romanless) italic?
On the early Scripts have thrived as foundry type, phototype and digital
history of type, and several fine designers - Imre Reiner, for example - have
printed scripts,
see Stanley focused as exclusively on scripts as others have on romans. But
Morison's essay scripts had an importance in the world of commercial letterpress
"On Script Types:' that they lack in the world of two-dimensional printing. Hand-
The F/euron 4
(1921): 1-42. written originals are expensive to photoengrave for reproduction
on the letterpress. Specially commissioned calligraphy is easy to
include, by way of scanning or photography, in artwork destined
for the offset press. The best script to supplement a typographic
page is now therefore more likely to be custom made.
Dozens of excellent script types are available. They include
Arthur Baker's Marigold and Visigoth, Roger Excoffon's Choe
and Mistral, Karlgeorg Hoefer's Saito and Saltino, Gunter Ger-
hard Lange's Derby and El Greco, Michael Neugebauer's Squire,
Friedrich Peter's Magnificat and Vivaldi, Imre Reiner's Matura
and Pepita, Robert Slimbach's Caflisch and Sanvito, and Georg
Trump's Jaguar and Palomba. I have chosen to illustrate here only
a handful of the scripts that particularly interest me. Two of these
- Eaglefeather and Tekton - are architectural scripts and could
have been included just as easily among the text types. I have
put them here instead for what they reveal about the process of
transition from writing to printing, script to type, and script type
to roman and italic.

a~cefghijop 123 A~DQ ahcefghijop

Eaglefeather D This is a family of type created in 1994 by David
Siegel and Carol Toriumi-Lawrence, based on some of the archi-
tectural lettering of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). Eaglefeather
is issued in two forms, called formal and informal, but only the
roman lower case actually differs. The two share one italic, one set
M
of roman caps, small caps, figures and analphabetics. Eaglefeather
Informal (the version shown) is actually two italics. The 'roman' is
a crisp, unserifed italic with no slope. The 'italic' is the same set of
letters with a slope of 10°. The series also includes small caps.

s:f ~ 123 dbfdif]ltj/JJJdJJj~JD(VW,>CJZ

aA EEl 15 cJf iJJ~ rife rvz
Ex Ponto D This rough-edged, lyrical script was designed by
Jovica Veljovic and issued by Adobe in three weights in 1995. The
design was completed in exile, and its name, Ex Ponto, alludes
to the Epistulae ex Ponto, 'letters from the Black Sea; written in
Ji
exile before AD 13 by the Roman poet Ovid. The newer OpenType
version of the face includes three sets of capitals and a wide as-
sortment of variant letters and ligatures.

Ji 0 ~~c~ef5~,j~l~~ori~sh4v~'-;J%
Legende H A wide, dark, disconnected script with a small eye
The name civilite
but excellent legibility. It was designed by Ernst Schneidler and stems from the
issued by the Bauer Foundry, Frankfurt, in 1937. This is one of use of Granjon's
the best modern exemplars of a class of Mannerist scripts inau- script in an
early French
gurated by Robert Granjon at Lyon in 1557. Typographers call translation of
them civilites. one of Desiderius
Erasmus's
best-sellers, D e
civilitate morum
puerilium libel/us:
Ondine H This is a dark but open, lucid, disconnected pen script 'A little book
for children
designed by Adrian Frutiger and originally issued by Deberny & about civilized
Peignot, Paris, in 1953. It was one ofFrutiger's earliest designs and behavior:
it remains his only script face. (An ondine is a sea-nymph, and
Frutiger's Ondine is full of waves.)

Present H A light, broad, disconnected brush script designed by

Friedrich Sallwey and issued by the Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt,
in 1974. In digital form, the family has been enlarged to include
both regular and condensed versions in three weights.

abcdefghijop 123 AQ abcefghijop

Tekton o Designed by David Siegel, based on the lettering of
architect Frank Ching, and issued by Adobe in 1989. Multiple
Master, GX and OpenType versions followed. The latter include
text figures and small caps. In modest sizes, Tekton is functionally
a sanserif. At larger sizes, its serifs are visible as tiny beads. The
'italic' is an oblique. The original script can be seen in Ching's
book Architectural Graphics (New York, 1975; 2nd ed.1985), which
is printed from handwritten pages. (The third edition of the book,
published in 1996, is set in semicondensed digital Tekton.)

Zapfino o This calligraphic tour de force designed by Hermann

Zapf was issued by Linotype in 1998 as a set of four alphabets with
a separate font of supplementary ligatures. In 2004 an enlarged,
OpenType version appeared under the name Zapfino Extra. That
incarnation of the family includes small caps, additional alter-
nates and swashes, and a darker version of one of the alphabets,
known as Zapfino Forte. It is an exemplary marriage of artistic and
technical ability. Effective use of such a type requires considerable
patience and skill. It therefore makes a useful training ground for
typographers and calligraphers alike. (See also page 190.)
pHXo.u.Ep6µ1sAsaµApoµ o.u.ov Kai AVXµo
I >> \ \ > I
f1('tt.tr«YT/ JI «t~ptt.JJ't-tY«,Ttt.?rJ"fl µ1«,
~~ rFv S-EoP, 1(9t/ .S-Eo~ luJ 01\9-y@-'.
Prowling
Three early Greek types. Above: The Complutensian Greek, a 16 pt orthotic the
font cut by Arnaldo Guillen de Brocar at Alcala de Henares, near Madrid, Specimen
in ls 10. Center: The 10 pt cursive cut by Francesco Griffo, Venice, in l 502 Books
[here shown at twice actual size]. Bottom: An 18 pt chancery Greek cut
by Robert Granjon in the 1560s.

11.7 GREEKS

Greek type has a long and complex history peculiarly its own, yet
closely entwined with the history of roman. The first full fonts of
Greek were cut in Venice and Florence by Nicolas Jenson, Fran-
cesco Griffo and others who were simultaneously cutting the first
roman and italic faces. Simon de Colines, Claude Garamond, Rob-
ert Granjon, Miklos Kis, Johann Fleischman and William Caston
cut good Greeks as well, and their type was widely used. Yet the
Orthotic is from
first Greek book printed in Greece itself was the Mt Athos Psal- the Greek word
ter of 1759, and the first secular printing press in Greece was es- 6p865, meaning
tablished only during the War of Independence, with help from upright; cursive
from the Latin
Ambroise Firmin-Didot, in 1821. currere, to run
Greek adaptations of popular roman faces - Baskerville, or to hurry; and
Caledonia, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Univers and others chancery from
the Latin cancel/i,
- have been issued by Linotype, Monotype and other firms, and literally'little
are widely used in Greece. But there, as in much of Eastern Eu- crabs.' Cancel/i
rope, the more lyrical forms of modernism have been slower to came to be the
Latin term for a
arrive. Even in the multinational world of classical studies, where lattice or grate,
Greek types that will harmonize with neohumanist romans are and then for
perennially needed, they are in very short supply. the ornamental
barrier that stood
Three important classes of Greek type have been with us between officials
since the fifteenth century. These are the orthotic, the cursive, and and petitioners
the chancery script. Orthotic Greek is analogous to roman in the at court. It is in
other words the
Latin alphabet. It is, in other words, not cursive. The letters are bar to which
relatively self-contained, usually upright, and may or may not lawyers are still
have serifs. Cursive Greek type - which exists in both sloped and called. Chancery
scripts flourished
vertical forms - is analogous to italic. Chancery Greeks are merely where lawyers
elaborate forms of the cursive, but they attained in Greek a level worked.

273
 of typographic intricacy never yet approached by chancery italic
type in the Latin alphabet.
The orthotic Greek types of the Renaissance resemble Renais-
sance romans yet differ from them too, in several interesting ways.
The stroke is usually quite uniform in thickness, the stroke-ends
are sharply rectangular, and the serifs, when present, are usually
short, abrupt and unilateral. The geometric figures of triangle,
circle and line are prominent in the underlying structure of these
faces, though not to the exclusion of more complex curves. This
is the oldest form of Greek type, first seen in the partial alpha-
bets cut by Peter Schaeffer the Elder at Mainz and by Konrad
Sweynheym at Subiaco, near Rome, in 1465. It is also the style
Polytonic Greeks of the first full-fledged and polytonic Greek type, cut by Nicolas
are fonts with a Jenson at Venice in 1471.
full complement
of Alexandrian The finest early example of orthotic Greek, in the opinion of
diacritics. See many historians, is the Complutensian Greek of Arnaldo Guillen
page 295 for de Brocar, cut in Spain in 1510. A few years after that, orthotic
details.
Greeks completely disappeared. They were not revived until the
end of the nineteenth century. The most widely used modern
version is the New Hellenic type designed by Victor Scholderer
in London in 1927.
The first cursive Greek font was cut by an unidentified crafts-
man at Vicenza, west of Venice, in 1475. The second, cut at Venice
by Francesco Griffo, did not appear for another twenty years - and
it was not a simple cursive like the anonymous font from Vicenza
but an elaborate chancery script. Griffo cut a simple Greek cursive
in 1502, but chancery Greeks remained the fashion throughout
Europe for the next two hundred years.
A simple Greek cursive can be turned to a chancery script
by the addition of ligatures, and a chancery script converted to
simple cursive by leaving the ligatures out. But the battery of
ligatures involved often runs to several hundred, and sometimes
to more than a thousand.
Chancery Greeks were cut by many artists from Garamond
to Caslon, but Neoclassical and Romantic designers - including
Baskerville, Bodoni, Alexander Wilson and Ambroise Firmin-
Didot - all returned to simpler cursive forms. Firmin-Didot's
Greek is still in frequent use, in France and Greece alike, but in
the English-speaking world the cursive Greek most often seen is
the one designed in 1806 by Richard Porson.
Neohumanist Greeks, such as Jan van Krimpen's Antigone,
Hermann Zapf's Heraklit and Palatino Greek, and Robert Slim-

274
bach's Minion Greek, have opened a new chapter in the history
of the Greek alphabet, bringing the humanist structure of Renais-
sance roman and italic into the Greek lower case. Ironically, these
types have evolved just as the custodians of European culture
were abandoning the study of the classics.
Greek, like Latin, evolved into bicameral form in the late
Middle Ages. The upper case in the two alphabets shares the Prowling
same heritage, and more than half the uppercase forms remain the
identical. (The same is true of Greek and Latin uncials.) But the Specimen
Greek lower case has evolved along a different path. There is a Books
quiet and formal Greek hand, not dissimilar in spirit to the roman
lower case, but the usual Greek minuscule is cursive. As a con-
sequence, most Greek faces are like Renaissance italics: upright,
formal capitals married to a flowing, often sloping, lower case.
No real supporting face has developed in the Greek typographic
'Aa l
tradition: no face that augments and contrasts with the primary
alphabet as italic does with roman.
That of course is subject to change. Several twentieth-century
designers have added bold and inclined variants to their Greeks, in
imitation of Latin models, and a shift in usage may be underway.
But several of the faces shown here are solitary designs. They are
meant to be used alone or as supplementary faces themselves, for
setting Greek intermixed with roman.

a~y8E~f1BlKAµv~orr po<;TU<pXtµW
a~y8El;t]ihKAµv~orcpa<;TV<pXlJJW
Albertina a Chris Brand designed this Greek in the 1960s, to-
gether with Albertina Latin and Cyrillic. Initially only the Latin
face was produced. The Greek was issued only in 2004, by DTL.
It exists in both upright and cursive form - but for now at least,
only in a monotonic version. (See also pp 213, 280.)

Antigone H Designed by Jan van Krimpen and issued by En-

schede in 1927. This is a delicately sculpted neohumanist Greek,
intended for the setting of lyric poetry. It was cut specifically to
match the same designer's Lutetia roman and italic, but it com-
poses well with his other Latin faces, including Romanee and
Spectrum. There is no digital version of Antigone.

275
 Badoni H Giambattista Bodoni designed and cut a large number
of Greeks in the course of his career. Some are Neoclassical, others
Romantic in structure; some are sloped cursives, and some are in-
scriptional faces consisting of capitals only. The so-called Bodoni
Greek known to the typographic trade is not in truth Bodoni's,
though it looks as though it should be one of his designs. It is an
upright version of a font (the 18 pt Longus Greek) that Bodoni
cut in sloped form in 1786.
I do not know which founder cut the first commercial adapta-
tion of Bodoni's Greeks, but it was in use in Germany in the 1850s.
Several German founders copied the initial trade version, and it
served as the standard Greek type in German books for over a
hundred years. The font shown here is a new digital interpreta-
tion, made in 1993 for the Greek Font Society, Athens, by Takis
Katsoulides. It is Romantic in architecture but has been spared
the exaggerated contrast found in many recent romans and ital-
ics that are advertised as Bodonis. As issued by GFS, the family
includes both sloped and upright forms, a bold, and Greek small
caps. (See also page u3.)

af3yoEsi'i etxAµ v~o7tpac;'"tucpxtJJ~

ABr~EZH8KAM3
Didot H More than one typographer has wondered why Didot
Greeks look so little like the Didot romans. The reason is that the
original versions were cut in different eras by father and son, and
they embody the two punchcutters' different relationships to two
distinct typographic traditions. The original Didot Greeks are the
work of Ambroise Firmin-Didot, whose father, Firmin Didot, cut
the best-known Didot romans and italics. The romans, cut in the
thick of the French Revolution, have a strictly rationalist structure.
They have left every vestige of Baroque variety behind.
Didot Greeks have a lefthandedness learned from the Man-

A
nerist and Baroque Greeks of Granjon, Jannon, Kis, Caslon and
Fleischman. The capitals are openly schizophrenic, with adnate,
Neoclassical serifs on the thin strokes and abrupt, Romantic serifs
on the thick ones. The digital version shown here was made for
the Greek Font Society, Athens, by Takis Katsoulides in 1993. (See
also page u3.)
Diogenes D An alphabet of pure archaic capitals, designed by
Christopher Stinehour, Berkeley, in 1996. The face was commis-
sioned by the printer Peter Rutledge Koch for use in an edition
of the fragments of Parmenides. It is based on inscriptions of the
fifth century B c from the old Greek city of Phokaia and its colony
<P
Elea, on the coast of Italy, where Parmenides was born. A slightly
darker book weight (shown above) was added in 2003.

Gill Sans M This face was designed in the 1950s by Monotype

draftsmen, not by Eric Gill himself, as a companion for the Gill
Sans roman. Since the roman had also been modified from Gill's
original drawings, Gill Sans Greek is twice removed from the artist
for whom it is named. It is nevertheless a clean and usable design.
The lower case, like its Latin counterpart, includes a few residual
serifs. There are several weights, both upright and oblique, but
no book weight has been commercially issued.

Heraklit H/M This face was designed by Hermann Zapf and is-
sued both by Stempel and by Linotype in 1954- It is a neohumanist
text Greek, intended to be used with the same designer's Palatino
and Aldus. There is a companion Greek titling face called Phidias:
the Greek counterpart to Zapf's Michelangelo. Palatino Linotype
Greek (page 278) is Heraklit's digital successor.

The digital
New Hellenic
shown here has
New Hellenic M Designed by Victor Scholderer and issued by been modified
Monotype in 1927. This is an orthotic Greek, reasserting the tradi- as follows:
side bearings
tion of Nicolas Jenson, Antonio Miscomini and Arnaldo Guillen of several
de Brocar, instead of the cursive and chancery Greek tradition of analphabetics
Francesco Griffo, Simon de Colines and Claude Garamond. It is have been revised,
a kerning table
open, erect, gracious and stable, with minimal modulation of the has been added,
stroke and minimal serifs. There are well-made variant forms of all the caps and
several letters. A digital version of the face, shown here, was made five alternate
glyphs (2q, E,
in 1993 for the Greek Font Society by Takis Katsoulides. (This is C, W) have been
sold as Neo rather than New Hellenic. See also pp 108, u2.) resized.

277
 af3ybc~fl8LKAµvE,onQCT<;rrvcpx¢ctJ
af3yDE~~BLKilµv~onpac;;rrvcpxt/Jc,u
Palatino o As part of the transformation of Palatino into the
pan-European 'Palatino Linotype; Hermann Zapf created an up-
right and italic Greek in two weights, based on his earlier Heraklit.
The full range of monotonic and polytonic characters is included.
The digitization, however, was done at Microsoft, not at Linotype.
While the letterforms are lovely, kerning is nonexistent, and the
diacritics are so pale they vanish at text sizes. When the diacritics
are strengthened (as in the first of the two specimen lines above),
this Greek mates handsomely not just with Palatino but with many
Latin faces. (See also pp 239, 281.)

Parson H Designed by the English classicist Richard Porson

for Cambridge University and cut by Richard Austin beginning
in 1806. The face was soon copied by several founders, and in
1912 an edited version was issued by Monotype. This has been
the standard Greek face for the Oxford Classical Texts for over a
century. It is a calm yet energetic face of Neoclassical design that
composes well with many romans. During its long and fruitful
career, the Porson lower case has been fitted with several differ-
ent series of caps, none of which quite matches Parson's original
design. The digital version of the face shown here and elsewhere
in this book is the one produced in 1996 by George Matthiopoulos
for the Greek Font Society, Athens - edited by reducing the size
of the caps some 10%. (See also pp 109, u3.)

a{!;y~e~n01x/i.µ,v~o'lr.f<Tqrv<pxW
aJ ,a?[~®-' m1 s-~ fl )&J ~
Wilson D Greek fonts this well-made have always been rare,
though Greeks which aimed at this result were once common.
At present, this is the only digital Greek of its kind. It was made
by Matthew Carter in 1995, based on the Greek fonts of the eigh-
teenth-century master punchcutter, physician and astronomer
Alexander Wilson of Glasgow. The face is rich with alternate
forms and ligatures, a few of which are shown here.
11.8 CYRILLICS

The Cyrillic alphabet was adapted from Greek in the ninth

century, and the first Cyrillic type was cut in Krakow by Ludolf
Borchtorp in 1490. An improved Cyrillic was cut in Prague in 1517
by the Belarusian Frantsysk Skaryna, but the first Cyrillic cursive
was not cut until 1583. The subsequent history of Cyrillic is largely Prowling
parallel to that of Latin type, with the important exception that the
there is no humanist or Renaissance phase, and the intimate link- Specimen
age between upright and italic which is now taken for granted in Books
Western European typography did not develop in the context of
Cyrillic. Only in the eighteenth century were upright and cursive
forms paired. Slavic type, like Slavic literature, passed more or less
directly from the medieval to the late Baroque. For this and for
other, more overtly political reasons, the neohumanist movement
in type design also came late to Cyrillic letters.
With minor variations, Cyrillic is now used by close to half
a billion people, writing in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bul-
garian, Macedonian and other Slavic languages. In Serbia and
Montenegro it is used for Serbo-Croatian, and in Moldova for
Romanian. It is also now the common alphabet for a host of
unrelated languages, from Abkhaz to Uzbek, spoken and written
across what once was the Soviet Union.
Several excellent type designers have worked in Russia and
the neighboring republics in the past century. The list includes
Vadim Lazurski from Odessa, Galina Bannikova from Sarapul,
Anatoli Shchukin from Moscow, Pavel Kuzanyan and Solomon
Telingater from Tbilisi. Few of their designs have been available
in the West; many, in fact, have yet to be produced in type at all.
Linotype, Monotype, ParaType and other foundries have
issued Cyrillic versions of Baskerville, Bodoni, Caslon, Charter,
Frutiger, Futura, Gill Sans, Helvetica, Jannon, Kabel, Officina,
Plantin, Syntax, Times, Univers and other Latin faces. Nearly all
these have their uses, including setting multilingual texts, where
matching Latin and Cyrillic fonts may be required. But not all of
these derivative Cyrillics can claim to be distinguished designs,
and not all are suited to running text.
Cyrillic text fonts are increasingly constructed with the
same variations as the better Latin text types: roman, italic and Text figures are
available for all
small caps, with text as well as titling figures, often in several
Cyrillic faces
weights. Roman type is known in Russian as rrpJIMoi1 wpviqn shown on the fol-
(pryamoi shrift, 'upright type'). Italic is called Kyprns (kursiv) or lowing pages.

279
KyprnBHhn1 wpmpT (kursivnyi shrift) . Unserifed Cyrillics, like
Latin sanserifs, are often made with an oblique (HaKnOHHbliil
wp11q>T = naklonnyi shrift, 'sloped type') in place of an italic.

a6Brne)Koqnu A)KQ a6B20eSRopU1

Albertina D Like Albertina Greek, this was designed by Chris
Brand in the 1960s but not produced until 2004. It mates perfectly
with its Greek and Latin companions. (See also pp 213, 275.)

Baskerville M Baskerville himself did not design a Cyrillic, but

Cyrillic adaptations of his roman and italic have been made by
several foundries. The best of these is Monotype's, designed in
1930 by the young Harry Carter, who would soon grow into a great
type historian. For some Russian texts of the eighteenth century
and later, a face of Western origin and French Enlightenment
spirit is highly appropriate. Baskerville Cyrillic is one obvious
choice for this purpose - especially for bilingual publications, if
Baskerville happens to suit the translation . (See also page 216.)

Lazurski H This is a neohumanist Cyrillic designed by the Rus-

sian book designer Vadim Lazurski. It was produced in 1962 in
two forms, under two names. In Russia it was issued for machine
setting as Garnitura Lazurskogo. The foundry version, edited by
Giovanni Mardersteig and cut under his direction by Ruggiero
Olivieri, is known as Pushkin. In that form, it has only been used
at Mardersteig's press, the Officina Bodoni in Verona. Vladimir
Yefimov adapted it for photosetting in 1984, adding a bold weight.
Both the Cyrillic and its Latin companion were issued in digital
form by ParaGraph, Moscow, in 1991. The requisite text figures
were added in 1997. (See also page uo.)

a6Brp;e)l(ocprn; A)l(Q a6e20eJ1CocfiU'1

Minion D A neohumanist Cyrillic designed by Robert Slimbach
as a companion to his Minion Latin. It was first issued by Adobe in
1992, and re-issued in pan-European OpenType format in 2000.
(See also pp 107, 237.)

280
Palatino D Palatino Cyrillic, like Palatino Greek, was designed
by Hermann Zapf in the 1990s as part of the transformation
of Palatino into 'Palatino Linotype: It is particularly useful for
multilingual work. (See also pp 239, 278.)
3
a6Br,n;e}1<oqn1.i; A}l{O a6s2oe*o~14
Quadraat n Most Cyrillic adaptations of Latin faces have an air
of superficiality about them. Fred Smeijers's Quadraat Cyrillic is
a wonderful exception to that rule. (See also page 244.)
3
"""'

a6BrAe:>Koqn.1~ A:>KO a6B2oemocfiut;

Warnock D Warnock, like Minion, is a pan-European family of
type - Latin, Greek and Cyrillic - designed by Robert Slimbach
and issued by Adobe in OpenType format in 2000. It is spikier
than Minion, and more artificial (plainly drawn instead of writ-
3
ten). It is also steeper (the italic slopes at 15° instead of 12°). The
Cyrillic seems to me the most successful branch of the family.

11.9 JNSCRIPTIONAL & CALLIGRAPHIC CAPITALS

Every text begins at least once. Most stop and start again repeat-
edly before they run their course. These beginnings - of sentences,
paragraphs, chapters or sections - are the doors and windows of
the text. European scribes began to mark the major ones with
large, sometimes ornate capital letters - versals - even before the
Latin alphabet developed a lower case.
In many early printed books, space is left for such initials
to be painted in by hand. Printers also began to print them, in
multiple colors, as early as 1459. Many fine alphabets of capitals
have sprung from this tradition: fonts of type designed for setting
titles or short texts, or to be used one letter at a time. Some of
these alphabets - Carol Twombly's Lithos and Gudrun Zapf-von
Hesse's Smaragd, for example - are glyphic or inscriptional; others
are purely calligraphic.
Because they are meant for use with other fonts of text size,
many fonts of inscriptional initials are inlines: the interior of the
stroke has been carved away to lighten the face. Jan van Krimpen's
Lutetia and Romulus Open Capitals, for example, were made by

281
 hollowing out the caps of these text faces. But Cristal, designed by
Remy Peignot, and Castellar, designed by John Peters, were created
from the start as inline types and exist in no other form.
The capitals from any text font can, of course, be enlarged
for use as versals, but the proportions often suffer as a result, and
specially proportioned titling capitals exist for only a few text
faces (Giovanni Mardersteig's Dante and John Hudson's Manticore
are examples). From time to time, however, the capitals from a
bicameral text or titling face develop a separate life of their own.
Samples of This has occurred, for example, with Berthold Wolpe's Albertus,
many of these Carl Dair's Cartier, Herb Lubalin's Avant Garde, and with Georg
faces are shown
on page 287. Trump's Codex and Delphin. The faces listed below were all de-
signed specifically as capitals for titling, not text.

Ariadne H Calligraphic initials designed by Gudrun Zapf-von

Hesse and issued by the Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt, in 1954.
These initials combine especially well at text size with the same
designer's Diotima and at larger sizes with Palatino and Aldus.

ABCDXYZ
Augustea H/M Sharply serifed, formal inscriptional capitals, de-
signed by Aldo Novarese and Alessandro Butti, issued in metal by
the Nebiolo Foundry, Torino, in 195i. There is an inline version,
originally sold as Augustea Filettata, now digitized as Augustea
Open. A lower case was also later added to the capitals. The result
is known as Augustea Nova. (See also page 287.)

ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Castellar M Inline capitals, asymmetrically inscribed, so that the
hollowed strokes are light on the left, dark on the right. The face
was designed by John Peters and issued by Monotype in 1957.
(See also pp 64, 160, 287.)
 ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Charlemagne D These lighthearted Caroline capitals, based
on the Carolingian titling scripts and versals of the ninth and
tenth centuries, were designed by Carol Twombly and issued in Prowling
digital form by Adobe in 1989. The newer OpenType version of the
the face includes a pan-European Latin character set. (See also Specimen
pp 120, 287.) Books

ABCDEF~HlJKLM
AKMN R..VV'XYl_
No P Q_RST UVWXYZ
Herculanum D Designed by Adrian Frutiger and issued in digital
form by Linotype in 1990. There are many variant letters. Her-
culanum was a Roman city near present-day Naples, buried, like
Pompeii, by the eruption of Vesuvius in Ao 79. The face that bears
its name is based on written and painted Roman letters of the first
and second centuries AD. These unofficial and informal Roman
inscriptions have been a source of inspiration to Frutiger for half
a century. The capitals of his Ondine (page 271), designed in the
early 1950s, derive from them as well. (See also page 118.)

ABCDEFGHIJKLM
N 0 PQ R STUVWXYZ
rLlG/\ - n ~ Y¥<D w.o
ACE~<;.ir6$00z
Lithos n Unserifed capitals with a large aperture and cheerful
form, based on early Greek inscriptional letters, designed by Carol
Twombly and issued by Adobe in several weights. There are many
subtle modulations in the stroke. The new OpenType version of
the face includes pan-European Latin and Greek. An important
precursor of this face is Robert Foster's now neglected Pericles,
issued by ATF in 1934· (See also page 118.)
 ABBAGGilL&LL~RS-TrTT
ABCDEFGHIJI(LM
N 0 PQRSTUVWXYZ
Inscriptional
and
YYYIA1\t£<1V1TlPH&C
Calligraphic Mantinia D This is a complex face based on letterforms found in
Capitals the work of the painter Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506). Andrea del
Castagna, Fra Angelico and other fifteenth-century artists lavished
as much care on their letterforms as on their human figures, but
no Renaissance painter took the alphabet more seriously than
Mantegna. The type that honors him was designed by Matthew
Carter and issued by Carter & Cone in 1992.

ABCDBCDE
Michelangelo and Sistina u Two sets of serifed capitals designed
by Hermann Zapf as complements to Palatino and Aldus. The
original versions of both - the light, athletic Michelangelo and the
darker, more ecclesiastical Sistina - were cut by August Rosen-
berger and issued by the Stempel Foundry in 1950-51. There is
a third member of the series, Phidias, a Greek counterpart to
Michelangelo. (See also page 287.)

ABCDPQR
Monument H Open inline capitals, designed by Oldfich Menhart
and cast in 1950 by the Grafotechna Foundry, Prague. The impe-
rial stillness typical of Roman inscriptional letters is transformed
to a kind of stately folk dance under Menhart's hand.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
OPQRSTUVWXYZ
Neu/and H Dark, rugged, unserifed roman capitals, designed and
cut by Rudolf Koch and issued in metal by the Klingspor Foundry,
Offenbach, in 1923. Koch cut the original punches freehand, with-
out pattern drawings. Each size in the foundry version therefore
has many idiosyncracies of its own. These subtleties are lost in
all the existing digital versions. (See also page 287.)

·ONE· Prowling
the
Specimen
THREE I~ FOUR Books

~ TEN ~z~ TEN ~

Requiem Titling o The Requiem family, designed by Jonathan

Hoefler (1999), includes not only two display weights of roman
and italic but also two weights of banner letters, augmented by flo-
riated terminals, spacers and connectors. (See also page 244.)

ABC DE FG H IJIZLM
-t l LYTL YTIYL TITL YI R.r
NOP~STUVWXYZ
Rialto Titling o This set of elegant, light calligraphic capitals is
part of the Rialto family, designed by Giovanni De Faccio and
Lui Karner, issued in 1999· (See also page 244.)
 AB (DE F G H I J K LM
N 0 PQ RSTVVWXYZ
Rusticana D This is one of a group of three faces designed by
Adrian Frutiger based on the more populist, less imperial variet-
Inscriptional ies of Roman inscriptions. The other members of the family are
and Herculanum and Pompeijana. Rusticana owes its form to Roman
Calligraphic inscriptional lettering of the fourth and fifth centuries AD. (See
Capitals also page n8.)

A JIB ([ IlJ) IE IF G IHI Il] IK JL M:

NO IF QIP&§ 1rUVWXYZ
Smaragd D A set of light but powerful inline capitals designed
by Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse and issued by the Stempel Foundry in
1952. Smaragd means emerald: the substance on which the secrets
of Hermes Trismegistos - the Greek incarnation of Thoth, the
inventor of writing - were reputedly engraved.

AABCDE fG H IJ I<Lffi M
NOP~RSTUVWXXYZ
Sophia D Designed by Matthew Carter and issued by Carter &
Cone in 1993. This complex face with its many variant glyphs
is based primarily on the alphabet found on an inscribed cross,
made in Constantinople in the mid sixth century. The cross was a
gift to the Bishop of Rome from the Byzantine Emperor Justin 11
and his wife (later also his regent) the Empress Sophia. (See also
pp 186-87.)

ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Trajan D Serifed capitals, based on the inscription at the base
of Trajan's Column, Rome, carved at the beginning of the second
century AD. The face was drawn by Carol Twombly and issued in
digital form by Adobe. In its OpenType version, it includes the full
pan-European Latin character set. (See also page 120.)

286
MMM
From left to right·

Albertus
Augustea
Avant Garde

MMM Cartier
Caste liar
Charlemagne

MM M Codex
Cristal
Delphin

MMM Michelangelo
Monument
Neuland

M MM Pericles
Romulus Open
Sistina
 APPENDIX A: THE WORKING ALPHABET

A census taken today will be inaccurate tomorrow, but in its travels

through the world, the Latin alphabet has evolved to a working set
of over 600 characters (counting caps and lower case), reinforced
by about 500 more of its closest allies, Greek and Cyrillic. A few
of the characters listed below are tied to a single language. Most
are used by dozens or hundreds of languages. Three examples at
most are given for each.

Additional Latin Letters Examples of usage

All italicized re .IE aesc Farnese; Icelandic

terms in this list 6 'B hooktop B Fulfulde; Hausa; Kpelle
are discussed
in appendix B, o D eth Farnese; Icelandic
page 301. dD dyet Serbo-Croatian; Vietnamese
cf 'D hooktop o Fulfulde; Hausa
cl D hooktail o Ewe
<)'3./J schwa Azeri; Kanuri; Lushootseed
E £ African epsilon Dinka; Ewe; Twi
f f hooktail F Ewe
¥ y African gamma Ewe; Kpelle
nM barred H Maltese
1 dotless i Azeri; Turkish
i I barred i Micmac; Mixtec; Sahaptin
k K hooktop K Hausa
K K' kra Old Greenlandic
l L barred L Heiltsuk; Navajo; Polish
l l double-barred L Kutenai
x blam (barred lambda) Lillooet; Nuxalk; Okanagan
IJ N eng Ewe; Northern Saami; Wolof
0 0 slashed o Danish; Faroese; Norwegian
dCT horned o Vietnamese
J '.) openo Atsina; Ewe; Twi
re CE ethel French; archaic English
f longs Irish; archaic pan-European
6 eszett German; recent English
p I> thorn Anglo-Saxon; Icelandic
t T barred T Northern Saami
u' u horned u Vietnamese

288
v v curly v Ewe
p wynn early English
yY hooktop Y Fulfulde
'5 yogh Anglo-Saxon; early English
3 3 ezh Skolt

Inflected Latin Letters Examples of usage The

Working
aA a-acute Czech; Icelandic; Spanish Alphabet
aA a-grave Dogrib; French; Italian
aA a-double grave Serbo-Croatian poetics
aA a-circumflex Cree; French; Welsh
aA a-caron I a-wedge romanized Mandarin
aA a-umlaut Estonian; Finnish; German
aA a-ring I round a Arikara; Cheyenne; Swedish
aA a-macron I long a Cornish; Latvian; Maori
aA a-breve I short a Latin; Romanian; Vietnamese
aA a-arch Serbo-Croatian poetics
aA a-tilde Portuguese; Vietnamese
aA a-hoi Vietnamese
aA a-circumflex-acute Vietnamese
aA a-circumflex-grave Vietnamese
aA a-circumflex-tilde Vietnamese
aA a-circumflex-hoi Vietnamese
~ A a-circumflex-underdot Vietnamese
a• A. a-breve-acute Vietnamese
a• A a-breve-grave Vietnamese
~
.
a A
.
'A a-breve-tilde
a-breve-hoi
Vietnamese
Vietnamese
~ A a-breve-underdot Vietnamese
a A. a-umlaut-acute Tutchone
a A. a-umlaut-grave Tutchone
aX a-umlaut-macron Tutchone
~ f:.. a-underdot I a-nang Twi; Vietnamese
~ A a-underscore Kwakwala; Tsimshian
~ A a-acute-underscore Kwakwala
'! ~ a-ogonek I tailed a Polish; Lithuanian; Navajo
~ 4- a-acute-ogonek Navajo; Western Apache
~ ~ a-grave-ogonek Dogrib; Gwichin; Sekani

re1E aesc-acute Old Icelandic; linguistics

re .tE aesc-macron I long aesc Anglo-Saxon; Old Norse

289
 o B b-overdot I dotted b Old Gaelic

cc c-acute Polish; Serbo-Croatian

cc c-circumflex Esperanto
c c c-caron I c-wedge I cha Czech; Latvian; Lithuanian
c c c-overdot I dotted c Maltese; Old Gaelic
Inflected c, c glottal c Kalispel; Kiowa; Nuxalk
Latin c c glottal cha Comox; Kalispel; Lillooet
Letters <; <;: c-cedilla I soft c Albanian; French; Turkish

ab d-overdot I dotted d Old Gaelic

d' J) d-palatal hook I d-hacek Czech; Slovak
cl D d-macron Old Basque
c.i p d-underdot Twi; romanized Arabic
qi;:> d-undercomma Livonian

e :E e-acute Czech; French; Hungarian

eE e-grave Catalan; French; Italian
eE e-double grave Serbo-Croatian poetics
eE e-circumflex French; Portuguese; Welsh
eE e-caron I e-wedge Czech; romanized Mandarin
eE e-overdot I dotted e Lithuanian
eE e-diaeresis I e-trema Albanian; French
eE e-ring Arikara; Cheyenne
eE e-macron I long e Cornish; Maori
e :E e-breve I short e Latin
eE e-arch Serbo-Croatian poetics
eE e-tilde Vietnamese
eE e-hoi Vietnamese
eE e-circumflex-acute Vietnamese
e£ e-circumflex-grave Vietnamese
e£ e-circumflex-tilde romanized Mandarin
~ t e-circumflex-caron romanized Mandarin
e :E e-circumflex-macron Vietnamese
e f'. e-circumflex-hoi Vietnamese
~ e e-circumflex-underdot Vietnamese
~ ~ e-underdot I e-nang Twi; Vietnamese
~ ~ e-ogonek I tailed e Polish; Lithuanian; Navajo
~ ~ e-acute-ogonek Navajo; Western Apache
~ ~ e-grave-ogonek Dogrib; Gwichin; Sekani

~ schwa-acute Comox; Lushootseed; Sechelt

290
£ E African epsilon umlaut Dinka
£ E African epsilon tilde Kpelle; Twi

f F f-overdot I dotted f Old Gaelic

g (; g-acute romanized Macedonian

gc g-circumflex Aleut; Esperanto The
gG g-caron Heiltsuk; Kwakwala; Skolt Working
gC g-overdot I dotted g lflupiaq; Kiksht; Maltese Alphabet
g~ g-breve Azeri; Tatar; Turkish
gG glottal g American linguistics
gG g-underscore Tlingit
gG g-(turned) undercomma Latvian; Livonian

hff h-circumflex Esperanto

11 H h-overdot Old Lakhota
I) 1::1 h-underdot romanized Arabic & Hebrew

i-acute Icelandic; Gaelic; Spanish

i-grave Dogrib; Italian; Sekani
1 i-double grave Serbo-Croatian poetics
i-circumflex French; Romanian; Welsh
i-caron Ii-wedge romanized Mandarin
dotted I Azeri; Tatar; Turkish
1 i-diaeresis French
i-ring Arikara; Cheyenne
i-macron I long i Cornish; Latvian; Maori
i-breve I short i Latin; Vietnamese
i-arch Serbo-Croatian poetics
i-tilde Guarani; Kikuyu; Vietnamese
i-hoi Vietnamese
i-underdot I i-nang Igbo; Vietnamese
i-ogonek I tailed i Chiricahua; Dogrib; Navajo
i-acute-ogonek Chiricahua; Mescalero; Navajo
i-grave-ogonek Dogrib; Gwichin; Sekani

j-circumflex Esperanto
j-caron I j-wedge American linguistics

I<K k-acute romanized Macedonian

I<K glottal k Comox; Kiowa; Osage
l(I( k-caron Skolt

291
 ~ I} k-undercomma Latvian; Livonian
k K k-underscore Sahaptin; Tlingit

I t I-acute Slovak
I' I'./L I-palatal hook Slovak
I' I'. glottal I Heiltsuk; Nisgha; Tsimshian
Inflected l ~ I- underdot I syllabic I romanized Sanskrit
Latin l J,, I-cedilla I soft I Latvian
Letters I J,, 1-undercomma Livonian; Romanian
l L I-underscore romanized Malayalam
I (, 1-underdot-macron romanized Sanskrit

t t barred 1-underdot Iflupiaq

xA glottal blam Kalispel; Lillooet; Nuxalk

rh M glottal m Kwakwala; Nisgha; Tsimshian

ri1 M m-overdot I dotted m Gaelic; romanized Sanskrit
qdy1 m-underdot romanized Sanskrit

n.:N n-acute Chiricahua; Navajo; Polish

nN n-grave romanized Mandarin
nN glottal n Kwakwala; Nisgha; Tsimshian
n N n-overdot I dotted n romanized Sanskrit
nN n-ring Arikara
nN n-caron In-wedge Czech; romanized Mandarin
n N n-tilde Basque; Catalan; Spanish
Q i;-..i n-cedilla I soft n Latvian
Q:t';l n-undercomma Latvian
N n-underdot
I) Twi; romanized Sanskrit
nN n-underscore romanized Malayalam

6 0
o-acute Gaelic; Navajo; Spanish
0 0
o-double-acute Hungarian
0 0
o-grave Catalan; Dogrib; Italian
0 0
o-double grave Serbo-Croatian poetics
6 0
o-circumflex French; Portuguese; Welsh
6 6
o-caron Io-wedge romanized Mandarin
6 6
o-overdot I dotted o Livonian
6 b
o-umlaut Hopi; German; Turkish
0 6 o-ring Arikara; Cheyenne
6 0 o-macron I long o Cornish; Maori
6 6 o-breve I short o Latin; romanized Korean

292
6 6 o-arch Serbo-Croatian poetics
6 6 o-tilde Estonian; Portuguese
6 6 o-hoi Vietnamese
6 6
o-overdot-macron Livonian
6 0
o-umlaut-macron Livonian
6 0
o-tilde-macron Livonian
6 6 o-circumflex-acute Vietnamese The
6 6 o-circumflex-grave Vietnamese Working
0 6 o-circumflex-tilde Vietnamese Alphabet
0 6 o-circumflex-hoi Vietnamese
Q 0 o-circumflex-underdot Vietnamese
Q 0 o-underdot I o-nang Igbo; Vietnamese; Yoruba
gQ o-ogonek I tailed o Navajo; Seneca; Old Icelandic
9 Q o-acute-ogonek Navajo; Slavey; Old Icelandic
9 <) o-grave-ogonek Dogrib; Gwichin; Sekani

6 0 slashed o-acute Old Icelandic; linguistics

& (J horned o acute Vietnamese

(j (J horned o grave Vietnamese
{j (J horned o tilde Vietnamese
& a
horned o hoi Vietnamese
q() horned o underdot Vietnamese

5 :) open o acute Dangme

J j open o umlaut Dinka
j 5 open o tilde Kpelle; Twi
? '.! open o ogonek Kiowa; American linguistics

pp glottal p Kiowa; Kwakwala; Osage

pp p-overdot I dotted p Old Gaelic

qQ glottal q Kwakwala; Nuxalk; Tsimshian

t R r-acute Sorbian; Old Basque

r R. r-ring Arikara
r R r-caron I r-wedge Alutiiq; Czech; Sorbian
r B. r-underdot I syllabic r romanized Sanskrit
f J.l r-cedilla I soft r Latvian
f B. r-undercomma Livonian; Romanian
r R r-underscore romanized Malayalam
r R r-underdot-macron romanized Sanskrit

293
 s s s-acute I sharp s Polish; romanized Sanskrit
s s glottal s American linguistics
s s s-caron Is-wedge Czech; Omaha; Latvian
s s s-overdot I dotted s Old Gaelic
t, dotted longs Old Gaelic
s s' glottal s-caron Lakhota; Omaha
Inflected ~ s s-underdot Yoruba; romanized Arabic
Latin ~ s s-underscore Tlingit
Letters ~ ~ s-cedilla Turkish
~ ~ s-undercomma Romanian

t t-overdot I dotted t Old Gaelic

t' t t-palatal hook I t-hacek Czech; Slovak
t' t glottal t Kiowa; Tsimshian
t t t-macron Lakhota; Old Basque
T t-underdot romanized Arabic & Hebrew
T t-undercomma Livonian; Romanian

u (J u-acute Icelandic; Navajo; Spanish

ii 0 u-double-acute Hungarian
u (J u-grave Dogrib; Italian; Sekani
uD u-double grave Serbo-Croatian poetics
uO u-circumfiex French; Welsh
u -0 u-caron I u-wedge romanized Mandarin
ii D u-umlaut Estonian; German; Turkish
u (J u-ring I u-krouzek Arikara; Cheyenne; Czech
ii 0 u-macron I long u Cornish; Lithuanian; Maori
u 0 u-breve I short u Latin; romanized Korean
t1 (J u-arch Serbo-Croatian poetics
fr 0 u-tilde Kikuyu; Vietnamese
u (J u-hoi Vietnamese
ii 0 u-umlaut-acute romanized Mandarin
ii (j u-umlaut-grave romanized Mandarin
ii (J u-umlaut-macron romanized Mandarin
ii (j u-umlaut-caron romanized Mandarin
lJ. l) u-underdot I u-nang Igbo; Vietnamese
4 v u-ogonek I tailed u Lithuanian; Mescalero; Polish
9 Q u-acute-ogonek Mescalero; Navajo
I) Q u -grave-ogonek Gwichin; Sekani; Tagish

au horned u acute Vietnamese

tr 0 horned u grave Vietnamese

294
11'0 horned u tilde Vietnamese
it 0 horned u hoi Vietnamese
\!' V' horned u underdot Vietnamese

wW w-acute Welsh
wW w-grave Welsh
wW glottalw Heiltsuk; Klamath; Tsimshian The
wW w-circumjlex Chichewa; Welsh Working
w W w-diaeresis Tsimshian Alphabet
wW w-ring Arikara
w W w-breve Ga;Twi

xx x-circumjlex Aleut
xx glottal x Chiwere; Tsimshian
*~ glottal x underdot Tsimshian
x:X x-caron Ix-wedge Heiltsuk; Kwakwala
~ J:C x-underdot Nuxalk; Okanagan
xx x-underscore Sahaptin; Tlingit
Jf ~ x-cedilla romanized Caucasian

yY y-acute Farnese; Icelandic; Welsh

yy y-grave Welsh
yy glottal y Heiltsuk; Klamath; Tsimshian
yY y-circumflex Welsh
yy y-diaeresis I y-umlaut French; Dutch
yy y-macron Cornish; Livonian
y'y glottal y-umlaut Tsimshian
yy y-tilde Guarani; Twi; Vietnamese
yy y-hoi Vietnamese
y y y-underdot I y-nang Vietnamese

iz z-acute I sharp s Polish; Sorbian

i z glottal z Lillooet
zz z-caron I z-wedge I zhet Czech; Latvian; Lithuanian
zz z-overdot I dotted s Maltese; Polish
?- z z-underdot romanized Arabic

3 5 ezh-caron Klamath; Skolt

295
 Basic Greek Monotonic Greek <}. ~ '! psili
perispomene
a A alpha I 1 a alpha tonos q. ~ '! daseia
~ B beta I 2 i: epsilon tonos ~ ·~ '! daseia oxeia
Y r gamma I 3 ~ eta tonos <:t~ '! daseia
cS t:i. delta I 4 iota tonos bareia
Basic and E E epsilon I 5 "i 1 iota dialytika <}. ~ '! daseia
Inflected ~ z zeta I 7 t iota dialytika perispomene
Greek 'l H eta I B to nos
Letters e e theta I 9 6 omicron tonos i: epsilon oxeia
L I iota I 10 u upsilon tonos t epsilon bareia
K K kappa/ 20 i.i Y upsilon t 'E E psili
\A lambda I 30 dialytika £ "E E psili oxeia
µM mu/ 40 u upsilon e "E E psili bareia
v N nu I 50 dialytika tonos t 'E E daseia
~ ~ xi I 60 w omega tonos £ "E E daseia oxeia
0 0 omicron I 70 £ "E E daseia
n TI pi I Bo Polytonic Greek bareia
p p rho I 100
a I: sigma I 200 a alpha oxeia ~ eta oxeia
T T tau I 300 a alpha bareia ~ eta bareia
u y upsilon I a alpha ~ eta
400 perispomene perispomene
<p <I> phi/500 a A a psili ~ 'H 11 psili
xx khi I 600 a 'A a psili oxeia ~ "H 17 psili oxeia
'I' 'I' psi I 700 a A a psili bareia ~ "H 17 psili bareia
a.
wn omega I Boo 1\. a psili ~ TH 17 psili
perispomene perispomene
Alternate Greek 6. 1\ a daseia ~ 'H 17 daseia
a 'A a daseia ~ "H 17 daseia oxeia
6 alternate beta oxeia ~ "H 17 daseia
e alternate theta a 'A a daseia bareia
x alternate kappa bareia ~ TH 17 daseia
w alternate pi a. l\ a daseia perispomene
<; terminal sigma perispomene n I;I eta iota
c lunate sigma \l ~ alpha iota n n oxeia
c lunate cap sigma q. '! oxeia fl nbareia
<I> alternate phi Ct '! bareia ft nperispo-
(etc) ~ '! perispo- mene
mene n n
'I;I psili
<'.t ~ '! psili t\ "I;I npsili oxeia
l;l i '! psili oxeia n
fl "I;I psili bareia
i;l '~ '! psili bareia

296
nT TH. npsili p rho psili <p Q omega iota
perispomene p rho daseia <P Cf! oxeia
n, 'H. ndaseia ¢ Cf! bareia
n""H. ndaseia u upsilon oxeia 4> Cf! perispo-
oxeia u upsilon mene
n""H. ndaseia bareia ¢ 'Q Cf! psili
bareia (j upsilon 4> 'Q Cf! psili oxeia The
T TH ndaseia
n. perispomene 4> "Q Cf! psili bareia Working
perispomene u ·y v psili 4> TQ Cf! psili Alphabet
iJ "Y v psili oxeia perispomene
iota oxeia iJ "Y v psili bareia 4> 'Q Cf! daseia
iota bareia UTY v psili qi 'Q Cf! daseia
iota perispomene oxeia
perispomene u 'Y v daseia qi "Q Cf! daseia
i 'I I psiJi ii "Y v daseia oxeia bareia
'i "I t psili oxeia u"Y v daseia 4> 'Q Cf! daseia
'i "I t psili bareia bareia perispomene
t TI I psiJi u'Y v daseia
perispomene perispomene Numeric Greek
[ 'I 1 daseia ti y upsilon
I "I 1 daseia oxeia dialytika F digamma I old 6
'i "I 1 daseia ti ii oxeia c; stigma I new 6
bareia ii ii bareia 9 qoppa I 90
I •1 1 daseia {\ ii perispo- ~ sampi I 900
perispomene mene 7 alternate qoppa
iota dialytika n' right horn (for
T roxeia w omega oxeia numerals 1-999)
i rbareia w omega bareia ,n left horn (for
r perispo- w omega 1000 and up)
mene perispomene
wn w psili Linguists' Greek
6 omicron w'D w psili oxeia
oxeia w'TI w psili bareia a A long alpha
0 omicron wn w psili a A short alpha
bareia perispomene i long iota
6 'O o psili wn w daseia i short iota
o'O o psili oxeia w'D w daseia (j y long upsilon

o'D o psili bareia oxeia u y short upsilon

60 o daseia wT! w daseia i' y-overdot
o'O o daseia oxeia bareia 6 8-circumflex
o"O o daseia wn w daseia e 0-circumflex
bareia perispomene x glam
(glottal .A)

297
 Russian Cyrillic Other Cyrillic

a A a =a a A ii =a Chuvash
6 E 610 =b a A ii =a Mari,&c
B B B =v re .IE re =re Ossetian
r r zli =g a A a =a Serbo-Croatian
Basic and A A alg =d I' rf =g Ukrainian
Inflected e E e = e/ie t t i = g/gj Macedonian, &c
Cyrillic )I( )I( JI( =z f F i! = g/gh Bashkir; Kazakh, &c
Letters 3 3 3 =Z I) I) h = g/gh Abkhaz; Yakut, &c
H J1 u =i e E e =yo Bashkir; Tajik, &c
IA J1 u = j/i e E e =e Chuvash
To people raised K K K =k ~ a a =~Iii Bashkir; Tatar, &c
on the Latin
alphabet, it can
JI JI ll =l :i aa =e Khanty
come as a sur- MMM =m l'J 1) 1) = d/dzy Serbo-Croatian
prise that the HH H =n s s s = z/dz Macedonian
cursive form of 0 0 0 =o h 1i Ii =Cichy Serbo-Croatian
Cyrillic T is m,
the cursive form II IT n!a = p e E e =e Serbo-Croatian
o
oh is or g, and p p p =r e E e =e Macedonian
the cursive form c c c =s € € € = ye/e Ukrainian
of'!; is "'· Typical
lowercase cursive T T m/iU = t >k )I( Jic = dz Moldovan
forms are there- y y y =u )i( )!{ iic = dz Udmurt
fore shown for all
CYTillic letters in
<P <I> ¢ =f )I\ )I{, JI{ = Z/ j Kalmyk; Tatar, &c
this list. xx x =x/kh 3 3 3 =di Udmurt
Q u; ~ = cits ~ ~ ~ =?iii Bashkir
l.J: q 't = C/ch 3 3 3 = j/dz Abkhaz
ill Ill lU = s/sh 11 11 u =i Macedonian
~ rn; U{ = shch H i1: a =i Tajik
1> 'b 'b ='hard' H H a =1 Udmurt
bl bl bl =y HH u ='i Serbo-Croatian
b b b ='soft' i =i Khakass
3 3 3 =e =i Belarusian, &c
The invariant IO IO 10 = yu/iu I = h/~ Abaza; Ingush, &c
letter I, often H 51 Jl 1 Ukrainian
= ya/ia = l/yi
romanized as h
or~. is an inde- J j = jly Macedonian, &c
pendent letter of i< K K = kj Macedonian, &c
the alphabet in Kazakh; Tajik, &c
K K, ~ =k
some Caucasian
languages but k K k =q' Abhkaz
more often used K K K =g Azeri
in digraphs and Chukchi,&c
trigraphs, e.g., Ii 15 15 =q
Abaza 'II and 'Ii, 1( 1( k =q Bashkir
'IIB and 'llB. lb Jb lb = lj Macedonian, &c

298
lb lb lb = nj Macedonian, &c International
tt: K '"! = q/ng Bashkir; Tuvan, &c Phonetics
l:J Ii lj = nj/fl Khanty; Koryak, &c
H' I-f 1i =ngh Altay; Yakut, &c
VOWELS
6 0 0 =6 Altay; Shor, &c
0 0 0 =o Serbo-Croatian a 1? a D ~ A
IQ <Q Ii! =o Abhkaz e a 9 E 3 C3 The
II) fl) 11) = p' Abkhaz ')( Working
pp p =r Serbo-Croatian 0 e 0 ~ CE ::> Alphabet
=~ Bashkir; Chuvash u ti u wy y
c; \: "
'.( l' 11'! = tft Abkhaz
CONSONANTS
'Q u f{ =ts' Abkhaz
y y ji = u/w Belarusian; Uzbek b o B 13 This is only the
y y ji c c;: skeleton of the
=ii Tajik ~
IPA, which also
yy y =ii Altay; Khanty, &c d cf ct (')
admits the use of
yy y =ii Chuvash,&c f <I> over fifty diacrit-
yy y =ii Serbo-Croatian g g G G y ics. For the names
and functions of
y y y = ii/ii Bashkir; Kazakh, &c h h fi H the symbols, see
¥ ¥ ¥ =ti Kazakh j j j. J the Handbook of
e e e = 6/6 Tuvan; Yukaghir, &c k the International
Phonetic Associa-
e ee =6 Khanty l .A L i g tion (1999).
x; x, ~ =h/n Tajik; Uzbek, &c m IlJ
J
'I, "lJ, '1 =c Abkhaz; Tajik n J1 I) Il. N
';I lJ 'i = C/j Shor p
'<I q"' = dZ/c Azeri q
ii: q ii =c Udmurt r f t l -l l
hi bl 6i =y Mari R ff
'e € -e = t<;: Abkhaz s ~ f
~ ~ 'f = tc;' Abkhaz t t e
h h h =h Bashkir; Buryat, &c v u
1,1 I,I If =dz Macedonian, &c w M q ill
wWw =W Yukaghir x x fj
z ~ ~ 3
Old Cyrillic ? ? ~ ~

eEe yo 1l 'B rb yat

0
[fl) 15 k
I
* II l
w
w ~
€ € € yest 1€ l€ 1€ ye
INFLECTIONS
s s s zelo ~ ~
{ ksi
I i" izhe \jl 'I' 1/' psi i ! 1 \,

n. 11 Ii derv e e e fita ~ ~
wow ot v v v izhitsa t1 \I 1 ~ 1

299
 Single Stroke Pictograms

overdot ? glottal stop * asterisk

midpoint - tilde t dagger
period - swungdash :j: double dagger
underdot ( ) parentheses .., fist
Visual • bullet { } braces C\\.I hedera
,
Index of apostrophe ring
Analphabetic ' inverted comma; 0
degree Modified Letters
Characters turned comma
, comma Double Stroke @ at
undercomma © copyright
acute
.. diaeresis/ umlaut ¢ cent
All the grave colon € euro
italicized terms
are individu-
prime semicolon && ampersand
ally discussed
' dumb quote "'' quotation f guilder
in appendix B. macron " quotation £ sterling
The remaining
"
- hyphen j ! exclamation ® phonomark
terms are treated
in three groups: - subtraction t? question pilcrow
(i) arithmetical
signs; (2) cur-
lowline " double prime
" double acute
'" registered
section
en dash §
rency signs; and
(3) musical signs. - em dash " double grave $ dollar
vinculum " dumb quote trademark
I bar equal ¥ yen
I solidus I
I pipe 0 null
I virgule II double bar % per cent
\ backslash + addition o/oo per mille
--, negation x dimension
[ ] square brackets « » guillemets
( ) angle brackets [ ] square brackets
.../ radical q natural
< > guillemets ~ flat
> greater than
< less than Multiple Stroke
caron
. circumflex ... ellipsis
' arch division
- breve '::f; unequal
/\ dumb caret ± plus-or-minus
ogonek # octothorp
'
cedilla # sharp
hoi a louse

300
APPENDIX B: GLOSSARY OF CHARACTERS

There is, of course, no limit to the number of typographic char-

acters. Still less is there a limit to the number of variant glyphs by
which these characters are realized. This appendix lists characters
included on standard ISO (PS-1, TrueType or OpenType) and pan-
European (TTO or OpenType) Latin text fonts. It also lists a few
additional characters of long-standing typographic importance.
Unicode numbers are given in square brackets at the end of each
entry. Some characters (especially diacritics) have more than one
address in Unicode. As a rule, only one of these addresses is given
here. Two addresses are given for characters (such as aesc) that
occur in both the upper and lower case.

acute An accent used on vowels - aei 6 uyre - in Czech, French,

Gaelic, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Navajo, Spanish and other
languages, and on consonants - c n f s z - in Basque, Croatian,
,
Polish and romanized Sanskrit. In romanized Chinese it is used
with vowels and a nasal - ae i n 6 u u- to mark the rising tone. It
is also used with Cyrillic consonants - f and K- in Macedonian,
and with all the vowels in Greek. Upper- and lowercase versions
of the basic six acute vowels appear on standard ISO Latin text
fonts. Pan-European fonts usually include both upper- and
lowercase forms of the basic five acute consonants and the old
Icelandic vowel ce. The acute schwa(;}) and open o (5) and the
Athapaskan high nasal vowels - 4 ~ j 9 t} - are present only on
specialized fonts. [u + o 3o l]

aesc This ligature is a letter of the alphabet in Danish, Norwe-

gian, Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, corresponding in part to the
Swedish ii. It is also sometimes used (unnecessarily) in Latin. In
English, words of Greek origin were formerly spelled with re cor-
responding to Greek ai (alpha iota). Thus aesthetics in older texts lE
is cesthetics. Deliberate archaism and pedantically correct quota-
tion still, therefore, require the ligature even in English. Aesc (cesc
in the older spelling) is pronounced ash. [u+ooc6, +ooE6]

ampersand A scribal abbreviation for and, dating back to Roman

times. It takes many forms - eiJ & & & &c - all derived from &
the Latin word et. [u+oo26]

301
 angle brackets These useful characters are missing from most
text fonts, but they are readily found on pi fonts and on some
<) fonts of blackletter and Greek. They serve many functions in
mathematical and scientific writing. In the editing of classi-
cal texts, angle brackets are used to mark editorial additions
while braces mark the editor's deletions. See also square brackets.
(u+2329, +232A]

apostrophe Also called raised comma or single close-quote. A

mark of elision in English, French, Italian and many other lan-
guages. It grew from that use in English to become also a sign of

' the possessive. (It's = it is, but John's = Johnes =belonging to John.)
A superimposed apostrophe (not to be confused with the acute)
is the standard symbol in linguistics for a glottalized consonant:
ill p q w, etc. As a matter of convenience, these symbols are often
converted to consonants followed by normal apostrophes: m' p' q',
etc. Apostrophized consonants of this sort are frequent in typog-
raphy. The apostrophized d and t (d' and t', whose capital forms
are D and t) are letters of the alphabet in Czech; so are I' and t
in Slovak, while ch', k', k', l', s', t', ti', ts', x', ~·and their corresponding
capitals (written with apostrophes, not carons) are letters of the
alphabet in Tlingit. Used alone, the apostrophe often serves as a
sign for the glottal stop. In Unicode, these functions are carefully
distinguished. See also dumb quotes, glottal stop, palatal hook and
quotation marks. [u+o2sc, +0313, +0315, +2019]

arch A diacritic used with vowels and one syllabic consonant

- a e 16 u r (and the corresponding Cyrillic letters, a e fl o y p)
- to mark the long falling tone in Serbo-Croatian. Though not
employed in ordinary writing, these forms are used in teaching,
in linguistics, and in some editions of metrical poetry. Few text
fonts include either the arch or the composite glyphs in which it
is used. Not to be confused with the circumflex, which is pointed.
Also known as a dome or inverted breve. It has also been called a
cap, which leads to confusion. [u+o311]

+ arithmetical signs Only eight basic signs,+ - ± x 7 < = >,are

included in most text fonts. When other mathematical symbols,
*
such as = V = ..; .;;; ;;,, , are required, it is generally best to take
<+> all signs, including the basic ones, from the same technical font so

x + that all forms match in color and size. [u+oo2B, +2212, +oos1,
+0007, OOF7, 003c, 0030, 003E, &c.]

302
asterisk This is usually a superscript, used primarily for mark-
ing referents and keywords. In European typography, it is widely
used to mark a person's year of birth (as the dagger, substituting
for a cross, is used to mark the year of death). In philology and
a*
other sciences, it is used to mark hypothetically reconstructed
or fetal forms. The asterisk takes many forms ( * * * * * *, for
example). It appears in the earliest Sumerian pictographic writing
and has been in continuous use as a graphic symbol for at least
5,000 years. [u+oo2A]

at A commercial symbol meaning at or at the rate of Electronic

mail has given it new life, and it is now therefore occasionally well @
designed. Still, it has no role in normal text. [u+o340]

backslash This is an unsolicited gift of the computer keyboard.

Basic though it may be to elementary computer operations, it has \
no accepted function in typography. [u+oo5c]

bar The vertical bar is used in mathematics as a sign of absolute

value, in prosodical studies to mark a caesura, and in propositional
calculus (where it is called Sheffer's stroke) as a sign of noncon-
junction. In bibliographical work, both single and double bars
are used.Also called caesura. [u+oo7c)

barred u A letter of the Maltese alphabet (and of the IPA), cor-

responding to Arabic t (b). Its Maltese name is h maqtugha, "cut hH
h:' It is found on pan-European fonts. [u+o126, +0127)

barred L This is a basic letter of the alphabet in Chipewyan, Na-

vajo, Polish, and many other languages. Henryk Mikolaj G6recki's
Symphony N° 3, for example, is entitled Symfonia Piesni Zalosnych,
"Symphony of Sorrowful Songs:' Also known by its Polish name,
lL
ew. The barred L is present on most Latin text fonts but often
inaccessible to narrow-minded software. [u+o141, +0142)

barred T A letter of the Northern Saami alphabet, representing

a sound like th in English thing [IPA 0]. It is normally included t 'f
on pan-European Latin text fonts. [u+o166, +0167)

braces Braces are rarely required in text work, but they can
function perfectly well as an extra and outer (or inner) set of {}
parentheses: { ( [ - ] ) }. In mathematics they are used to mark

303
 phrases and sets. In editing classical papyri, braces are often used
to mark editorial deletions. [u+oo7B, +0070)

brackets See angle brackets and square brackets.

breve An accent used on vowels and consonants - a e I g 6 u

- in Malay, Romanian, Turkish, Vietnamese, and in some forms
of romanized Korean. In English, it is used in informal phonetic
transcriptions to mark lax (or so-called 'short') vowels. In writings
on metrics and prosody, it is the sign of a quantitatively short
vowel or syllable. It is also used on the Russian i (11, whose cursive
form is ii) and on a second vowel, y, in Belarusian and Uzbek.
The breve is always rounded, and should not be confused with
the angular caron. (Breve is two syllables, with the stress on the
first, as in brave, eh?) Also called short. [u+o306]

bullet A large version of the midpoint, used chiefly as a typo-

• graphic flag. Bullets are commonly hung, like numbers, in the
margin to mark items in a list, or centered on the measure to
separate larger blocks of text. See also midpoint. [u+2022]

caron An inverted circumflex. It is used on consonants and vow-

els - cen f sz- in Croatian, Czech, Lithuanian, Northern Saami,
v
a Slovak, Slovene, Sorbian and other scripts. In romanized Thai, the
caron indicates a rising tone. In romanized Chinese, it marks the
retroflexive third tone (falling/rising tone) of standard Mandarin:
a e ~ i n 6 u u. It is also used in new scripts for sevferal Native
American languages. For no good reason, most 1so fonts include
a prefabricated upper- and lowercase s and z, while other com-
binations must be built with the floating accent. Pan-European
fonts contain a larger but still incomplete set of caroned letters,
usually c e n f s z and C D E N RS t Z. Also called a wedge or a
hacek (hah-check), which is its Czech name. In Czech, however,
this character is actually a variant of the palatal hook, which can
take the form of caron or apostrophe. [u +o 3oc)

cedilla A diacritic used with consonants, such as the <;: in Catalan,

French, Nahuatl and Portuguese, and <;: and ~ in Turkish. In Latvian
and Romanian, the undercomma is preferred. Not to be confused
with the ogonek or nasal hook, which curves the other way and
is used with vowels. The name means little z. Turkish~ and~ are
missing from standard 1so text fonts. [u+o327)

304
circumflex A diacritic used on vowels - a e i 6 u wy - in Cree,
A
French, Portuguese, Romanian, Vietnamese, Welsh and many
other languages. In transliterated texts (e.g., from Arabic, Greek,
Hebrew and Sanskrit), it is sometimes used as a substitute for the
a
macron, to mark long vowels. In romanized Thai, a circumflex
signifies a falling tone. Most Latin text fonts include all the cir-
cumflected vowels except Welsh wand y. [u+o302]

colon A grammatical marker inherited from the medieval Eu-

ropean scribe~. It is also used in mathematics to indicate ratios
and 11: lingui~tics as a mark of prolongation. The name is from
Greek. In classie;J rhetoric and prosody, a colon (plural, cola) is
a:
a long dause, and a comma is a short one. [u+oo3A]

comma ,\ grammatical marker, descended from early scribal

practice. In German, anJ often in East European languages, the
comma is used as an open quote. Throughout Europe, it is also )
used as a decim.11 point, where most North Americans expect a
period. In North American usage, the comma separates thou-
sands, while a space is preferred in Europe. Thus 10,000,000
= 10 ooo ooo, but a number such as 10,001 is typographically
ambiguous. It could mean either ten and one one-thousandth or
ten thousand and one. See also quotation marks. [u+oo2c]

copyright On poorly designed fonts, the copyright symbol some-

times appears as a superscript, but its rightful place in typography ©
is on the baseline:©. [u+ooA9]

curl See hoi.

currency symbols Most 1so character sets of recent vintage in-

clude six genuine currency signs - $ £ € f ¥ ¢ - and one imagi- $£€
nary sign, o:. That so-called 'general currency sign; the louse, has
no typographic function. It merely holds a place on the font to
which a real symbol for local currency (rupee, cruzeiro, peseta, f (fl Rp
etc) can be assigned. The cent sign{¢), now an American typo-
graphical heirloom, is equally irrelevant for most work. It remains
in the character set chiefly out of nostalgia. Rs¥¢
The dollar sign, a slashed S, is descended from an old symbol
for the shilling. The same sign has come to be used for curren-
cies with many other names: sol, peso, escudo, yuan, etc. The a
sign of the pound sterling, a crossed cursive L, actually stands

305
 for the Latin libra (also the source of the abbreviation lb, used
for the pound avoirdupois). This£ sign is now used not only for
British currency but for the pound, lira or livre of many African
and Middle Eastern states. The sign for Dutch guilders is f, for
florin, which is the old name for the currency. This f is often cut
shorter and wider than the normal italic lowercase f The sign for
the shekel (Hebrew sheqel), the Israeli currency unit, is li!I. See also
louse. [u+oo24, +00A2, +00A3, +00A5, +0192, +2oAC, &c.]

dagger A reference mark, used chiefly with footnotes. In Euro-

pean typography, it is also a sign of mortality, used to mark the
t year of death or the names of deceased persons, and in lexicog-
raphy to mark obsolete forms. In editing classical texts, daggers
are used to flag passages judged to be corrupt. Also called obelisk,
obelus or long cross. [u+2020]

dashes Latin text fonts include, at minimum, an em dash, en

dash and hyphen. A figure dash and three-quarter em dash are
sometimes included as well, and a three-to-em dash more rarely.
[u+2013, +2014, &c.]

degree Used in mathematics and in normal text to give tempera-

0 tures, inclinations, latitudes, longitudes and compass bearings. Not
to be confused with the superior o or ordinal o used in abbrevia-
tions such as N°, nor with the ring, a diacritic. [u + o o Bo)

diaeresis I umlaut A diacritic used with vowels - a e 1 6 ii wy

- in many languages, including Albanian, Dinka, Estonian, Finn-
••
a ish, German, Swedish, Turkish, Welsh, and less frequently also in
English, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Linguists distin-
guish between the umlaut, which marks a change in pronunciation
of a single vowel (as in the German Schon) and the diaeresis, which
marks the separation of adjacent vowels (as in naive and Noel).
The typographic symbol is the same, but in reference to English
and the Romance languages, the correct term is usually diaeresis,
while umlaut is correct in reference to most other languages in
which the symbol is used. Except for the Welsh wand African £
and J, the umlauted or diaeretic vowels are present on most Latin
text fonts. Also called trema, its French name.
In Hungarian there are two forms of umlaut: the double
dot, which is used for short vowels, and the double acute or long
umlaut, used for long vowels (ii is the long form of ii).

306
 The letter ji is a vowel sometimes used in archaic French
and still required in the modern form of a few personal names
and place names. It is also an alternate form of the ij ligature in
Flemish. [u+o308]

diesis An alternate name for the double dagger.

dimension sign An unserifed x, usually square, also known as a

multiplication sign. See arithmetical signs. [u +oo 07]
x
dotless i and dotted I These are both letters of the alphabet in •
Turkish, where the lowercase form of I is 1 and the uppercase form
of i is i. The dotless form signifies a back vowel (IPA w), the dotted
one a front vowel (IPA i, as in English liter. [u+o130, +0131]
illi
dome See arch.

double acute A diacritic used on two Hungarian vowels: 6 and

ii. Also called long umlaut. The name 'Hungarian umlaut' (used in
,,
PostScript jargon) is unhelpful, since the short umlauted vowels 0
o and i.i also appear in Hungarian. Not to be confused with the
double prime nor with the close quote. [u+o30B]

double bar This is a standard symbol in bibliographical work

and an old standard reference mark in European typography. It
is missing from most text fonts but is easily made by kerning two
11
single bars together. [u+2016]

double dagger A reference mark for footnoting. Also called diesis

or double obelisk. [u+2021]

double grave A Serbo-Croatian diacritic used, like the arch, with

five vowels and one syllabic consonant: ae'i our (and in Cyrillic,
a e11 o y p). This is a prosodic sign, to indicate the short falling "
tone. Though not employed in ordinary writing, the double grave
is used in teaching, in linguistics, and in editions of metrical po-
etry. It is rarely found on text fonts. [u + 030 F]

double prime An abbreviation for inches (1" = 2.54 cm) and for
seconds of arc (360" = 1°). Not to be confused with quotation
marks, the double acute, nor with dumb quotes. Prime and double
"
prime are rarely found on text fonts. See also prime. [u+2033]
 dumb caret Also known, in vain, as the ascii circumflex. This
is a stray, like the backslash and dumb quotes, ossified into the
/\ ) standard ASCII keyboard. The true circumflex(') is a different
and genuine character. So is the logical and (A, the sign oflogical
conjunction). Since it has no typographic function, the dumb caret
also has no typographic form. In other words, this is not really
a character at all. It is a wasted slot on the keyboard, waiting for
something else to take up residence. [u+oo5E]

dumb quotes These are refugees from the typewriter keyboard.

ff I I ff Typesetting software interprets quotation -mark keystrokes in
1 context, converting the dumb quotes to smart quotes (never in-
fallibly). Yet the dumb quotes are still there, taking space on the
font. They have no typographic function. See also double prime,
quotation marks and prime. [u+oo22, +0027]

dyet A basic letter of the alphabet in Serbo-Croatian (where it has

the sound of IPA ct3) and Vietnamese (where it is now IPA d and
dD used to be d). The uppercase form of the letter is, as a rule, graphi-
cally the same as the uppercase eth, but it is notionally different. It
therefore has a different Unicode address. [u+ono, +0111]

••• ellipsis The sign of elision and of rhetorical pause: three dots .
[u+2026]

eng A letter of the alphabet in Northern Saami and in many

African languages. Lowercase eng is also used in linguistics and
lexicography to represent the ng sound in the word wing. (Note
the different sounds represented by the same letters in the words
wing, Wingate, singlet and singe: IJ, n-g, l)g, nd3.) The eng is found
on pan-European and pan-African fonts. [u+o14A, +014B]

eszett The ss ligature, longs+ shorts (f + s). It was once essential

for setting English and is still essential for German. Not to be
confused with the Greek beta, ~- Also known as sharps. Note that
not all instances of ss in German turn to 13. [u+oooF]

eth A letter of the alphabet in Anglo-Saxon, Faroese, Icelandic,

oD and in IPA. The uppercase eth is the same as the uppercase dyet,
but the lowercase forms are not interchangeable, and the letters
represent quite different sounds. (The name eth, also spelled edh,
is pronounced like the eth in whether.) [u+oooo, +ooFo]

308
ethel A ligature formerly used in English and still essential for
setting French. English words and names derived from Greek
were formerly spelled with the ethel (or cethel) corresponding to re CE
the Greek 01 (omicron iota). Thus the old form of ecumenical is
cecumenical (from otKoc;, Greek for 'house') and the Greek name
Oi<'>irrouc; (Oidipous), Latinized as Oedipus, was formerly written
CEdipus. The ligature is required, therefore, for deliberate archa-
ism and for academically correct quotation from older English
sources, as well as for spelling French terms such as hors d'ceuvre.
In IPA, Cl', CE and e are three different letters. [u+o152, +0153]

ew See barred L.

exclamation In Spanish, the inverted exclamation mark is used

at the beginning of the phrase and the upright mark at the end.
In mathematics, the upright exclamation mark is the symbol for
factorials (4! = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1). It is also often used to represent the
palatal clicks of the Khoisan languages of Africa. Thus, for ex-
ample, the name !Kung. British printers often call the exclamation
mark a screamer. [u+oo21, +00A1]

ezh This is an altered form of z, generally representing a sound

like that of z in English azure or j in French justice, which is the
sound of Czech z or Polish z. Ezh is a letter of the alphabet in
Skolt, a language of the Saami family, spoken in northern Rus-
3
sia and Finland. The lowercase form is also part of the 1 PA and
therefore present on any font of phonetic characters. Not to be
confused withyogh. [u+o1B7, +0292]

figures A text font normally includes at least one set of figures,

which usually ought to be (and usually are not) text figures (OSF ). 123
Supporting fonts and OpenType fonts often include three fur-
ther sets: titling (i.e., lining) figures, superiors and inferiors. The
superiors are used for exponents, superscripts and the numera-
tors of fractions, the inferiors for the denominators of fractions.
45
For chemical formulae (H 2 0 etc) and mathematical subscripts,
lowered inferior figures are needed. [u+oo30-0039; +00B2,
+00B3,+00B9 , +2070, +2074-2079; +2080-2089]

fist The typographer's fist is neither a blunt instrument nor a

closed purse. It is a silent, pointing hand. All too often, however,
it is overdressed, with ruffles at the cuff. A Baroque invention, the

309
 fist is missing from the standard 1so character set and must be
found on a supplementary font. [u+261A-261F]

fractions Three fractions - Y-< \/2 % - appear on most ISO text

fonts, and six more - Vs \!J % % 2h "Ys - on some pan-European
fonts. [u+OOBC-OOBE; +2153-215E]

glottal stop The glottal stop is a sound in search of a character:

a basic sound in many languages now written in Latin letters, but
one for which the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets have no
traditional symbol. Linguists use the character 7 or ' - a gelded
question mark - to represent this sound, but the symbol most
commonly used in setting texts is the apostrophe. In romanized
Arabic the inverted comma or open quote (') is often used to
represent the letter 'ain (t), whose phonetic symbol is ~ or\
and the apostrophe (') is used to represent hamza (., i, ! , etc),
the Arabic glottal stop. Thus, the Koran in romanized Arabic is
al-Qur'an; Arab is 'arab; the family is al-a'ila. Also known by its
Spanish name, saltillo, "little leap:' See also apostrophe, inverted
comma and quotation marks. [u+o294, +02Bc, +02co]

grave An accent used with vowels - aei ouy- in French, Italian,

Portuguese, Catalan, Vietnamese and many other languages. In

a' romanized Chinese it is used with vowels - a e i o uu- to mark

the falling tone. In Gaelic the grave is normally used instead of
the macron to mark elongated vowels. The basic five grave vowels
are present on most Latin text fonts. [u+o300]

guillemets Single and double guillemets are widely used as

quotation marks with the Latin, Cyrillic and Greek alphabets in
Europe, Asia and Africa. Attempts to introduce them into North
<~> America have met with only slight success. In French and Italian,
. the guillemets almost always point out, «thus» and <thus >, but
»> cl <« in German they more frequently point in, »SO« and >SO<. Single
guillemets should not be confused with angle brackets nor with
« » the arithmetical operators meaning greater-than and less-than.
Guillemet means Little Willy, in honor of the sixteenth-
century French typecutter Guillaume l William] Le Be, who may
have invented them. Also called chevrons, duck feet and angle
quotes. [u+OOAB, +OOBB, +2039, +203A]

hacek See caron and palatal hook.

310
hedera An ivy leaf: a type of fleuron. (Hedera is the Latin name
for ivy.) This is one of the oldest of all typographic ornaments,
present in early Greek inscriptions. [u +2619, +2766, + 2767]

hoi This is one of the five tonemarks used with vowels in the
(
Vietnamese alphabet. It resembles a small dotless question mark
and signifies the dipping-rising tone. The spelling in Vietnamese
is, naturally, h6i - and the name in Vietnamese does mean "ques-
0
tion:' In English it is also called a curl. [ u +0309]

horned o A letter of the Vietnamese alphabet, representing a

close mid-back unrounded vowel (an unrounded o, the IPA¥).
[u+olAO, +OlAl]
O'
horned u A letter of the Vietnamese alphabet, representing a
close back unrounded vowel (IPA w). [u+o1AF, +oIBo] tf
hyphen The shortest of the dashes. [u+oo20]

inverted breve See arch.

inverted comma Also called a single open-quote, and used for

that purpose in English, Spanish and many other languages. In
(
transliterated Arabic and Hebrew, it also represents the letter
'ain (t) or ayin (.Y), a pharyngeal continuant (IPA 'I), while its
opposite, the apostrophe, represents the glottal stop. Thus: King
Ibn Sa'iid; the Beqa'a Valley. Only the well-curved form of the
glyph (' instead of') is useful in transliteration. See also glottal
stop, quotation marks, reversed apostrophe. [u+2018]

kropka See overdot.

krouzek See ring.

letters At least three varieties of letters appear in an ordinary font

of Latin type. There is normally a full alphabet in both upper and
lower case and a partial alphabet of superior letters. The latter are
used in numerical abbreviations such as 151 , 2nd, 3rd, the French
1• (premier, premiere) and the Spanish 2•, 2° (segunda, segundo ).
They are also used in a few verbal abbreviations, such as 4° =
quarto; 8° = octavo; Mr = mister; N° = number, but in English
most such forms are now archaic. The basic 1so alphabet includes

3ll
 only two superior letters, the ordinal a and ordinal o, which are
essential for setting text in Romance languages. (They are called
ordinals because they are used for ordinal numbers: first, second,
aB third .... ) A fuller set - conventionally limited to ab de i Im n ° rs t
- is often to be found on an 'expert' or OpenType font.
OpenType fonts routinely include small caps in addition to
u&lc and superior letters. Full pan-European fonts also include a
complete set of Cyrillic and Greek characters. Some fonts include

Qu ry swashes and quaints such as the longs (f) and its ligatures.
Note that the identity of the letters varies from language to
language. The digraph ch, for example, is regarded as a single
letter in Czech, Lithuanian and Spanish; II is treated as a single
s fj letter in Spanish and Basque; dd,ff, ng, II, ph, rh, th are all treated
as single letters in Welsh; and in Serbo-Croatian the digraphs
dz, lj, nj are regarded as single letters (corresponding to Cyrillic
1,1,lb and lb). [u+oo41-005A; +0061-007A; +ooco-0006;
+ooo8-ooF6; +ooF8-ooFF, &c.]

ligatures Basic ISO fonts are limited to two typographic ligatures,

fiand fl. Rigid definitions of the glyph set, leaving no provision
for additional ligatures (such as ff,ffi,Jjl,Jj) are a hazard to typog-
fijfi B raphy. Ligatures required by the design of the individual typeface
should always reside on the basic font.

dsp The lexical ligatures a?, /E, re, CE and fl are bonafide Unicode
characters, separately listed in this appendix. Typographic ligatures
such as fi and S1 are glyphs, not characters; they are now consigned
to the 'private use' section of Unicode.

logical not See negation.

longs This taller form of s looks like f without its crossbar. (Note
however that the roman form usually does have a spur on the left.)

fJ Longs was commonly used in English (ufed in Englifh, ufed in

Englijh, USED IN ENGLISH) through the end of the eighteenth
century. It was then the normal form of s in initial and medial
positions. Shorts was used at the ends of words and (usually) as
the second s in a pair. Long s + short s forms the ligature g, still
used in German. Longs itself is still routinely used in blackletter
though archaic in roman and italic. It often entails a substantial
further Set ofligatures - e.g., fb fh fi fk fl ffffi fil. [u+o17F]

long umlaut See double acute.

312
louse From Filzlaus, "pubic louse;· a German name for the cur-
rency symbol placeholder (a). Also known in English as a sputnik.
Since the symbol is parasitic (it takes up space on the font but
offers nothing in return), louse may be the better name. Having
no true function, it has no authentic form. [u+ooA4]

lowline This is a standard 1so character, positioned as a baseline

rule. Not to be confused with the underscore. [u+oo5F]

macron A diacritic used to mark long vowels - a e I 6 0 - in

many languages: Fijian, Hausa, Latvian and Lithuanian, among
others. It marks long vowels in romanized Arabic, Greek, Hebrew,
Japanese, Sanskrit and other languages, and level tones in roman -
a
ized Chinese. Some writers of Lakhota (Sioux) also use it to write
de-aspirated consonants (ck pt). [u+o304]

midpoint An ancient European mark of punctuation, widely used

in typography to flag items in a vertical list and to separate items
in a horizontal line. A closely spaced midpoint is also often used
to separate syllables or letters, especially in Catalan when one l
adjoins another. (In Catalan as in Spanish, II is treated as a single
1-1
letter. When one l is adjacent to but separate from another, they
are written[.[. Examples: the Catalan words cel-les [cells], col-lecci6
[collection] and para/.lel.) The same sign is used in mathematics
for scalar multiplication and in symbolic logic for logical conjunc-
tion. Also called interpoint. [u+ooB7]
(Upper- and lowercase L +midpoint [L & 1-] are needlessly
treated by 1so, and therefore by Unicode, as single characters:
u+o13F & +0140.)

mu The Greek lowercase m represents the prefix micro- = 10·0•

Thus milligrams is written mg and micrograms µg. (A millionth
of a meter or micron, formerly writtenµ, is now ordinarily writ-
µ
ten µm.) [u+o3Bc)

musical signs Three elementary musical symbols - b # q, the

flat, sharp and natural - are needed for setting normal texts that
make reference to standard European musical pitches and keys
(Beethoven's Sonata Op. no in Ab, Ennemond Gaultier's Suite for
Lute in F#m, the drop from C# to Cq, etc). These characters are,
however, missing from most text fonts. (The octothorp is not an
adequate substitute for the sharp.) [u+2660-266F I

313
 nang See underdot.

nasal hook See ogonek.

negation The negation sign used in the propositional calculus

(symbolic logic) was formerly the swung dash (- ). Since the
-, b swung dash is also used as a sign of similarity, this created con-
fusion. The usual form of the negation sign now is the angled
dash (•).This is part of the standard 1so Latin character set and
is included on most digital text fonts, even though it is useless
without the other logical operators, such as u n /\ v =, which
are almost never found on text fonts. Also called logical not.
(U+OOAC]

null Also known as a slashed or crossed zero. This glyph is used

to distinguish zero from the letters 0 and o. But the null in its
0 usual form is easily confused with slashed o (0, o ), a letter of the
alphabet in Danish and Norwegian, and even with the Greek let-
ter phi ( cp. <fi ). The crossed form of the null, -e-, is also confusible
with theta (8). A null glyph is present on some text fonts and on
many phonetic and technical fonts. (As an alternate form of zero,
this glyph has no address of its own in Unicode.)

numeral sign See octothorp.

obelisk Also obelus (plural, obeli). Synonym for dagger.

octothorp Otherwise known as the numeral sign. It has also

been used as a symbol for the pound avoirdupois, but this usage
is now archaic. In cartography, it is a traditional symbol for vil-
# 6 lage: eight fields around a central square. That is the source of its
name. Octothorp means eight fields. [u+oo23]

ogonek A diacritic used with vowels - C} <; i 9 I} - in Lithuanian,

Navajo, Polish and other languages. Also called a nasal hook. Not
to be confused with the cedilla, which is used with consonants
and curves the other way. Ogonek is a Polish diminutive, mean-
ing 'little tail: It is also the Polish name for the stem of an apple.
Vowels with ogonek are known as tailed vowels. A reversed ogonek
is used in the Bashkir consonant~- [u +o328)

ordinal a, ordinal o See letters.

314
overdot A diacritic used with consonants - c g ri1 iJ. z - in Mal-
•
tese, Polish, old Gaelic and romanized Sanskrit, and with vowels
- e and i - in Lithuanian and Turkish. In phonetics, it is widely
employed as a sign of palatalization. Often known by its Polish
c
name, kropka. See also dotless i and dotted I. [u+o307)

palatal hook A diacritic used in the Czech and Slovak alphabets

to mark the so-called soft or palatal consonants. It usually looks
like an apostrophe or single close quote but is differently fitted
(cut closer on the left). In some fonts it also differs slightly from
'
the apostrophe in shape and size. It combines with ascending
lowercase consonants (d', I', O and one capital (I'.). The uppercase
forms of d' and t' are J) and t (and Lis an alternate form of I'.).
The caron form is used for both the caps and lower case of non-
ascending letters (C. c. R. f). In Czech, both these forms of the
diacritic are known as hacek, "hook." Also sometimes called the
apostrophe accent. See also undercomma. [u+o3oc]

paragraph See pilcrow.

parentheses These are used as phrase markers in grammar and

in mathematics, and sometimes to isolate figures or letters in a (a)
numerical or alphabetical list. [u+oo28, +0029)

per cent Parts per hundred. Not to be confused with the symbol
c/o, 'in care of; which is also sometimes cut as a single character. %
[u+o025]

per mille Parts per thousand (61o/oo = 6.1%). Though it is very

rarely needed in text typography, this sign has been given a place %0
in the standard 1so Latin character set. [u+ 2030 ]

period The normal sign for the end of a sentence in all the lan-
guages of Europe. But it is also a letter of the alphabet in Tlingit,
pronounced as a glottal stop, and in phonetics it is the sign of a
a.
syllable boundary. Also called full point or full stop. [u+oo2E]

phonomark The copyright symbol used for sound recordings.

Also sometimes known, oddly, as the publish symbol. [u +2117) ®
pilcrow An old scribal mark used at the beginning of a paragraph
or main text section. It is still used by typographers for that very

315
 purpose, and occasionally as a reference mark. Well-designed
faces offer pilcrows with some character - 1 ! ' tJ { 91 cj' - in
preference to the overused, bland standard, 'II. [ u + o o B6]

pipe Despite its importance to computer programmers and its

presence on the standard ASCII keyboard, the pipe has no func-
tion in typography. This is another key, and another slot in the
font, that begs to be reassigned to something typographically
useful. Also called a broken bar or parted rule. [u +ooA6]

prime An abbreviation for feet (1' = 12") and for minutes of arc
(60' = 1°). Single and double primes should not be confused with
60 ' apostrophes, dumb quotes or genuine quotation marks, though
in some faces (frakturs especially) these glyphs may all have a
similar shape and a pleasant slope. See also apostrophe, double
prime, dumb quotes and quotation marks. [u+2032]

question In Spanish, the inverted question mark is used at the

•
• beginning of the phrase, in addition to the upright question mark
at the end. [u+oo3F, +ooBF]

quotation marks A standard ISO font includes four forms of guil-

lemet and six forms of Anglo-Germanic quotation mark:'',,,"''.
(( (
T
) )) One of these is also the apostrophe. Another is graphically identi-
cal to the comma but separately encloded. In English and Span-
ish, common usage is 'thus' and "thus"; in German, it is ,thus' and
,,thus". This parallels the difference in usage of guillemets. In the
) ))
'' ' Romance languages, guillemets point outward; in German they
normally point in: in French,"comme <;a" et «comme <;a»; in Ger-
man,,,auf diese Weise" und »diese Weise«. See also double prime,
dumb quotes and prime. [u +2018 - 201F]

radical sign The sign of the square root, normally used in con-
junction with the vinculum: '110 = 3.16227766 .... [u+221A]

® registered trademark This is properly a superscript, though the

otherwise similar copyright symbol is not. [u+ooA E]

( (( reversed apostrophe(s) Mutant forms of the single and double

open quote. They appear in several American advertising and text
faces cut in the first years of the twentieth century and in some
made at the end of that century as well. [u+201B, +201F]

316
ring Also called krouiek. A diacritic used in Arikara, Cheyenne,
0
Czech, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and other languages. The
Scandanavian round A (a, A= I PA :l) is present on 1so text fonts,
but u and D (u with krouiek), just as common in Czech, must
be found on an East European or pan-European font, or built
0
from component parts. In Arikara and Cheyenne, the ring marks
devoiced letters. Uppercase or small cap round A or A-ring is the
symbol for angstrom units (104 A= 1 µm) . [u+o30A]

schwa A rotated e, representing a short, bland vowel (in the jargon

of phonetics, a mid central unrounded vowel). It occurs in many
African and Native American alphabets. Two uppercase forms
are current in Africa: 3 and J. Note that the first of these is hori-
zontally mirrored instead of rotated. [u+o18E, +orno, +0259.]

section A scribal form of double s, now used chiefly with refer-

ence to legal codes and statutes, when citing particular sections for §
reference. (The plural abbreviation, meaning sections, is written
by doubling the symbol:§§.) [u+ooA7]

semicolon A grammatical marker, hybrid between colon and

comma, derived from European scribal practice. In Greek, how-
ever, the same symbol is used as a question mark. [u+oo3B]
a;
slashed o This is a basic letter of the alphabet in Norwegian and
Danish, generally corresponding to the Swedish o. The lowercase
form is also part of the 1 PA. Henrik Ibsen's last play, for example,
was Nar vi dode vagner, and one of his first was Pru Inger til 0strat.
The letter is sometimes needed in English too, for setting names
such as J0rgen Moe and S0ren Kierkegaard. [u+ooo8, +ooF8]

solidus The fraction bar. Used with superior and inferior num-
bers to construct ad hoc fractions. The solidus was a Roman im-
perial coin introduced by Constantine in AD 309. There were 72
solidi to the libra, the Roman pound, and 25 denarii to the solidus.
The British based their own imperial coinage and its symbols -
£/s/d, for pounds, shillings and pence - on the Roman model, and
solidus became in due course not only a byword for shilling but
also the name of the slash mark with which shillings and pence
were written. (Given the design and fitting of the characters on
most modern type fonts, the solidus is now best used for fractions
alone. An italic virgule is usually the best character for setting

317
 references to British imperial money.) See also virgule, which is
a separate character. [u+2044]

sputnik See louse.

square brackets These essentials of text typography are used for

interpolations into quoted matter and as a secondary and inner
[a] set of parentheses. In the editing of classical texts, square brackets
normally mark editorial restorations while angle brackets mark
editorial and conjectural insertions, and braces mark deletions.
Double square brackets (rarely to be found except on technical
[ ] fonts) are used by textual scholars to mark deletions made not by
the editor but by the original author or scribe. In editing manu-
scripts and papyri, square brackets also mark hiatuses caused by
physical damage. [u+oo5s, +0050]

swung dash A rare character in text but important in logic and

mathematics as the sign of similarity (a - b) and in lexicography
as a sign of repetition. The same sign has been used in symbolic
logic to indicate negation, but to avoid confusion, the angular
negation sign or logical not(•) is preferred. In the eyes of ISO
and Unicode, the swung dash found on computer keyboards is
an ascii tilde - a character of use to computer programmers but
meaningless to typographers. Most fonts actually carry a swung
dash, not a tilde, in this position. To Unicode, the true swung
dash has a different address, though not a different graphic form.
The true tilde is different in every respect and functions only as
a diacritic. [u+oo7E; +2053, +223c]

thorn A basic letter of the alphabet in Anglo-Saxon and Middle

English, as well as in Icelandic: Pott pu langfbrull legoir.... Its
sound is that of IPA 8: voiceless th, as in English thorn. Not to
be confused with wynn. [u+oooE, +OOFE]

- tilde A diacritic used on vowels - a e £ 16 5 u y - in many lan-

guages (Estonian, Kikuyu, Portuguese, Twi, Vietnamese ... ) and
on at least one consonant (fl) in many more. A, a, N, fl, 0 , 6 are
found on standard 1so text fonts. Pan-European fonts include the
old Greenlandic vowels i, i, 0, u as well. [u +o303]
TM
trademark This is a superscript, found on most text fonts but
useless except for commercial work. [u+2122]

318
turned undercomma This diacritic is a variant of the under- (
comma, used in the lowercase form of the Latvian soft g (g). The
uppercase form of this letter is Q. (The g is the only palatalized
Latvian letter that happens to have a descender.) See also under-
g
comma. [u+o326, used in u+o123]

umlaut See diaeresis.

undercomma This is a variant form of the cedilla, popularized in

the early twentieth century through the use of typewriters which
lacked a real cedilla subscript. Through long habituation, it is now
preferred to the cedilla by many writers and some typographers
working in Latvian and Romanian. In these languages it is used
to mark the soft (palatal) consonants: I Q r ~ t and their uppercase
'
counterparts. It has become, in other words, a variant form of
the palatal hook.
Because of its descender, Latvian lowercase palatal g (g) is
marked with a raised and inverted form of this diacritic, the
turned undercomma. [u+o326 ]

underdot A diacritic used with consonants - <;l l:i ! l r r ~ t ?- - in

romanized Arabic, Hebrew and Sanskrit, and primarily with
vowels in Igbo, Yoruba, Twi, and many other African alphabets.
In Vietnamese, it is a tonemark signifying low glottalized vowels
a•
(~ ~ ~ ~ i q lf &c). Editors of inscriptions and papyri routinely use
the underdot to mark all letters whose reading is uncertain. Its
typographic nickname, nang, is a simplified form of its Vietnam-
ese name, nqng. It is missing from most Latin text fonts. Like the
period, it can take many shapes, but in African scripts, a squarish
or elongated dot is often preferred. [u+o323]

underscore A diacritic required for many African and Native

American languages, and useful for some purposes in English. It
is also used as an alternative to the underdot in setting romanized
Arabic and Hebrew. To clear descenders, a repositioned version
of the character is required. See also towline. [u+o332)

unequal A useful symbol missing from most 1so text fonts. It is

essential in setting mathematics and, on occasion, important in
general text. [u + 22 6 o]

vertical rule See bar.

319
 vinculum An overbar or overline, used in mathematics ('110) and

AA in the sciences (AB) to signify the unity of a group. The name is

Latin for bond or chain. [u+203E]

virgule An oblique stroke, used by medieval scribes and many

later writers as a form of comma. It is also used to build level

a/c fractions (e.g., n/3), to represent a linebreak when verse is set as

prose, and in dates, addresses and elsewhere as a sign of separa-
tion. In writing the Khoisan languages of western Africa, it is
sometimes used to represent dental or lateral clicks. Also called
slash or front slash (to distinguish it from the backslash). It is
poorly positioned on many fonts and consequently needs some
subtle editing. Compare solidus. [u + o 02 F]

wedge Another name for the caron.

wynn This is an archaic English predecessor of the modern letter

]? w. It appears only in specialized fonts designed for medievalists,

and it is all too easy to confuse with thorn, but out of faithfulness
to the manuscript tradition, it is occasionally used in printing
Middle English texts. [u+o1BF, +01F7]

yen See currency symbols.

yogh This is an archaic Western European form of y, sometimes

still used in Old and Middle English texts. The twelfth-century
English poet Layamon, for example, wrote at a time when the
English alphabet included aesc, eth, thorn and yogh, and the
letter yogh appeared where we now put a y in Layamon's name:
La~amon. The pronunciation varies with context between the
sound of yin English layer and that of gin German sagen. Yogh is
very rarely found on text fonts. The numeral 3 is not an adequate
substitute. [u+o21c, +0210]
NOTE: A number of reference works (including the first three
editions of The Unicode Standard, both editions of Pullum &
Ladusaw's Phonetic Symbol Guide, and the first two editions of
The Elements of Typographic Style) fail to distinguish yogh from
ezh. The two characters can be graphically identical and therefore
can be realized by one in the same glyph, but they are different in
origin and sound - and also different now in Unicode.

320
APPENDIX C: GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Names of individual characters and diacritics (circumflex, dyet,

midpoint, virgule, etc) are not in this glossary. Look for them
in appendix s. For summary definitions of historical categories
(Renaissance, Baroque, etc), see chapter 7.

10/12 x 18 Ten on twelve by eighteen, which is to say, ten-point

(10 pt) type set with 12 pt leading (2 pt extra lead, in addition
to the body size of 10 pt, for a total of 12 pt from baseline to
baseline) on a measure of 18 picas.
Abrupt and Adnate Serifs are either abrupt - meaning they break
from the stem suddenly at an angle - or they are adnate,
meaning that they flow smoothly into or out of the stem. In
the older typographic literature, adnate serifs are generally
described as bracketed.
A/dine Relating to the publishing house operated in Venice by
II
Aldus Manutius between 1494 and 1515. Most of Aldus's type
- which included roman, italic and Greek- was cut by Fran-
cesco Griffo of Bologna. Type that resembles Griffo's, like ty-
pography that resembles Aldus's, is called Aldine. Monotype
Poliphilus and Bembo roman are Aldine revivals, though their
aa
companion italics are not. No Aldine italics or Aldine Greeks
are in circulation at the present time.
Analphabetic A typographic symbol used with the alphabet but
lacking a place in the alphabetical order. Diacritics such as the
acute, umlaut, circumflex and caron are analphabetics. So are
the asterisk, dagger, pilcrow, comma and parentheses.
Aperture The openings of letters such as C, c, S, s, a and e. Hu-
manist faces such as Bembo and Centaur have large apertures,
while Romantic faces such as Bodoni and Realist faces such
as Helvetica have small apertures. Very large apertures occur
in archaic Greek inscriptions and in typefaces such as Lithos,
which are derived from them.
Axis In typography, the axis of a letter generally means the axis of
the stroke, which in turn reveals the axis of the pen or other
tool used to make the letter. If a letter has thick strokes and
thin ones, find the thick strokes and extend them into lines.
These lines reveal the axis (or axes; there may be several) of
the letter. Not to be confused with slope.

321
 Ball Terminal A circular form at the end of the arm, leg or brow
in letters such as a, c, f, j, r and y. Ball terminals are found in

cf many romans and italics of the Romantic period, some Real-

ist faces, and in many recent faces built on Romantic lines.
Examples: Bodoni, Scotch Roman and Haas Clarendon. See
also beak terminal and teardrop terminal.
Baseline Whether written by hand or set into type, the Latin
lowercase alphabet implies an invisible staff consisting of at
least four lines: topline, midline, baseline and beardline. The
topline is the line reached by ascenders in letters like b, d, h,
k, I. The midline marks the top of letters like a, c, e, m, x, and
the top of the torso of letters like b, d, h. The baseline is the
line on which all these letters rest. The beardline is the line
reached by descenders in letters like p and q. The cap line,
marking the top of uppercase letters like H, does not neces-
sarily coincide with the topline of the lower case.
Round letters like e and o normally dent the baseline.
Pointed letters like v and w normally pierce it, while the foot
serifs of letters like h and m usually rest precisely upon it.
Bastarda A class of blackletter types. See page 266.
Beak Terminal A sharp spur, found particularly on the f, and also
often on a, c, j, randy, in many twentieth-century romans and,

cf to a lesser degree, italics. Examples: Apollo, Berling, Calisto,

Meridien, Perpetua, Pontifex, Veljovic.
Bicameral A bicameral alphabet is two alphabets joined. The
modern Latin alphabet, which you are reading, is an ex-
ample. It has an upper and a lower case, as closely linked

Aa and yet as easy to distinguish as the Senate and the House of

Representatives. Unicameral alphabets (the Arabic, Hebrew
and Devanagari alphabets, for example) have only one case.
Tricameral alphabets have three - and a normal font of ro-
man type is tricameral, if it includes an upper case, a lower
case and small caps.
Bilateral Extending to both sides. Bilateral serifs, which are always
reflexive, are typical of roman faces, while unilateral serifs are
typical of romans, Carolingians and italics.
Bitmap A digital image in unintelligent form. A letterform can

e be described morphologically, as a series of reference points

and trajectories that mimic its perimeter, or embryologi-
cally, as the series of pen strokes that produce the form. Such
descriptions are partially independent of size and position.
The same image can also be described quite accurately but

322
 superficially as the addresses of all the dots (or bits) in its
digital representation. This sort of description, a bitmap, ties
the image to one orientation and size.
Blackletter Blackletter is to typography what Gothic is to ar-
chitecture: a general name for a wide variety of forms that
stem predominantly from the north of Europe. Like Gothic
buildings, blackletter types can be massive or light. They are
ao
often tall and pointed, but sometimes round instead. Com-
pare whiteletter. The categories of blackletter include bastarda,
fraktur, quadrata, rotunda and textura. See page 266.
oa
Bleed As a verb, to bleed means to reach to the edge of the printed
page. As a noun, it means printed matter with no margin. If
an image is printed so that it reaches beyond the trim line,
it will bleed when the page is trimmed. Photographs, rules,
solids and background screens or patterns are often allowed
to bleed. Type can rarely do so.
Blind In letterpress work, printing blind means printing without
ink, producing a colorless impression.
Blind Folio A page which is counted in the numbering sequence
but carries no visible number.
Block Quotation A quotation set off from the main text, forming
a paragraph of its own, often indented or set in a different
face or smaller size than the main text. A run-in quotation,
on the other hand, is run in with the main text and usually
enclosed in quotation marks.
Body (1) In reference to foundry type: the actual block of type-
metal from which the sculpted mirror-image of the printed
letter protrudes. (2) In reference to phototype or digital type:
the rectangular face of the metal block that the letter would
be mounted on if it were three-dimensional metal instead of
a two-dimensional image or bitmap. Retained as a fiction for
use in sizing and spacing the type.
Body Size In graphic terms, the height of the face of the type,
which in letterpress terms is the depth of the body of the type.
Originally, this was the height of the face of the metal block
on which each individual letter was cast. In digital type, it is
the height of its imaginary equivalent, the rectangle defining
the space owned by a given letter, and not the dimension of
the letter itself. Body sizes are usually given in points - but
European type sizes are often given in Didot points, which
are 7% larger than the points used in Britain and North
America.

323
 Bowl The generally round or elliptical forms which are the basic
bodyshape of letters such as C, G, 0 in the upper case, and b,
c, e, o, p in the lower case. Also called eye.
Cap Height The distance from baseline to cap line of an alphabet,
which is the approximate height of the uppercase letters. It
is often less, but sometimes greater, than the height of the
ascending lowercase letters. See also baseline and x-height.
Chancery A class of cursive letterforms, generally featuring extra
ligatures and lengthened and curved extenders. Many, but not
all, chancery letterforms are also swash forms.
Cicero A unit of measure equal to 12 Didot points. This is the
continental European counterpart to the British and Ameri-
can pica, but the cicero is slightly larger than the pica. It is
equivalent to 4.52 mm or 0.178 inch. See point.
Color The darkness of the type as set in mass, which is not the
same as the weight of the face itself. The spacing of words
and letters, the leading of lines, and the incidence of capitals,
not to mention the properties of the ink and of the paper it
is printed on, all affect the color of the type.
Contrast In the analysis of letterforms, this usually refers to
the degree of contrast between the thick strokes and thin
00 strokes of a given letter. In Romantic faces such as Bulmer
and Bodoni, the contrast is high. In unmodulated faces such
as Gill Sans and Futura, contrast is low or nonexistent.
Counter The white space enclosed by a letterform, whether
wholly enclosed, as in d or o, or partially, as in c or m.
Crosshead A heading or subhead centered over the text. Compare

f
sidehead.
Cursive Flowing. Often used as a synonym for italic.
Dingbat A typographic glyph or symbol subject to scorn because
it has no apparent relation to the alphabet. Many dingbats are
pictograms - tiny pictures of churches, airplanes, skiers, tele-
phones, and the like, used in the tourist industry. Others are
more abstract symbols - check marks, crosses, cartographic
symbols, the emblems of the suits of playing cards, and so
on. Compare fleuron and hedera.
Dot Leader A row of evenly spaced periods or midpoints, occa-
sionally used to link flush-left text with flush-right numerals
in a table of contents or similar context. (There are none in
this book.)
DPI Dots per inch. The usual measure of output resolution in
digital typography and in laser printing.

324
Drop Cap A large initial capital or versa/ mortised into the text.
(See page 64 for examples.) Compare elevated cap.
Drop Folio A folio (page number) dropped to the foot of the page
when the folios on other pages are carried near the top. Drop
folios are often used on chapter openings.
Dropline Paragraph A paragraph marked by dropping directly
down one line space from the end of the previous paragraph, Glossary
without going back to the left margin. (See page 40 for an of
example.) Typographic
Elevated Cap A large initial capital or versa! rising up from the Terms
beginning of the text instead of nested down into it.
Em In linear measure, a distance equal to the type size, and in
square measure, the square of the type size. Thus an em is
12 pt (or a 12 pt square) in 12 pt type, and 11 pt (or an 11 pt
square) in 11 pt type. Also called mutton.
D
En Half an em. To avoid misunderstanding when instructions
are given orally, typographers often speak of ems as muttons
and ens as nuts.
Extenders Descenders and ascenders; i.e., any parts of the letter-
D
form that extend below the baseline, as in p and q, or above
the midline, as in b, d and f.
Eye Synonym for bowl in the lower case. Large eye means large
x-height, while open eye means large aperture.
FL Flush left, which means set with an even left margin. By im-
bbb
plication, the right margin is ragged. To be more precise, one
could write FL/RR, meaning flush left, ragged right.
FL&R Flush left and right, which is to say justified.
Fleuron A horticultural dingbat. That is to say, a typographic
ornament ordinarily in the shape of a flower or leaf. Some
fleurons are designed to be set in bulk and in combinations,
to produce what amounts to typographic wallpaper.
Flush and Hung Set with the first line FL and subsequent lines
indented, like the entries in this glossary.
Folio In bibliography, a page or leaf; but in typography, a folio is
normally a typeset page number, not the page itself.
Font A set of sorts or glyphs. In the world of metal type, this
means a given alphabet, with all its accessory characters, in
a given size. In relation to phototype, it usually means the
assortment of standard patterns forming the glyph palette,
without regard to size, or the actual filmstrip or wheel on
which these patterns are stored. In the world of digital type,
the font is the glyph palette itself or the digital information

325
 encoding it. (The older British spelling,fount, has not only
the same meaning but also the same pronunciation.)
Fore-edge The outside edge or margin of a book page; i.e., the
edge or margin opposite the spine.
FR Flush right. With an even right margin. By implication, the left
margin is ragged. The sidehead on this page is an example.
Glossary Fraktur A class of blackletter types. See page 266.
of Glyph An incarnation of a character. See sort.
Typographic Gutter The blank column between two columns of type or the
Terms margins at the spine between two facing textblocks.
Hanging Figures Text figures.
Hair Space Normally M/24 or the width of a slip of paper.
Hard Space A word space that will not translate into a line-break.
Also called no-break space.
Hint The letterforms that make up a digital font are usually
defined mathematically in terms of outlines or templates,
which can be freely scaled, rotated and moved about. When
pages are composed, these outlines are given specific locations
and sizes. They must then be rasterized: converted into solid
forms made up of dots at the resolution of the output device.
If the size is very small or the resolution low, the raster or
grid will be coarse, and the dots will fill the mathematical
template very imperfectly. Hints are the rules of compromise
applied in this process of rasterization. At large sizes and high
resolutions, they are irrelevant. At smaller sizes and lower
resolutions, where distortion is inevitable, they are crucial.
Hinted fonts include hints as integral parts of the font def-
inition. See also bitmap.
Humanist Humanist letterforms originated among the humanists
of the Italian Renaissance and persist to the present day. They
are of two primary kinds: roman and italic, both of which
derive from Roman capitals and Carolingian minuscules.
Humanist letterforms show the clear trace of a broadnib
pen held by a right-handed scribe. They have a modulated
stroke and a humanist axis.
Humanist Axis An oblique stroke axis reflecting the natural
inclination of the writing hand. See pp i2-15.
Inline A letter in which the inner portions of the main strokes

Q have been carved away, leaving the edges more or less intact.
Inline faces lighten the color while preserving the shapes and
proportions of the original face. Outline letters, on the other
hand, are produced by drawing a line around the outsides of

326
 the letters and removing the entire original form. Outline let-
ters, in consequence, are fatter than the originals and have less
definition. Castellar, Smaragd and Romulus Open Kapitalen
are examples of inline faces.
IPA International Phonetic Association and its alphabet. The
organization was founded in 1886. The alphabet is a set of
phonetic letters, diacritics and tonemarks, widely used but
- like any scientific system - subject to constant refinement
and modification. (See page 299.)
1so International Organization for Standardization, headquar-
tered in Geneva. An agency for international cooperation on
industrial and scientific standards. Its membership consists
of the national standards organizations of more than one
hundred countries.
Italic A class of letterforms more cursive than roman but less
cursive than script, developed from the Carolingian hand in
fifteenth-century Italy. In most italics, the separate letters are
implicitly connected by their transitive serifs.
Justify To adjust the length of the line so that it is flush left and
right on the measure. Type in the Latin alphabet is commonly
set either justified or FL/RR (flush left, ragged right).
Kern (1) Part of a letter that extends into the space of another. In
many alphabets, the romanf has a kern to the right, the roman ~
j a kern to the left, and the italic f one of each. (2) As a verb,
to kern means to alter the fit of certain letter combinations
- To or VA, for example - so that the limb of one projects
over or under the body or limb of the other.
Lachrymal Terminal See teardrop terminal.
Lead [rhyming with red] Originally a strip of soft metal (type-
metal or brass) used for vertical spacing between lines of type.
Now meaning the vertical distance from the baseline of one
line to the baseline of the next. Also called leading.
Lettrine Literally, 'a large letter: Synonym for versa!.
Ligature Two or more letters tied into a single character. The
sequence ffi, for example, forms a ligature in most Latin text
faces.
ifi
Lining Figures Figures of even height. Usually synonymous with
titling figures, but some lining figures are smaller and lighter
than the uppercase letters.
Logogram A specific typographic form tied to a certain word.
Example: the nonstandard capitalizations in the names e.e.
cummings, Tiapafpacp, TrueType and WordPerfect.

327
 Lowercase Figures Synonym for text figures or old-style figures.
M/3 A third of an em: e.g., 4 pt in 12 pt type; 8 pt in 24 pt type.
Measure The standard length of the line; i.e., column width or
width of the overall textblock, usually measured in picas.
Mid Space A space measuring M/4, a fourth of an em.
Modulation In relation to typography, modulation means a vari-

e ation - usually cyclical and predictable - in the width of the

stroke. In monochrome (unmodulated) letterforms such as
Frutiger, the stroke is always fundamentally the same width.
In a face such as Bembo or Centaur, the stroke is based on

e the trace of a broadnib pen, which makes thin cross strokes

and thicker pull strokes. When letters are written with such
an instrument, regular modulation automatically occurs.
Monotonic Modern Greek retains only one of the old tonic accent
marks, the 6~Eia (oxeia) or acute. (Greek has often, in fact,
been written and sometimes set this way, but the practice
'
at did not become official until 1982.) Fonts designed for set-
ting Greek this way are known as monotonic. Their acute
(renamed the tonos) is usually vertical. Compare polytonic.
Mutton An em. Also called mutton quad.
Negative Leading Leading - that is to say, line space - smaller
than the body size. Type set 16/14, for example, is set with
negative leading.
Neohumanist Recent letterforms that revive and reassert human-
ist principles are called neohumanist.
Nut An en.
Old-Style Figures ( OSF) A common synonym for text figures.
Orthotic A class of Greek scripts and types that flourished in

,, Western Europe between 1200 and 1520, revived in the early

twentieth century. Orthotic Greeks are noncursive and usually

a1 bicameral. In other words, they are analogous to the roman

form of Latin script. Both caps and lower case are usually
upright. Serifs, when present, are usually short, abrupt and
unilateral. The geometric figures of circle, line and triangle
are usually prominent in their underlying structure. Victor
Scholderer's New Hellenic is an example.
Pi Font A font of assorted mathematical or other symbols, de-
signed to be used as an adjunct to one or more text fonts.
Pica A unit of measure equal to 12 points. Two different picas
are in common use. (1) In traditional printers' measure, the
pica is 4.22 mm or 0.166 inch: close to, but not exactly, one
sixth of an inch. This is the customary British and American

328
 unit for measuring the length of the line and the depth of the
textblock. (2) The PostScript pica is precisely one sixth of
an inch: 0.166666 ... ".The difference between these units is
roughly 0.03%. (Note: the continental European counterpart
to the pica is the cicero, which is 7% larger.)
Piece Fraction A fraction (such as %4) that is not included in the
font and must therefore be made on demand from separate Glossary
components. of
Point (1) In traditional British and American measure, a point is Typographic
a twelfth of a pica, which makes it 0.3515 mm, or 0.01383 inch. Terms
In round numbers, there are 72 points per inch, or 28.5 points
per centimeter. (2) In continental Europe a larger point, the
Di dot point, is used. The Didot point (one twelfth of a cicero)
is 0.38 mm or 0.01483 inch. In round numbers, there are 26.5
Didot points per centimeter, or 67.5 per inch. (3) Nearly all
digital typesetting devices, like the PostScript and TrueType
languages they employ, make the point precisely 'In inch and
the pica precisely one sixth of an inch.
Polytonic Classical Greek has been set since the fifteenth century
with an array of tonic accents and other diacritics inherited n
from the Alexandrian scribes. These diacritics - oxeia (acute),
bareia (grave), perispomene (circumflex),psili (smooth breath-
ing), daseia (rough breathing), diaeresis and iota subscript
w \.

- are used singly and in many combinations. Modern Greek

retains only the acute (reinterpreted to a vertical mark called
the tonos) and an occasional diaeresis. Greek fonts equipped
with the full set of accents are accordingly known as polytonic
Greeks, and modern Greek fonts as monotonic.
Quad An em. Also called mutton quad.
Quaint An antiquated sort or glyph, used to recreate the typo-
graphic flavor of a bygone age. The a, sp and fl ligatures, and
the longs and its ligatures, are examples.
Ranging Figures Synonymous with lining figures.
Raster Digital grid. See hint.
Rationalist Axis Vertical axis, typical of Neoclassical and Roman-
tic letterforms. See pp 12-13. Compare humanist axis.
Reflexive A type of serif that concludes the stroke of the pen by
drawing back upon itself. Reflexive serifs are typical of roman
faces, including the face in which these words are set. They
always involve a sudden, small stoppage and reversal of the
m
pen's direction, and more often than not they are bilateral.
See also transitive.

329
 Resolution In digital typography, resolution is the fineness of
the grain of the typeset image. It is usually measured in dots
per inch (dpi). Laser printers, for example, generally have a
resolution between 300 and 1200 dpi, and platemakers or
typesetting machines a resolution significantly greater than
1200 dpi. The resolution of the conventional television screen
Glossary is only about 50 dpi, and the resolution of most computer
of screens is also very low: between 72 and 133 dpi. But other
Typographic factors besides resolution affect the apparent roughness
Terms or fineness of the typeset image. These factors include the
inherent design of the characters, the skill with which they
are digitized, the hinting technology used to compensate for
coarse rasterization, and the nature of the surface on which
they are reproduced.
Rotunda A class of blackletter types. See page 266.
RR Ragged right, which is to say unjustified.

m Sanserif From the earlier English forms sans serif and sans sur-
ryphs, without serifs: synonymous with unserifed.
Serif A stroke added to the beginning or end of one of the main
strokes of a letter. In the roman alphabet, serifs are usually

m reflexive finishing strokes, forming unilateral or bilateral

stops. (They are unilateral if they project only to one side of
the main stroke, like the serifs at the head of T and the foot
of L, and bilateral if they project to both sides, like the serifs

TL at the foot ofT and the head of L.) Transitive serifs - smooth
entry or exit strokes - are usual in italic.
There are many descriptive terms for serifs, especially as
• • they have developed in roman faces. They may be not only

1l unilateral or bilateral, but also long or short, thick or thin,

pointed or blunt, abrupt or adnate, horizontal or vertical or
oblique, tapered, triangular, and so on. In texturas and some
frakturs, they are usually scutulate (diamond-shaped), and in
some architectural scripts, such as Eaglefeather and Tekton,
the serifs are virtually round.
Sidehead A heading or subhead set flush left (more rarely, flush
right) or slightly indented. Compare crosshead.
Slab Serif An abrupt or adnate serif of the same thickness as
the main stroke. Slab serifs are a hallmark of the so-called

n egyptian and clarendon types: two groups of Realist faces

produced in substantial numbers since the early nineteenth
century. Memphis, Rockwell and Serifa are examples. A more
recent example is PMN Caecilia.

330
Slope The angle of inclination of the stems and extenders of let-
ters. Most (but not all!) italics slope to the right at something
between 2° and 20°. Not to be confused with axis.
Solid Set without additional lead, or with the line space equiva-
lent to the type size. Type set 11/11 or 12/12, for example, is
set solid.
Sort A single piece of metal type; thus a letter or other character
in one particular style and size. In the world of digital type,
where letters have no physical existence until printed, the
word sort has been largely displaced by the word glyph. A
de[
glyph is a version - a conceptual, not material, incarnation
z
- of the abstract symbol called a character. Thus, z and are
alternate glyphs (in the same face) for the same character.
Stem A main stroke that is more or less straight, not part of a
gg
bowl. The letter o has no stem; the letter l consists of stem
and serifs alone.
Swash A letterform reveling in luxury. Some swash letters carry
extra flourishes; others simply occupy an extra helping of
space. Swash letters are usually cursive and swash typefaces
therefore usually italic. True italic capitals (as distinct from
sloped roman capitals) are usually swash. (7he Caps in this
Sentence are Examples.) Hermann Zapf's Zapf Renaissance
italic and Robert Slimbach's Poetica are faces in which the
swash can be extended to the lower case.
Teardrop Terminal A swelling, like a teardrop, at the end of
the arm in letters such as a, c, f, g, j, r and y. This feature is
typical of typefaces from the Late Renaissance, Baroque and
Neoclassical periods, and is present in many recent faces
built on Baroque or Neoclassical lines. Examples: Jannon,
Van Dijck, Kis, Caslon, Fournier, Baskerville, Bell, Walbaum,
cf
Zapf International, Galliard. Also called lachrymal terminal.
See also ball terminal and beak terminal.
Textblock The part of the page normally occupied by text.
Text Figures Figures - 12 3 4 s 6 - designed to match the lowercase
letters in size and color. Most text figures are ascending and
descending forms. Also called oldstyle figures. Compare lining
figures, ranging figures and titling figures.
Textura A class of blackletter types. See page 266.
Thick Space A space usually measuring M/3, a third of an em.
Thin Space In letterpress work, a space measuring M/5, a fifth of
an em. In computer typesetting, sometimes understood as M/6
or M/8. Compare hair space, mid space and thick space.

331
 Three-to-em One-third em. Also written M/3. See also thick.
Titling Figures Figures - 12 3 4 5 6 - designed to match the up-
percase letters in size and color. Compare text figures.
Transitive A type of serif which flows directly into or out of the

m main stroke without stopping to reverse direction, typical

of many italics. Transitive serifs are usually unilateral: they
extend only to one side of the stem. See also reflexive.
Type Size See body size.
U&lc Upper and lower case: the normal form for setting text
in the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, all of which are
now bicameral.
Unicameral Having only one case - like the Arabic, Hebrew, Thai
and Tibetan scripts, and many roman titling faces. Compare
bicameral.
Unicode A scheme, begun in i988, for standardized encoding of
all the characters in all the world's scripts. See page i8i.
Versa/ A large initial capital, either elevated or dropped. Also
called lettrine.
Weight The darkness (blackness) of a typeface, independent of
its size. See also color.
Whiteletter The generally light roman letterforms favored by
humanist scribes and typographers in Italy in the fifteenth

ao and sixteenth centuries, as distinct from the generally darker

blackletter script and type used for ecclesiastical and legal
texts. Whiteletter is the typographic counterpart to Roman-
esque in architecture, as blackletter is the counterpart to
Gothic.
White Line A line space.
Word Space The space between words. When type is set FL/RR,
the word space may be of fixed size. When the type is justified,
the word space is usually elastic.
x-height The distance between the baseline and the midline of
an alphabet, which is normally the approximate height of
the unextended lowercase letters - a, c, e, m, n, o, r, s, u, v,
w, x, z - and of the torso of b, d, h, k, p, q, y. The relation
of x-height to cap height is an important characteristic of
any bicameral Latin typeface, and the relation of x-height to
extender length is a crucial property of any Latin or Greek
lower case. See also baseline, cap height and eye.

332
APPENDIX D: TYPE DESIGNERS

A biographical index of designers important to typographic his-

tory, and of all those doing important work in the present day,
would be a book in itself. The following list is little more than a
cross-reference to important designers whose work is mentioned
elsewhere in this book.

LUDOVICO DEGLI ARRIGHI (c.1480-1527) Italian calligrapher

and designer of at least six chancery italic fonts. Frederic
Warde's Vicenza and Arrighi (the italic companion to Cen-
taur) are based on one of his faces. Monotype Blado (the
italic companion to Poliphilus) is a rough approximation
of another.
ANTOINE AUGE REAU (c. 1490-1534) Parisian punchcutter and
printer. Author of several text romans and at least one Greek.
Along with his contemporary Simon de Colines, Augereau
defined the style of French typography later identified with
the name of his most famous apprentice, Claude Garamond.
This activity came to an end when he was hanged and his
corpse was publicly burnt, on Christmas Eve of 1534, for
printing a psalm without permission.
RICHARD AUSTIN (c.1765-1830) English punchcutter produc-
ing Neoclassical and Romantic faces. He cut the original
Bell type, the first Scotch Roman, and the original version of
Porson Greek. W. A. Dwiggins's Caledonia is based primarily
on Austin's work.
JOHN BASKERVILLE (1706-1775) English calligrapher, prin-
ter and businessman. Designer of a series of Neoclassical
romans, italics and one Greek. Most of the faces sold in his
name are based on his work and some resemble it closely.
His punches are now at the University Library, Cambridge,
and the St Bride Printing Library, London. A set of original
matrices, formerly in Paris, is now in the Frutiger Foundry,
Miinchenstein, Switzerland.
LUCIAN BERNHARD (1885-1972) German immigrant to the
USA. Painter, poet, industrial designer and typographer.
Author of a large number of roman faces, distinguished by
their long extenders. These were cut and cast primarily by
ATF and Bauer.

333
 CHARLES BIGELOW (1945- ) American typographer and scholar.
Codesigner, with Kris Holmes, of the Lucida family.
ARCHIBALD BINNEY (1762-1838) Scottish immigrant to the USA.
He was trained as a punchcutter in Edinburgh. With James
Ronaldson, another Scottish immigrant, he established the
Binney & Ronaldson Foundry in Philadelphia, where he cut
Type Baroque, Neoclassical and Romantic type.
Designers FRANK BLOKLAND (1959- ) Dutch type designer and founder of
the Dutch Type Library in 's-Hertogenbosch. His faces include
Berenice and Documenta. His historical revivals include DTL
Van den Keere and its companion, Guyot italic.
GIAMBATTISTA BODON! (1740-1813) Italian punchcutter,printer
and prolific designer of type, working at Rome and Parma.
Bodoni is best known for his dark and razor-sharp Romantic
romans, italics and sometimes wildly ornamental Greeks, but
he also designed and cut a large number of Neoclassical fonts.
Bauer Bodoni, Berthold Bodoni, and some of the other faces
now sold in his name are based on his work. His punches are
in the Museo Bodoniano, Parma.
LUDOLF BORCHTORP (c.1470-c. 1510) Polish mathematician
and engraver. Author of the first fonts of Cyrillic type, which
he evidently cut in Krakow about 1490, for the printer Szwaj-
polt Fiol.
CHRIS BRAND (1921-1999) Dutch calligrapher, the designer of
the Albertina family. Some of his finest work - including the
Hebrew face Zippora, the Elsschot family and the Denise italic
- has yet to be released.
DAN CARR (1951- ) American punchcutter, poet, typographer
and printer. Proprietor, with Julia Ferrari, of the Golgonooza
Letter Foundry, Ashuelot, New Hampshire. Carr is one of
the few active punchcutters now living. Designer and cutter
of Regulus foundry roman and Parmenides foundry Greek;
designer of the digital family Cheneau.
MATTHEW CARTER (1937- ) English-born American type de-
signer, punchcutter and scholar, based in Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts. His text faces include Auriga, Charter, Galliard
and Manutius; his titling faces include Mantinia and Sophia.
His historical revivals include Wilson Greek.
WILLIAM CASLON (1692-1766) English engraver, punchcutter
and typefounder; author of many Baroque romans, italics,
Greeks and other non-Latin faces. ATF Caslon, Monotype
Caslon, and Carol Twombly's Adobe Caslon are closely based

334
 on his work. A collection of his punches is now in the St Bride
Printing Library, London.
WARREN CHAPPELL (1904-1991) American book artist, trained
in Germany, where he studied with Rudolf Koch. His type-
faces include Trajanus, Lydian and the still unmanufactured
Eichenauer.
SIMON DE CO LINES (c. 1480-1547) French master printer, typog- Type
rapher and punchcutter. Author of a dozen or more roman Designers
fonts, several italics, several blackletters and a fine cursive
Greek. Colines as much as any single person appears to be
responsible for creating the typographic style of the French
golden age. Garamond and Augereau were part of the same
circle. None of Colines's faces has evidently yet been trans-
lated to digital form.
CARL DAIR (1912-1967) Canadian book designer and typog-
rapher, working chiefly in Toronto. Designer of the Cartier
family, which was left incomplete at Dair's death and later
improved and completed by Rod McDonald.
GERARD DANIELS (1966- ) Dutch type designer and typogra-
pher, trained under Gerrit Noordzij in The Hague. Designer
of Caspari.
!SMAR DAVID (1910-1996) German-born American book de-
signer, architect, graphic artist and type designer. His faces
include David Hebrew, released by lntertype in 1954, and a
number of photolettering faces still awaiting digital revival.
GIOVANNI DEFACCIO (1966- ) Italian calligrapher. With Lui
Karner, he is codesigner of the Rialto family, produced by
their digital foundry dffype.
FRANyOIS-AM BROISE DID OT (1730-1804) Parisian printer and
publisher. Designer of several Neoclassical romans and italics,
cut under his supervision by Pierre-Louis Vaffiard. Father of
Firmin Didot and founder of the Didot dynasty in printing
and typography.
FIRMIN DIDOT (1764-1836) Parisian printer and punchcutter;
son of F.-A. Didot and student of Pierre-Louis Vaffiard; father
of Ambroise Firmin-Didot. Author of several Neoclassical
faces as well as the Romantic fonts for which he is posthu-
mously known. Monotype Didot and Linotype's digital Didot
(drawn by Adrian Frutiger) are based on his work.
BRAM DE DOES (1934- ) Dutch typographer, formerly chief
designer at Joh. Enschede en Zonen, Haarlem. Designer of
the Trinite and Lexicon families.

335
 WILLIAM ADDISON DWIGGINS (1880-1956) American designer
and typographer. Dwiggins designed typefaces exclusively for
the Linotype machine. In the 1930s and 1940s, he also cre-
ated the typographic house style at Alfred Knopf, New York.
His serifed faces include Caledonia, Eldorado, Electra and
Falcon. His only completed sanserif is Metro. His one uncial
Type face is Winchester. Many of his type drawings are now in the
Designers Boston Public Library.
ALFRED FAIRBANK (1895-1982) English calligrapher and de-
signer of Fairbank italic.
AMBROISE FIRMIN-DIDOT (1790-1876) French scholar, type-
cutter and printer. He was the son of Firmin Didot (whose full
name he took as his own surname) and grandson ofFrarn;:ois-
Ambroise Didot. Author of the first Didot Greek fonts.
JOHANN MICHAEL FLEISCHMAN (1701-1768) German-born
punchcutter and founder working in the Netherlands. A
prolific and skilled cutter of romans, italics and ornamental
blackletters. Also the author of several Arabic and Greek fonts.
His early romans and italics are Baroque, but in the 1730s
he cut a series of text fonts idiosyncratic and self-conscious
enough to be called Rococo. Most of his surviving material
is now at the Enschede Museum in Haarlem.
KARL-ERIK FORSBERG (1914-1995) Swedish calligrapher and
typographer, designer of the Berling text roman. His titling
faces include Carolus, Ericus and Lunda.
PIERRE SIMON FOURNIER (1712-1768) French printer and
punchcutter. Author of many French Neoclassical fonts and
typographic ornaments. Nearly all of his original material has
been damaged or lost. Monotype Fournier and Barbou are
based on his work, and W. A. Dwiggins's Electra owes much
to the study of it.
HENRI FRIEDLAENDER (1904-1996) Israeli book and type de-
signer, born in France of a Dutch father and English mother,
and trained primarily in Germany. In 1950, after twenty years
on the drawing table, a trial casting of his Hadassah Hebrew
family was made by the Amsterdam Foundry. After further
revision, working versions were issued beginning in 1958.
ADRIAN FRUTIGER (1928- ) Swiss immigrant to France. A
prolific and versatile designer of type and signage. He was
involved in the early transition from metal type to phototype.
His serifed faces include Apollo, Breughel, Glypha, Iridium
and Meridien. His sanserifs include Avenir, Frutiger, and
 Univers. His titling and script types include Herculanum,
Ondine, Pompeijana and Rusticana.
CLAUDE GARAMOND (c. 1490-1561) French punchcutter, work- The spelling
ing chiefly in Paris. Author of many roman fonts, at least Garamont is
now customary
two italics, and a full set of chancery Greeks. His surviving in France. The
punches and matrices are now at the Plantin-Moretus Mu- English spelling
seum in Antwerp and at the Imprimerie Nationale, Paris. Garamond is
derived from the
Stempel Garamond roman and italic, Linotype Granjon ro- Latin Garamon-
man, Gunter Gerhard Lange's Berthold Garamond roman, dius, often used
by GJrJmont
Robert Slimbach's Adobe Garamond roman, and Ronald Arn-
himself.
holm's Legacy italic are all based on his designs. Monotype
Garamond is not. (See also pp 230-32.)
ERIC GILL (1882-1940) English engraver and stonecutter, work-
ing in England and Wales. His serifed faces include Joanna,
Perpetua and Pilgrim. His one unserifed face is Gill Sans.
Perpetua Greek is also his, but Gill Sans Greek is by other
hands. Gill's type drawings are now in the St Bride Library,
London. Some of the matrices and punches for his types are
now at the University Library, Cambridge; others are in the
Clark Library, Los Angeles - but none of these punches were
cut by Gill himself.
FREDERIC GOUDY (1865-1947) American type designer and
founder. His serifed faces include University of California
Old Style (later adapted for machine composition as Cali-
fornian), Deepdene, Italian Old Style, Kaatskill, Kennerley,
Village N° 1 and Village N° 2. His blackletters include Francis-
can, Goudy Text and Goudy Thirty. His titling faces include
Forum, Goudy Old Style and Hadriano. Goudy Sans is his
only unserifed face. His only uncial is Friar. Most of Goudy's
original material was destroyed by fire in 1939. What survives
is at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
ROBERT GRAN JON (c. 1513-1590) French typecutter working at
Paris, Lyon, Antwerp, Frankfurt and Rome. Author of many
Renaissance and Mannerist romans, italics, scripts, several
Greeks, a Cyrillic, some Hebrews, and the first successful fonts
of Arabic type. Some of his punches and matrices survive at
the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp and the Nordiska Mu-
seet, Stockholm. Matthew Carter's Galliard is based primarily
on Granjon's Ascendonica roman and italic.
FRANCESCO GRIFFO (c. 1450-1518) Bolognese punchcutter,
working in Venice, Bologna and elsewhere in Italy. Author
of at least seven romans, three italics, four Greeks and a He-

337
 Giovanni brew. None of Griffo's actual punches or matrices are known
Mardersteig's to survive, and the house of Aldus Manutius in Venice, where
postscript to
Pietro Bembo, he did most of his work, has vanished. (The site is now oc-
De Aetna (Ve- cupied by a bank.) Griffo's letterforms have nonetheless been
rona: Officina patiently reconstructed from the printed books in which his
Badoni, 1969)
gives a good type appears. Giovanni Mardersteig's Griffo type is an exact-
introduction to ing replica of one of Griffo's fonts. Monotype Bembo roman
Griffo's roman is based more loosely on the same font. Monotype Poliphilus
types and their
derivatives. More is a rough reproduction of the same lower case with different
important still caps. Mardersteig's Dante roman and italic are also based on a
is the series of close study of Griffo's work. The italics, overall, have received
essays collected
in Mardersteig's far less attention than the romans.
Scritti (1988). ARNALDO GUILLEN DE BROCAR (c.1460-1524) Spanish mas-
ter printer and typographer working at Alcala de Henares,
which is now a suburb of Madrid. Author of several romans
Complutensian and at least two Greek fonts. The most notable of these is the
means'from
Complutensian Greek type, cut about 1510.
Complutum;
which is the old FRAN<(OIS GUYOT (c.1510-1570) Punchcutter and typefounder,
Roman name born at Paris. He moved to Antwerp in the 1530s and spent
for Alcala.
most of the rest of his life there, cutting type for the printer
Christophe Plantin and others.
VICTOR HAMMER (1882-1967) Austrian-born printer working
chiefly in Italy and the USA. All of Hammer's types are un-
cials. These include American Uncial, Andromache, Hammer
Uncial, Pindar and Samson. His type drawings and punches
are now at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
JONATHAN HOEFLER (1970- ) American type designer and
digital founder. He established the Hoefler Type Foundry,
New York, in 1989. Designer of Hoefler Text, Hoefler Titling,
Gestalt, the Requiem family, and other faces.
KRIS HOLMES (1950- ) American calligrapher. Designer of Isa-
dora and Sierra; codesigner with Janice Fishman of Shannon,
and with Charles Bigelow of the Lucida family.
JOHN HUDSON (1968- ) English/Canadian type designer and
expert in multilingual digital encoding. Designer of Aeneas
and Manticore. Cofounder, with Ross Mills, of Tiro Type-
works in Vancouver.
MARK JAM RA (1956- ) American typographer and graphic artist,
trained in Switzerland. Designer of several artful postmodern
faces, including Jamille, Latienne and Kinesis.
JEAN JANN ON (1580-1658) French punchcutter and printer. His
romans and italics, cut at Paris and Sedan, appear to be the
 first Baroque types ever made. Much of his material survives
at the Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, where his type is known as
the caracteres de /'universite. Monotype 'Garamond; Linotype
'Garamond' 3, ATF 'Garamond; Lanston 'Garamont' and Sim-
oncini 'Garamond' are based on his work. (See pp 230-32.)
NICOLAS JENSON (c. 1420-1480) French punchcutter and printer, In addition to
working in Venice. Author of at least one roman, one Greek his 16 pt roman,
Jenson cut at
and five rotundas. Jenson's punches and matrices have long least the caps for
vanished, but his type has often been copied from his printed a 12 pt font. In
books. Bruce Rogers's Centaur, Ronald Arnholm's Legacy ro- addition to his
five rotundas
man and Robert Slimbach's Adobe Jenson roman are based (ranging from
on his. Karlgeorg Hoefer's San Marco is based in large part 12 to 21 pt), he

on Jenson's rotundas. also cut at least

the lower case
GEORGE WILLIAM JONES (1860-1942) English printer and type for a sixth and
designer. Author of Linotype Estienne, Linotype Granjon, and smaller font.
the Venezia roman, which was later mated with an italic by
Frederic Goudy. All Jones's faces are historical reconstruc-
tions. Linotype Granjon was the first commercial adaptation
of a Garamond roman, mated with a Granjon italic.
LUI KARNER (1948- ) Austrian typographer and letterpress
printer. Codesigner, with Giovanni DeFaccio, of the Rialto
family and partner in the digital foundry d}Type.
MIKLOS TOTFALUSI KIS (1650-1702) Hungarian scholar, printer
and typecutter. Kis was trained in Amsterdam and worked
there and in Kolozsvar (now Cluj, Romania). Stempel Jan-
son is struck and cast primarily from his surviving punches.
Linotype Janson Text (both the metal and digital versions)
and Monotype Erhardt are based on his work.
RUDOLF KOCH (1876-1934) German calligrapher and artist.
His titling faces include Koch Antiqua and Neuland. His
blackletters include Claudius, Jessen, Wallau and Wilhelm
Klingspor Schrift. Kabel is his only sanserif. Much of his
material, formerly in the Klingspor Archive, Offenbach, is
now in the Haus fiir Industriekultur, Darmstadt.
HENK KRIJGER (1914-1979) Dutch typographer and visual artist,
born and raised in Sumba, Indonesia. His Indonesian name is
Senggih. Designer of several titling faces, the most important
of which is Raffia.
JOOS LAMBRECHT (c. 1510-1556) Flemish punchcutter, type-
founder and printer. Author of several fine romans, one
italic and at least one textura. All of his original material has
perished, but printed specimens survive.

339
 VA DIM VLADIMIROVICH LAZURSKI (I909-1994) Russian cal-
ligrapher and book designer. His Lazurski family includes
both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The Cyrillic also exists in
a proprietary foundry version known as Pushkin.
GUILLAUME LE BE the elder (1525-1598) French punchcutter
working in Paris, Florence, Venice and Rome. Author of many
Type Hebrew fonts, some fine romans and music types.
Designers HENRIC PIETERSZOON LETTERSNIDER (fl. 1492-1511) Dutch
punchcutter working at Gouda, Antwerp, Rotterdam and
Delft. Author of a substantial number of blackletter types
and fonts of large initials.
ZUZANA LICKO (1961- ) Slovakian immigrant to the USA.
Cofounder of Emigre magazine and its offshoot, the Emigre
digital foundry. Designer of Journal, Electrix, Modula and
other faces. With John Downer, codesigner of Triplex.
RICHARD LIPTON (1953- ) American graphic artist. Designer
of Arrus. Codesigner, with Jacqueline Sakwa, of the script
face Cataneo.
MARTIN MAJOOR (1960- ) Dutch graphic artist trained at the
Arnhem Academy. Designer of the Scala and Seria families.
GIOVANNI MARDERSTEIG (1892-1977) German immigrant to
Italy. A master printer, scholar, typographer and type designer.
Author of Dante, Fontana, Griffo and Zeno. His material is
at the Officina Bodoni, Verona.
GABRIEL MARTINEZ MEAVE (1972- ) Mexican type designer,
working near Mexico City. His faces include Organica, In-
tegra, Neocodex and Mexica.
ROD MCDONALD (1947- ) Canadian graphic artist and type
designer working in Toronto and, since 2002, in Halifax.
His work includes the Laurentian family and Cartier Book,
a family of type begun by Carl Dair.
HANS EDUARD MEIER (1922- )Swisstypographer.Designerof
Barbedor, Syndor and the several versions of Syntax.
JOSE MENDOZA y ALMEIDA (1926- ) French graphic artist and
type designer, working in Paris. His faces include Mendoza,
Photina, Pascal, Fidelio (a chancery script), Sully Jonquieres
(an upright italic) and Convention.
OLDRICH MENHART (1897-1962) Czech type designer and cal-
ligrapher. His serifed Latin faces include Figural, Menhart
and Parliament. His Manuscript family includes both Latin
and Cyrillic faces. His titling faces include Czech Uncial and
Monument.

340
WILLIAM ROSS MILLS (1970- ) Canadian type designer. Co-
founder with John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks in Vancouver.
Author of the Plantagenet Novus family (Latin, Greek and
Cherokee) and two families of Canadian Syllabic type, Uqam-
maq and Pigiarniq, for setting Inuktitut. His historical revivals
include the 1520 Garamond Roman.
ANTONIO DI BARTOLOMEO MISCOMINI (c.1445-c.1495) Ital- Type
ian punchcutter and printer, probably born in Bologna. He Designers
did most of his work in Venice, Modena and Florence, where
he printed during the early 1490s and brought his roman and
orthotic Greek types to final form.
GERRIT NOORDZIJ (1950- ) Dutch typographer and teacher. Noorcl!ij\ 'Ruse'
From 1960 to 1990 he was responsible for training type de- was originally
'Ru~-r: version E
signers at KABK (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kun- of a face designed
sten: The Royal Academy of Fine Arts) in The Hague, and for a Russian
thereby profoundly affected the course of modern type design bibliography
Specimens of five
in the Netherlands and elsewhere. Only one of his own de- of hi~ romans,
signs is publicly available at present: the Ruse family, issued four italic~. two
in digital form by the Enschede Font Foundry. Greeks and
one bastarda
PETER MATTHIAS NOORDZIJ (1961- ) Dutch typographer and are included
digital founder. Designer of PMN Caecilia and proprietor of in Lommen &
the Enschede Font Foundry. Verheul, Haagse
Letters (1996).
FRIEDRICH PETER (1933- ) Canadian calligrapher and visual
artist, born in Dresden and trained in Berlin. Designer of the
script faces Vivaldi and Magnificat.
ALEXANDER PHEMISTER (1829-1894) Scottish punchcutter.
Author of the Old Style Antique issued by Miller & Richard,
Edinburgh, beginning in 1858. In 1861 he moved to Boston
where he worked for the Dickenson Foundry.
FRIEDRICH POPPL (1923-1982) German calligrapher. Hisser-
ifed faces include Pontifex and Popp! Antiqua. His sanserif
is Laudatio. His titling faces include Nero and Saladin. His
script types include Popp! Exquisit and Residenz.
JEAN-FRAN<(OIS PORCHEZ (1964- ) French type designer;
founder and proprietor of Porchez Typofonderie in Mala-
koff, near Paris. Designer of Angie, Apolline, Parisine, and the
extensive Le Monde family, created for the Paris newspaper
Le Monde.
RICHARD PORSON (1759-1808) English classical scholar. He
designed the original Porson Greek, which was cut in steel
by Richard Austin. Monotype Porson and the digital GFS
Porson are based closely on his work.

341
 EUDALD PRADELL (1721-1788) Catalan punchcutter and type-
founder, working in Barcelona and Madrid. Some of the best
eighteenth-century Spanish books are printed in his types.
VOJTECH PREISSIG (1873-1944) Czech artist, typographer and
teacher, working in Czechoslovakia and in New York City.
Preissig designed several text and titling faces, including the
Type one that bears his name. His surviving drawings are in the
Designers Strahov Abbey, Prague.
ERHARD RATDOLT (1447-1528) German punchcutter and printer
working at Augsburg and Venice. Author of at least ten black-
letters, three romans and one Greek. In 1486 he issued the
first known type specimen. (The one surviving copy is in the
Munich State Library.)
IMRE REINER (1900-1987) Hungarian artist and designer work-
ing in Germany, the USA and Switzerland. He was a skilled
wood engraver and book illustrator. Author of several Expres-
sionist script faces.
PAUL RENNER (1878-1956) German typographer, type designer
and teacher. Designer of Futura, Renner Antiqua, Renner
Grotesk and the blackletter Ballade. His drawings for Futura
are now in the Fundici6n Tipografica Bauer, Barcelona.
JIM RIMMER (1934- ) Canadian punchcutter and type designer.
He has produced digital revivals of several of Frederic Goudy's
faces and made new text faces - notably Amethyst and Al-
bertan - in similar spirit. His titling faces include Credo, a
revival of Robert Foster's Pericles.
BRUCE ROGERS (1870-1957) American typographer, working
chiefly in Boston, London and Oxford. Designer of Montaigne
and Centaur. The original drawings for Centaur are now in
the Newberry Library, Chicago.
SJOERD HENDRIK DE ROOS (1877-1962) Dutch designer, typog-
rapher and printer. Author of the uncials Libra and Simplex,
the Nobel sanserif, and De Roos roman and italic.
RUDOLPH RUZICKA (1883-1978) Czech-born American typog-
rapher. Designer of Linotype Fairfield and Primer.
JACQUES DE SANLECQUE the elder (1558-1648) French punch-
cutter, student of Guillaume Le Be the elder. Author of several
fine romans and italics, music type, and a number of non-
Latin faces, including Armenian, Samaritan and Syriac.
JACQUES DE SANLECQUE the younger (1613-1659) Son of the
preceding. French punchcutter and founder revered for his
technical finesse in cutting small sizes.

342
VICTOR SCHOLDERER (1880-1971) English classical scholar and
librarian. Designer of the New Hellenic Greek.
FRANTSYSK HEORHII SKARYNA (c.1488-c.1540) Belarusian
physician, translator and printer, educated at Krakow and
Padova. Author of several fonts of Cyrillic type, with which
he printed at Prague and Vilnius.
ROBERT SLIM BACH (1956- ) American type designer, on staff Type
at Adobe since 1987. His faces include Cronos, Adobe Gara- Designers
mond, Giovanni, Minion, Poetica, Slimbach, Utopia, Kepler
and Warnock. His script faces include Sanvito and Caflisch.
The Myriad family is a joint design by Slimbach and Carol
Twombly.
FRED SMEIJERS (1961- ) Dutch typographer and type designer.
Author of the Quadraat family, Reynard, and the useful book
Counterpunch.
ERIK SPIEKERMANN (1947- ) German graphic artist and one
of the founders of the FontShop digital foundry. Designer of
the Meta and Officina families.
SUMNER STONE (1945- ) American type designer and first direc-
tor of the type department at Adobe Systems. Author of Silica,
Cycles, Stone Print, and of the Stone typeface family, which
includes serifed, unserifed and 'informal' series.
KONRAD SWEYNHEYM (c. 1415-1477) German monk and let-
terpress printer, working in central Italy. He is probably the
author of the two romans and one Greek which he and his
partner Arnold Pannartz used at Subiaco and Rome between
1464 and 1473.
GIOVANANTONIO TAGLIENTE (fl. 1500-1525) Italian callig-
rapher and designer of at least one chancery italic type.
Monotype Bembo italic is derived from this font.
AMEET TAVERNIER (c. 1522-1570) Flemish typecutter and prin-
ter working primarily at Antwerp. Author of many romans,
italics, blackletters and civilite script types.
GEORG TRUMP (1896-1985) German artist and type designer,
initially a pupil of Ernst Schneidler. His serifed text faces
include Mauritius, Schadow and Trump Mediaval. His black-
letters include Trump Deutsch. His titling faces and scripts
include Codex, Delphin, Jaguar and Time.
JAN TSCHICHOLD (1902-1974) German immigrant to Swit-
zerland. Designer of the Sabon family and the Saskia script.
Several of Tschichold's unproduced phototype designs were
destroyed in the Second World War.

343
 CAROL TWOMBLY (1959- ) American type designer and visual
artist. From 1988 to 1999 she was one of two type designers
on staff at Adobe Systems. Her work includes the text family
Chaparral and the titling faces Charlemagne, Lithos, Nueva,
Trajan and Viva. Adobe Caslon is her digital revival of the
work of William Caslon. With Robert Slimbach, she is the
Type codesigner of the Myriad family.
Designers GERARD UNGER (1942- ) Dutch type designer and teacher. His
serifed faces include Amerigo, Demos, Hollander, Oranda,
Paradox and Swift. His unserifed faces include Argo, Flora
and Praxis.
HENDRIK VAN DEN KEERE (c.1540-1580) Belgian typecutter,
working at Ghent and Antwerp. He cut many romans and
blackletters, at least one script type (a civilite) and several
fonts of music type. DTL Van den Keere roman is based on
his work.
CHRISTOFFEL v AN DI)CK (1606-1669) Dutch punchcutter.
Author of several Baroque romans, italics and blackletters.
Monotype Van Dijck and DTL Elzevir are based on his work.
Jan van Krimpen's Romanee and Gerard Unger's Hollander
echo it in various ways. Most of Van Dijck's material has
perished. The few surviving punches and matrices are at the
Enschede Museum, Haarlem.
JAN v AN KRIMPEN (1892-1958) Dutch typographer, for many
years chief designer at Joh. Enschede en Zonen, Haarlem. His
type designs include Lutetia, Romanee, Romulus, Sheldon,
Spectrum, Haarlemmer, Cancelleresca Bastarda (a chancery
italic), Romulus Sans, Antigone Greek, Double Augustin Open
Capitals, Lutetia Open Capitals and Romulus Open Capitals.
Except for Haarlemmer and Sheldon, all these faces were first
cut at Enschede by Paul Helmuth Radisch. Much of his work
is still awaiting digital revival.
JOVICA vELJOVIC (1954- ) Calligrapher and type designer born
in Kosovo, trained in Belgrade, now working in Germany.
His types include Gamma, Esprit, Ex Ponto, Silentium and
Veljovic.
JUSTUS ERICH WALBAUM (1768-1837) German typefounderand
printer, author of several Neoclassical and Romantic faces.
Both Berthold Walbaum and Monotype Walbaum are based
on his surviving punches and matrices.
FREDERIC WARDE (1894-1939) American typographer, work-
ing chiefly in France, Italy and England. Designer of the

344
 Vicenza and Arrighi italics. Some of Warde's drawings are
in the Newberry Library, Chicago. Punches and matrices for
the early (handcut) Arrighi are now at the Rochester Institute
of Technology.
EMIL RUDOLF WEISS (1875-1942) German poet, painter, callig-
rapher and type designer. Author of a fraktur, a textura (Weiss
Gotisch), a rotunda (Weiss Rundgotisch), Weiss Antiqua ro- Type
man and italic, a suite of typographic ornaments, and three Designers
series of titling caps or initials. All these were cut by Louis
Hoell and issued by the Bauer Foundry, Frankfurt.
ALEXANDER WILSON (1714-1786) Scottish punchcutter, type-
founder and astronomer, working at Camlachie, near Glasgow.
Author of the best romans, italics and Greeks produced in
the Scottish Enlightenment.
BERTHOLD WOLPE (1905-1989) German calligrapher and typog-
rapher who spent his later life in England. Pegasus is his text
face. His titling faces include Albertus and Hyperion.
HERMANN ZAPF (1918- ) German master calligrapher, type de-
signer, artist and teacher. His types include the roman and
italic faces Aldus, Comenius, Euler, Hunt Roman, Marconi,
Melior, Optima, Orion, Palatino, Zapf Book and Zapf Renais-
sance; the blackletters Gilgengart, Winchester and Stratford;
the titling faces Kompakt, Michelangelo, Sistina and Zapf In-
ternational; the Greeks Attika, Euler, Heraklit, Optima, Pala-
tino Greek and Phidias; and the script faces Venture, Zapf
Chancery, Zapf Civilite and Zapfino.
GUDRUN ZAPF-VON HESSE (1918- ) German calligrapher and
book artist. Her text and titling faces include Alcuin, Carmina,
Diotima, Nofret, Ariadne and Smaragd.

345
APPENDIX E: TYPEFOUNDRIES

A reliable encyclopedia of the world's typefoundries - metal, pho-

tographic and digital; present and past - would be a very useful
document. It would also be a thick one. This brief list is limited
to metal and digital foundries and matrix engravers that have
issued or preserved original designs that seem to me of lasting
value for setting text in Latin, Greek or Cyrillic.
Many of the type designers listed in appendix o (Robert
Granjon, William Caslon, Hendrik van den Keere, for instance)
also cast and sold their own type. Their foundries are listed again
here only if (1) the foundries outlived their founders and devel-
oped into independent entities or (2) they are currently active.
The phone numbers, fax numbers and physical locations of
foundries are subject to frequent change. Under present condi-
tions, so is their financial health and consequent legal status. Cur-
rent information is obtainable through the internet and the trade
press. Other useful references include the consolidated catalogues
of vendors such as Precision Type, in Cammack, New York, and
FontShop in Berlin, and the websites of on-line retailers such as
MyFonts and Identifont.

Adobe Systems, San Jose, Calif. Fundamentally a software com-

pany, founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke.
Adobe was the original developer of the Post Script computer
language - one of the foundation stones of digital typography.
It is also, with Microsoft, co-creator of the OpenType font
format. In the early 1980s it established a digital foundry and
an ambitious type development program directed by Sumner
Stone. Adobe has issued digital versions of many historical
types as well as original designs by Robert Slimbach, Carol
Twombly, Jovica Veljovic and many others.
Agfa, Wilmington, Mass. In 1988 Agfa-Gevaert absorbed the
Compugraphic Corporation, a manufacturer of photosetting
machines and film matrices. A digital foundry known as Agfa-
Compugraphic was then formed and passed from hand to
hand (e.g., it was for a time part of the Bayer Corporation).
In 1997,Agfa acquired the remains of Monotype, and in 1998
a new firm, Agfa Monotype, was formed. Agfa per se issu'ed
new designs by Otl Aicher, David Siegel and others.
Amsterdam Foundry, Amsterdam. A metal foundry established in
Rotterdam in 1851 by Nicolaas Tetterode with stock from the
Broese Foundry in Breda. The firm moved to Amsterdam in
1856 and in 1892 changed its name from Lettergieterij N. Tet-
terode to Lettergieterij Amsterdam. Typecasting operations
waned in the 1970s and ceased altogether in 1988. During the
twentieth century it issued new designs by Sjoerd de Roos and Typefoundries
Dick Dooijes. The surviving matrices and other materials are
now at the library of the University of Amsterdam.
ATF (American Type Founders), Elizabeth, New Jersey. This was
the largest metal typefoundry in North America, formed
in 1892 by amalgamating a number of smaller firms. In its
best days, it issued original designs by M.F. Benton, Lucian
Bernhard, Frederic Goudy and many others. Though the
company began to falter in the 1920s, it clung to life until
1993. Its library is now at Columbia University, New York.
Much of the older typographic material is in the Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC.
Bauer Foundry, Frankfurt. A metal foundry established in 1837
by Johann Christian Bauer. It expanded into an international
network toward the end of the nineteenth century. The Bauer
Foundry as such ceased to exist in 1972, but one branch of
the old empire - the Fundicion Tipografica Bauer (FTB) in
Barcelona - has survived. (It is separately described in this
list.) Bauer issued original faces by its founder and later by
Lucian Bernhard, Imre Reiner, Paul Renner, Emil Rudolf
Weiss and others. The surviving punches and matrices are
now at FTB in Barcelona and at wMD in Leipzig.
Berlingska Stilgjuteriet, Lund, Sweden. A metal typefoundry and
printing house important for its castings, during the twentieth
century, of original faces by Karl-Erik Forsberg.
H. Berthold, Berlin. Hermann Berthold's metalworks entered
the typefounding business in 1893. It acquired the original
punches and matrices of J.E. Walbaum and later issued origi-
nal faces by Gunter Gerhard Lange, Herbert Post, Imre Reiner
and others. Berthold was involved in the creation of photo-
type as early as 1935. It ceased casting metal type in 1978 and
turned to producing digital fonts in the 1980s. This activity
all but ceased in 1993, but the company has resumed selling
its own digital fonts. The foundry's collection of punches
and matrices is now in the care of the Museum for Verkehr
und Technik, Berlin.

347
 Bitstream, Cambridge, Mass. A digital foundry established in 1981
by Matthew Carter and Mike Parker, both of whom later left
the company. Bitstream has issued digital revivals of many
earlier faces and new designs by Carter, John Downer, Richard
Lipton, Gerard Unger, Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse and others.
Carter & Cone, Cambridge, Mass. A digital foundry established in
Typefoundries 1992 by Matthew Carter and Cherie Cone. It issues original
designs and historical revivals by Carter.
Caslon Foundry, London. A metal typefoundry established by Wil-
liam Caslon about 1723 and maintained as a family business
for four generations. It survived as the firm of H.W. [Henry
William] Caslon until 1936. Most of the older surviving pun-
ches are now in the St Bride Printing Library, London. The
newer material passed to Stephenson, Blake. In 1998, Justin
Howes acquired rights to the name H. W. Caslon & Co. Under
this name, his digital foundry in Northamptonshire issues the
series known as Founder's Caslon.
Deberny & Peignot, Paris. Joseph Gaspard Gille the elder, one
of Fournier's apprentices, opened his own foundry in Paris
in 1748 and left the business to his son in 1789. In 1827, the
novelist Honore de Balzac acquired this foundry as part of
his intended writing, printing and publishing empire. The
scheme failed at once, but the foundry was rescued by its
manager and bought by Alexandre de Berny.
Gustave Peignot entered separately into the typefounding
business in 1865. His own foundry entered its first creative
phase under his son and grandson Georges and Charles
Peignot, who issued historical revivals of the work of Jean
Jan non and created a series of types based on the lettering of
the eighteenth-century engraver Nicolas Cochin.
The De Berny and Peignot foundries merged in 1923.
Under the guidance of Charles Peignot, the enlarged firm is-
sued new designs by Adolphe Cassandre, Adrian Frutiger and
others. When o&P ceased production in 1975, the type draw-
ings and company library went to the Bibliotheque Forney,
Paris, and most of the typographic material - including a set
of original Baskerville matrices - to the Haas (now Fruttiger)
Foundry, Miinchenstein. Baskerville's punches, also formerly
held by D&P, are now at the University Library, Cambridge.
dfType, Texing, Austria. A digital foundry established in 1999 by
the Venetian calligrapher Giovanni DeFaccio and the Aus-
trian printer-typographer Lui Karner. The foundry issues
 the Rialto family and other text and titling faces, rooted in
DeFaccio's calligraphy.
DTL (Dutch Type Library), 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. A digi-
tal foundry established by Frank Blokland in 1990. It has is-
sued original faces by Blokland, Chris Brand, Gerard Daniels,
Sjoerd de Roos, Gerard Unger and others, and historical re-
vivals of types by Christoffel van Dijck, Jan van Krimpen, J.M. Typefoundries
Fleischman and Hendrik van den Keere.
EETS (Eratpda EAAf]VLKWV Turroypa<ptKWV ~101xEiwv ). Listed here
under its English name, G FS: Greek Font Society.
Elsner & Flake, Hamburg. A digital foundry established in 1989 by
Gunther Flake and Veronika Elsner. The firm has produced a
large number of digital revivals and made the original digital
versions of a number of ITC faces.
Emigre, Sacramento. A digital foundry established in Berkeley
in 1985 by Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko. In 1992, the
office moved to Sacramento. The firm issues original faces
by Licko,VanderLans, John Downer and others.
Joh. Enschede en Zonen (Johann Enschede & Sons), Haarlem,
Netherlands. A printing plant and typefoundry operating
from 1743 to 1990. In two and a half centuries of operation,
the firm acquired material from many sources, including
some of the punches and matrices of J.M. Fleischman and
Christoffel van Dijck. During the early twentieth century, it
issued in foundry form the types of its chief designer, Jan
van Krimpen. In 1990, its stock of matrices and punches was
transferred to the Enschede Museum.
The Enschede Font Foundry, Hurwenen, Netherlands. A digital
foundry established in 1991 under the direction of Peter Mat-
thias Noordzij. It has issued original designs by Bram de Does,
Gerrit Noordzij, Christoph Noordzij, and Fred Smeijers.
Esselte Letraset, London. Letraset Ltd. was founded in 1959 as a
manufacturer of dry transfer lettering. It was acquired by
the Swiss firm Esselte in 1981 and a few years later began to
issue its faces in digital form. The digital library now includes
both historical revivals and original designs by Michael Gills,
Michael Neugebauer and others.
Fann Street Foundry, London. A metal foundry established in 1802
by Robert Thorne. Its creative period came in the 1850s, when
it was owned by Robert Besley and issued original designs
cut by Benjamin Fox. The surviving material was acquired
by Stephenson, Blake in 1905.

349
 Font Bureau, Boston. A digital foundry established in 1989 by
David Berlow and Roger Black. It has issued both historical
revivals and original designs by John Downer, Tobias Frere-
Jones, Richard Lipton, Greg Thompson and others.
FontShop International, Berlin. A digital foundry established in
1989 by Erik Spiekermann. It has issued original designs by
Typefoundries Spiekermann, Erik van Blokland, Martin Majoor, Just van
Rossum, Fred Smeijers and many others.
Walter Fruttiger, Miinchenstein, Switzerland. The Fruttiger Foun-
dry, operating under this name since 1989, traces its roots to
an operation founded by Jean Exertier in 1580. For more than
two centuries it was known as the Haas Foundry, after Johann
Wilhelm Haas, who acquired the company in 1740. It now
possesses little material from before the eighteenth century,
and in its long life has not been the source of many original
faces. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, Haas
issued new designs by Walter Diethelm and, in 1951, the first
versions of Max Miedinger's Helvetica. It does possess some
original Baskerville matrices, acquired by Haas from D&P.
FTB (Fundici6n Tipografica Bauer), Barcelona. A metal foundry
established in 1885. It is the last surviving branch of the old
Bauer network and now holds much of the Bauer Foundry's
surviving typographic material. From 1922 to 1995 it was
known as FTN, the Fundici6n Tipografica Neufville - a name
still used by the digital arm of the company.
Genzsch & Heyse, Hamburg. A metal foundry established in 1833
and absorbed by Linotype in 1963. It issued both blacklet-
ter and whiteletter types designed by Friedrich Bauer, Otto
Hupp and others.
Golgonooza Letter Foundry, Ashuelot, New Hampshire. Estab-
lished in 1980 by Dan Carr and Julia Ferrari, who cast type
from Monotype matrices and issue Carr's own faces, some cut
by hand in steel and others created in digital form.
Grafotechna, Prague. A metal typefoundry important for its cast-
ings of the work of Miloslav Fulin, Oldi'ich Menhart, Vojtech
Preissig and other Czech designers.
GFS (Greek Font Society),Athens. A digital foundry established in
1992. It has issued digital versions of historically important
Greek types designed by Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Richard
Porson and Victor Scholderer, as well as new Greek designs
by Takis Katsoulides and George Matthiopoulos.
Haas Foundry. See Walter Fruttiger.

350
Hoefler & Frere-Jones, New York. Jonathan Hoefler established
his own digital foundry in Manhatten in 1989. In 2004 the
name was changed to reflect the increased role of his associate
Tobias Frere-Jones. The firm has produced important designs
by Hoefler and useful digital revivals of the Fell types.
Dr-Ing. Rudolf Hell. See Linotype.
Imprimerie Nationa/e, Paris. A printing house and foundry es- Typefoundries
tablished by Louis x111 in 1640 as the Imprimerie Royale.
With the French Revolution (1789), the lmprimerie Royale
became first l'Imprimerie Nationale and then l'Imprimerie
de la Republique. With the coronation of Napoleon 1 in
1804, it became l'Imprimerie Imperiale. After the Restora-
tion of 1815, it was again l'Imprimerie Royale. In 1848, after
two more revolutions, it was l'Imprimerie Nationale once
more. It has retained this name ever since - except for the
hiatus, 1852-1870, under Napoleon III, when it reverted to
l'Imprimerie Imperiale. It owns the surviving punches and
matrices of Jean Jannon (the source of most of the world's
'Garamonds') and a large quantity of historically important
material for the typography of Asian languages. Over the
years it has sponsored new designs by many hands, includ-
ing Firmin Didot, Philippe Grandjean, Marcellin Legrand,
Louis-Rene Luce and Jose Mendoza y Almeida. It is the one
surviving institution with punchcutters on salary.
Intertype (International Typesetting Machine Co.), New York.
When the basic Mergenthaler Linotype patents expired in
1912, a group of investors had assembled in New York, ready
to build a competing, and very similar, machine. Its matrices
included new adaptations of foundry faces designed by Dick
Dooijes and S.H. de Roos. The firm was involved in photo-
typesetting as early as 1947· After a merger in the 1950s, it
was known as the Harris Intertype Corporation and became
a principal manufacturer of photographic matrices.
ITC (International Typeface Corporation), New York. Founded by
Aaron Burns and Herb Lubalin in 1969 as a typeface licensing
and distribution agency. The original domain was limited to
phototype. In the 1980s, ITC began to license digital designs
as well. Not until 1994 did it start to produce and market its
faces directly. For more than a decade, there was a readily
identifiable ITC style: a standardized large torso with inter-
changeable serifs that reduced the alphabet and its history to
superficial costume. This Procrustean approach to type design

351
 faded in the 1980s. Coincidentally, the company was bought
in 1986 by Esselte Letraset. The list includes original designs
by Ronald Arnholm, Matthew Carter, Erik Spiekermann,
Hermann Zapf and many others.
Klingspor Brothers, Offenbach. A metal foundry established in
1842 and operated under several different names before its
Typefoundries acquisition in 1892 by Karl Klingspor. It issued original faces
by Peter Behrens, Rudolf Koch and Walter Tiemann. After its
closure in 1953, the library and drawings were transferred to
the Klingspor Museum, Offenbach, and most of the matrices
to the Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt.
Lanston Monotype Machine Co., Philadelphia. The Monotype
machine as we know it was devised by John Sellers Bancroft
of Philadelphia in 1900. It grew, however, from a series of
earlier machines invented by Tolbert Lanston of Washington,
DC, beginning in 1887. The American company created to
manufacture and sell these devices started slowly and was
soon outdistanced by its English counterpart, formed a de-
cade later with the same objective and almost the same name
(see below: The Monotype Corporation). The American firm
nevertheless remained in business, moving to Philadelphia in
1901 and pursuing on a smaller scale its own design agenda.
This included cutting mats for historical revivals and original
designs by Frederic Goudy, Sol Hess and others. The surviving
material was dispersed in 1983.
Lanston Type Co., Mt Stewart, Prince Edward Island. In 1983 Ger-
ald Giampa acquired a collection of patterns and drawings
from the Lanston Monotype Company of Philadelphia. With
this foundation, he established a digital foundry in Vancouver,
moving to PEI in 1994· The library consists almost entirely
of digitized versions of American Monotype faces, especially
work by Frederic Goudy.
LetterPerfect, Seattle & New York. A digital foundry established
in 1986 by Paul Shaw and Garret Boge. It has specialized
in titling faces, including many with carefully researched
inscriptional pedigrees.
Linotype Library, Bad Homburg. In Brooklyn in 1886, Ottmar
Mergenthaler began to sell his newly invented Linotype ma-
chine. This led to the founding of the Mergenthaler Linotype
Co., Brooklyn, and Mergenthaler Linotype & Machinery Ltd.,
Manchester, both in 1890. Their German ally, Mergenthaler
Setzmaschinen- Fabrik, Berlin, was created in 1896. Many

352
 of the early matrices were produced under contract by the
Stempel Foundry, Frankfurt, from designs by artists such as
Warren Chappell, Georg Trump and Hermann Zapf. Oth-
ers were produced in England from the designs of George
W. Jones, and in the USA from designs by W. A. Dwiggins,
Rudolph Ru:licka and others.
Linotype began producing photosetting equipment in Typefoundries
the 1950s, CRT (cathode ray tube) photosetters in the 1960s,
and high-resolution laser setters in the 1980s. The German
firm, which had relocated to Frankfurt in 1948, merged in
1990 with Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Hell GmbH of Kiel.
In 1997, Linotype's digital foundry was spun off under the
name the Linotype Library, which relocated to Bad Homburg,
north of Frankfurt, in 1998. It has issued many of the old
Linotype faces in digital form, and new designs by Adrian
Frutiger, Hermann Zapf and many others. A large collection
of early material from the American branch of the company
is now at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester,
New York, and the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
The Ludlow Typograph Co., Chicago. Washington Ludlow of Chi-
cago began making typecasting machinery in 1906, but the
Ludlow caster which his company sold throughout the early
twentieth century was a later device, designed and built by
William Reade in 1909. The machine casts slugs from handset
proprietary matrices and was therefore used for little except
display type, but several Ludlow faces have been successfully
adapted for digital text composition. The company issued
both historical revivals and original designs, chiefly by its
director of typography, R.H. Middleton. It ceased operation
in North America in 1986. The English arm, founded in the
early 1970s, closed in 1990.
Ludwig & Mayer, Frankfurt. A metal foundry established circa
1920 and closed in 1985. The surviving material was trans-
ferred to FTB in Barcelona. During its heyday, the firm issued
original designs by Jakob Erbar, Helmut Matheis, Ilse Schiile
and others.
Mergenthaler. See Linotype.
Miller & Richard, Edinburgh. A metal foundry established in
1809 by George Miller, joined by Walter Richard in 1832. The
foundry issued original designs by Richard Austin, Alexander
Phemister and others. When it ceased operation in 1952, the
surviving material went to Stephenson, Blake.

353
 The Monotype Corporation, Redhill, Surrey, England. An entity
called the Lanston Monotype Company was first formed
in the USA in 1887. Another, called the Lanston Monotype
Corporation (later simply the Monotype Corporation) was
formed in England a decade later. For the American firm, see
Lanston Monotype.
Typefoundries The typographically creative phase of the English firm
began in 1922 with the appointment of Stanley Morison as
typographic advisor. Over the next few decades, English
Monotype cut a number of meticulously researched historical
revivals as well as new designs by Eric Gill, Giovanni Mard-
ersteig, Jose Mendoza y Almeida, Victor Scholderer, Jan van
Krimpen, Berthold Wolpe and others. The firm began produc-
ing photosetting equipment and photographic matrices in the
1950s, and laser typesetting machines in the 1970s.
In the early 1990s a new and smaller company, Monotype
Typography, was spun off to produce and market digital type,
including digital reincarnations of the faces originally cut in
metal for the Monotype machine. This firm merged with Agfa
in 1999, becoming Agfa Monotype. Metal matrices are still
made on demand in England by the Monotype Trust.
Nebiolo Foundry, Torino. A metal typefoundry established in 1878
by Giovanni Nebiolo through the amalgamation of several
older and smaller firms. It is important for its castings of
original designs by Alessandro Butti and Aldo Novarese.
Nebiolo ceased operation about 1990.
Neufville Foundry, Barcelona. See FTB.
Norstedt Foundry, Stockholm. A metal foundry, formerly supplied
with matrices by Robert Granjon, Fran~ois Guyot, Ameet
Tavernier and others. The surviving material is now in the
Nordiska Museet, Stockholm.
Fonderie Olive, Marseilles. A metal foundry which ceased opera-
tion in 1978. It issued a number of original designs by Roger
Excoffon, Fran~ois Ganeau and others. The surviving material
is now at the Fruttiger Foundry, Miinchenstein.
ParaType, Moscow. Successor (as of 1998) to the ParaGraph (or
Parallel Graphics) digital foundry, which was founded in 1989.
It issues original designs and historical revivals of Cyrillic,
Latin, Georgian, Arabic, Hebrew and Greek faces.
Pie Tree Press & Foundry, New Westminster, British Columbia. Jim
Rimmer's press and foundry, started in 1960, now produces
both metal and digital type by Rimmer and others.

354
Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp. The printing house and
foundry established by Christophe Plantin about 1555 was
conserved for nearly three centuries by descendants of Plan-
tin's son-in-law, Jan Moretus. It was converted to a museum
in 1877. It includes a rich collection of original material by
Claude Garamond, Robert Granjon, Hendrik van den Keere,
Ameet Tavernier and other early artists. Typefoundries
Polygraph mash (HrlO rlon11rpa$Maw), Moscow. The Institute
for Machine Printing. Its drawing office, active from 1938 to
1992, issued type designs by Galina Bannikova, Nikolai Ku-
dryashev, Pavel Kuzanyan, Vadim Lazurski, Anatoli Shchukin
and others.
Scangraphic, Hamburg. Formerly Mannesmann Scangraphic,
a manufacturer of photosetting equipment. In the 1980s it
began to issue digital fonts. These were poorly finished but
included one important design by Hermann Zapf.
Schelter & Giesecke, Leipzig. Johann Gottfried Schelter and Chris-
tian Friedrich Giesecke established this foundry in 1819. Many
of the early faces were designed by Schelter himself. In 1946
the firm was nationalized as Typoart.
D. Stempel, Frankfurt. After its foundation by David Stempel in
1895, this firm absorbed the holdings of many other German
foundries. It also issued many original faces by Hermann
Zapf, Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse and others, and sold type cast
from the original matrices of Miklos Kis. After the foundry
closed in 1986, the typographic material was transferred to
a museum known as the Haus fiir Industriekultur in Darm-
stadt. The tools of Stempel's last master punchcutter, August
Rosenberger (who cut the original versions of Zapf's Palatino)
are now in the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz.
Stephenson, Blake & Co., Sheffield, England. A metal foundry
established in 1819 by John Stephenson, James Blake and
William Garnet, using materials acquired chiefly from Wil-
liam Caslon 1v. Over time, the firm has added further material
from the Fann Street Foundry, the original Caslon Foundry,
and other operations. Much of the inherited typographic ma-
terial is now in the fledgling London Type Museum, though
the company still casts and sells some type.
Stone Type Foundry, Palo Alto. A digital foundry established in
1991 by Sumner Stone. It issues Cycles, Silica and other faces
designed by its proprietor.
Tetterode. See Amsterdam Foundry.

355
 Tiro Typeworks, Vancouver. A digital foundry established in 1994
by John Hudson and William Ross Mills. It is named for Mar-
cus Tullius Tiro, the Roman slave (freed in 53 Be) who served
as Cicero's scribe. Tiro has developed extensive expertise in
the design and encoding of non-Latin faces, especially those
involving many contextual alternates.
Typefoundries Typoart, Dresden & Leipzig. A metal foundry formed in 1946 by
nationalizing the existing operations of Schelter & Giesecke
and Schriftguss. From 1964 until 1995, when operations
ceased, the head of design was Albert Kapr. The surviving
typographic material is now at WMD, Leipzig.
URW (Unternehmensberatung Karow Rubow Weber), Hamburg.
Established as a software firm in 1971, URW was diverted into
digital typography by Peter Karow, a physicist excited by ty-
pography, who joined it in 1972. It was the original developer
of the Ikarus system for digitizing type and of the HZ system
for paragraph-based justification. It issued a large number
of historical revivals as well as original faces by Hermann
Zapf, Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse and others. The firm entered
receivership in 1995. Its library has since been distributed by
a corporate successor known as 'uRw+ +:
Johannes Wagner, Ingolstadt. Established at Leipzig in 1902 by
Ludwig Wagner and relocated to Ingolstadt in 1949 by his
son Johannes. It has acquired matrices from Berthold, Johns,
Weber and other foundries, and continues to cast type.
C.E. Weber Foundry, Stuttgart. A metal foundry established in 1827.
It issued original faces by Georg Trump and others before
it closed in 1971. The surviving material was bought by the
Stempel and by Wagner foundries.
WMD (Werkstiitten und Museum fur Druckkunst), Leipzig. A
working typographic museum founded in 1994 by Eckehart
Schumacher-Gebler. Its large stock of typographic material
includes original punches and matrices by Johann Chris-
tian Bauer, Lucian Bernhard, Jakob Erbar, Albert Kapr, Paul
Renner, Jacques Sabon and many others.
Y & Y, Carlisle, Mass. A digital foundry specializing in fonts and
system software for the setting of mathematics and scientific
texts. It has issued original designs by Charles Bigelow, Kris
Holmes and Hermann Zapf.
FURTHER READING

The items flagged by small caps seem to me essential works of

reference or benchmark publications in the field.

1. BOOKS & ARTICLES

Adobe Systems Inc. PostScript Language Reference Manual. 3rd

ed. Reading, Mass. 1999.
Amert, Kay. "Origins of the French Old Style: The Types of
Simon de Colines:' Printing History 26/27 (1992): 17-40.
Anderson, Donald M. The Art of Written Forms. New York.
1969.
Avrin, Leila. Scribes, Script and Books: The Book Arts from
Antiquity to the Renaissance. Chicago & London. 1991.
Barker, Nicolas. Aldus Manutius and the Development of Greek
Script and Type in the Fifteenth Century. 2nd ed. New York.
1992.
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction:' in Benjamin, Illuminations. London. 1970.
Bennett, Paul A., ed. Books and Printing: A Treasury for
Typophiles. Cleveland. 1951.
Berry, John, ed. Language Culture Type: International Type
Design in the Age of Unicode. New York. 2002.
BIGELOW, Charles, & Donald DAY. "Digital Typography:'
Scientific American 249.2 (August 1983): 106-119.
Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. New York. 1933.
Blumenthal, Joseph. Art of the Printed Book, 1455-1955. New
York. 1973.
Bringhurst, Robert. "On the Classification of Letterforms" et
seq. Parts 1-5. Claremont, Calif.: Serif 1-5 (1994-97).
- - - . The Solid Form of Language: An Essay on Writing and
Meaning. Kentville, Nova Scotia. 2004.
Burke, Christopher. Paul Renner. New York. 1998.
CARTER, Harry. A View of Early Typography. Oxford. 1969.
Carter, Sebastian. Twentieth-Century Type Designers. London &
New York. 1987.
Carter, Thomas F. The Invention of Printing in China and
Its Spread Westward. 2nd ed, revised by L. Carrington
Goodrich. New York. 1955.

357
 Catalogue of Books Printed in the xv th Century Now in the
British Museum. 12 vols. London. 1908-85.
Chappell, Warren, & Robert Bringhurst. A Short History of the
Printed Word. 2nd ed. Vancouver. 1999·
Chiang Yee. Chinese Calligraphy: An Introduction to Its
Aesthetic and Technique. 3rd ed. Cambridge, Mass. 1973·
Books & Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. Chicago. 2003.
Articles Consuegra, David. American Type Design and Designers. New
York. 2004.
Coulmas, Florian. The Writing Systems of the World. Oxford.
1989.
Dair, Carl. Design with Type. 2nd ed. Toronto. 1967.
DANIELS, Peter T., & William BRIGHT, ed. The World's Writing
Systems. New York. 1996.
Davids, Betsy, & Jim Petrillo. "The Artist as Book Printer:· In
Joan Lyons, ed., Artists' Books. New York. 1985.
Day, Kenneth, ed. Book Typography 1815-1965. London. 1966.
Defrancis, John. Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing
Systems. Honolulu. 1989.
Degering, Hermann. Lettering. New York. 1965.
Diringer, David. The Hand-Produced Book. London. 1953.
Reprinted as The Book Before Printing, New York. 1982.
Dowding, Geoffrey. Finer Points in the Spacing and
Arrangement of Type. 3rd ed. London. 1966.
Dreyfus, John, ed. Type Specimen Facsimiles. 2 vols. London.
1963-72.
---.The Work of Jan van Krimpen. The Hague.1952.
Duncan, Harry. Doors of Perception. Austin, Texas. 1987.
EISENSTEIN, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of
Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in
Early-Modern Europe. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK. 1979·
- - - . The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe.
Cambridge, UK. 1983.
Enschede, Charles. Typefoundries in the Netherlands, translated
with revisions and notes by Harry Carter. Haarlem,
Netherlands. 1978.
Fairbank, Alfred, & Berthold Wolpe. Renaissance Handwriting.
London. 1960.
Felici, James. The Complete Manual of Typography. Berkeley.
2003.
Fine Print on Type: The Best of Fine Print Magazine on Type
and Typography. San Francisco. 1988.
Fournier, Pierre Simon. Fournier on Typefounding, translated &
edited by Harry Carter. London. i930.
Friedlaender, Henri. Typographische ABC: Een beknopt
overzicht der grondbeginselen van degelijke typographie.
Den Haag. i939.
Gaur, Albertine. A History of Writing. London. i984.
Gelb, Ignace J. A Study of Writing. 2nd ed. Chicago. i963. Further
GILL, Eric. An Essay on Typography. 2nd ed. London. i936. Reading
Goudy, Frederic W. Goudy's Type Designs. 2nd ed. New
Rochelle, NY. i978.
- - - . Typologia: Studies in Type Design and Type Making.
Berkeley & Los Angeles. i940.
GRAY, Nicolete. A History of Lettering. Oxford. i986.
---.Lettering as Drawing. 2 vols. Oxford. i970. Reprinted
as one vol., i 97 i.
Grimes, Barbara F., ed. Ethnologue: Languages of the World.
i4th ed. 2 vols. Dallas. 2000.
[Grinevald, Paul-Marie.] Les Caracteres de /'Imprimerie
nationale. Paris. i990.
Handbook of the International Phonetic Association.
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[HART, Horace, et al.] Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers.
39th ed. Oxford. 1983.
Hlavsa, Oldfich. A Book of Type and Design. New York. 196i.
Huntley, H.E. The Divine Proportion: A Study in Mathematical
Beauty. New York. 1970.
Huss, Richard E. The Development of Printers' Mechanical Type-
setting Methods 1822-1925. Charlottesville, Virginia. i973.
Hutner, Martin, & Jerry Kelly, ed. A Century for the Century:
Fine Printed Books from 1900 to 1999. New York. i999.
International Organization for Standardization. Information
Processing: Eight-bit Single-byte Coded Graphic Character
Sets. ISO 8859. Parts 1-9. Geneva. 1987-89.
---.Information Technology: Universal Multiple Octet
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KHUW. MocKsa. 1977.
ltten, Johannes. The Art of Color, translated by Ernst von
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JASPERT, W. Pincus, et al. Encyclopedia of Typefaces. 5th ed.
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359
 Jeffery, Lilian H. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. ind ed.
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Jensen, Hans. Sign, Symbol, Script, translated by George Unwin.
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JOHNSON, Alfred F. Selected Essays on Books and Printing.
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Books & . Type Designs. 3rd ed. London. 1966.
Articles Johnston, Edward. Formal Penmanship and Other Papers,
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- - - . Writing and Illuminating and Lettering. Rev. ed.
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Kapr, Albert. The Art of Lettering. Munich/New York. 1983.
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Schriften. Mainz. 1993·
---.Johann Gutenberg. Aldershot, Hants. 1996.
Karow, Peter. Digital Typefaces: Description and Formats. 2nd
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Kenney, Edward J. The Classical Text: Aspects of Editing in the
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Kinross, Robin. Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical
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Knight, Stan. Historical Scripts. 2nd ed. New Castle, Delaware.
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KNUTTEL, Gerard. The Letter as a Work of Art. Amsterdam.
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Koch, Peter, et al. Carving the Elements. Berkeley. 2004.
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Le Be, Guillaume [le jeune]. Sixteenth-Century French
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Legros, Lucien A., & John C. Grant. Typographical Printing
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Lommen, Mathieu, & Peter Verheul, ed. Haagse letters.
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Lunde, Ken. Cf KV Information Processing. Sebastopol,
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McGrew, Mac. American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth
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McLean, Ruari. Jan Tschichold: Typographer. London. 1975·
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Macrakis, Michael S., ed. Greek Letters: From Tablets to Pixels.
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Martin, Douglas. Book Design: A Practical Introduction. New Reading
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Massin, [Robert]. Letter and Image. London. 1970.
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---.Politics and Script. Oxford. 1972.
---.Selected Essays on the History of Letter-forms. 2 vols.
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Morison, Stanley, et al. A Tally of Types. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK.
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Mumford, Lewis. Art and Technics. New York. 1952.
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Panofsky, Erwin. Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York. 1991.
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Parkes, M.B. Pause and Effect. Berkeley. 1993·
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 Re, Margaret, et al. Typographically Speaking: The Art of
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Books & Sampson, Geoffrey. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction.
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Snyder, Gertrude, & Alan Peckolick. Herb Luba/in. New York.
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---.Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence
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Vervliet, H. D. L. Cyrillic and Oriental Typography in Rome at Further
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---.Sixteenth-Century Printing Types of the Low
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---,ed. The Book through Five Thousand Years. London.
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Veyrin-Forrer, Jeanne. La Lettre et la texte. Paris. 1987.
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Yardeni, Ada. The Book of Hebrew Script. Jerusalem. 1991.
ZAPF, Hermann. The Fine Art of Letters. New York. 2000.
---.Hermann Zapf and His Design Philosophy. Chicago.
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---.Typographic Variations. New York. 1963. Reissued,
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Zimmer, Szczepan K. The Beginning of Cyrillic Printing. New
York. 1983.

2. PERIODICALS

Fine Print. San Francisco. Quarterly. 16 vols, 1975-90.

[Complete index published as issue 16-4, 2003. See also
Fine Print on Type (1988).]
 The Fleuron. Cambridge, UK. Annual. 7 vols, 1923-30.
Journal of the Printing Historical Society. London. Annual,
1965- .
Letter Arts Review. Published 1982-93 as Calligraphy Review.
Norman, Oklahoma. Quarterly, 1982- .
Letterletter. Journal of the Association Typographique
Further Internationale. Mi.inchenstein, Switzerland. Semiannual
Reading through 1990, then biennial. 15 issues in all, 1985-96.
[See also Gerrit Noordzij, Letterletter (2001).]
Matrix. Andoversford, Glos. Irregular, 1981-. [See also Type
and Typography: Highlights from Matrix (2003).]
Parenthesis. Journal of the Fine Press Book Association.
London, San Francisco, etc. Irregular, then semiannual,
1993- .
Printing History. Journal of the American Printing History
Association. New York. Semiannual, 1979- .
Serif. Claremont, California. Irregular. 6 issues, 1994-98.
Typografische Monatsbliitter. St Gallen, Switzerland. Monthly,
then bimonthly, 1881- .
Typographica. London. Irregular, then semiannual. 13 + 16
issues. 1949-59; new series, 1960-67.
Typography Papers. Reading, Berks. Annual, 1996- .
Visible Language. Published 1967-70 as the Journal of
Typographic Research. Cleveland. Quarterly, 1967- .

3. A SAMPLING OF WEB RESOURCES

Alphabets of Europe: www.evertype.com/alphabets

Ethnologue: www.ethnologue.com/web.asp
International Phonetic Association: www.arts.gla.ac.uk/1 PA/
ipa.html
Microsoft Digital Foundry List: www.microsoft.com/
typography/links/links.asp?type=foundries&part=1
Omniglot: www.omniglot.com/writing/atoz.htm
Type Libraries & Museums: www.tug.org/museums.html
Unicode: www.unicode.org
AFTERWORD TO THE THIRD EDITION

Typography, like language, is more important to me for what it

allows to happen than for anything it accomplishes on its own.
I hope that in writing a book on the subject I have not given the
impression that either typography or design is an end in itself.
A few old friends and typographic mentors are mentioned
in the foreword. I owe thanks to many others. These include
Christian Axel-Nilsson, Charles Bigelow, Frank Blokland, Fred
Brady, Dan Carr, Matthew Carter, Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni,
Bur Davis, James Do Ba Phu(lc, Bram de Does, the late John
Dreyfus, Paul Hayden Duensing, Richard Eckersley, Peter Enne-
son, Christer Hellmark, Richard Hendel, Sjaak Hubregtse, John
Hudson, Peter Karow, Peter Koch, John Lane, Ken Lunde, Linnea
Lundquist, Jim Lyles, Rod McDonald, the late Michael Macrakis,
George Matthiopoulos, William Ross Mills, Thomas Milo, Gerrit
Noordzij, Peter Matthias Noordzij, Thomas Phinney, Will Powers,
Jim Rimmer, Richard Seibert, Robert Slimbach, Jack Stauffacher,
Sumner Stone, Adam Twardoch, Carol Twombly, Gerard Unger,
Ken Whistler, Glenda Wilshire, Vladimir Yefimov, Doyald Young
and Maxim Zhukov - who have made this a much better book,
and its author a less ignorant human being, in a variety of ways.
Translations of the work - especially those into Russian and
Greek - have put me increasingly in touch with typographers far
more at home than I with Greek, Cyrillic and other non-Latin
type. Their careful reading and engagement with the text has
taught me many things. In this regard, I'm especially grateful to
Vladimir Yefimov and Maxim Zhukov.
Most of the drawings were made by hand for the original
edition and recreated for the second in digital form by Glenn
Woodsworth.
For those concerned about such things, I might record that
the first edition of this book was set in Ventura Publisher software,
the second edition in Quark, and the third in InDesign. With each
such shift has come a marked increase in technical capability. I
have still, in every case, been obliged at times to subvert the soft-
ware, forcing it to do things its makers didn't foresee, or things
they did foresee and expressly excluded.
The book has involved the close testing of many fonts of type,
most of them digital, some of them metal. These have come from
 nearly all the active foundries listed in appendix E, and from some
whose operations have now ceased.
It remains the case that I have never yet tested a perfect font,
no matter whether it came in the form of foundry metal, a matrix
case, a strip of film or digital information. I have tested very beau-
tiful and powerful designs, and extraordinary feats of hardware
Afterword and software engineering, but no font has crossed my path that
to the Third could not be improved by sensitive editing. One reason is, the
Edition task is never done: no designer can foresee the inner logic of all
possible texts and languages, nor all the other uses to which type
is rightly put. Another reason is that setting type is a collaborative
exercise, like acting from a script or playing from a score. The
editing of type, like the editing of music, and the tuning of fonts,
like the tuning of instruments, never ends.
There are those who dream of a perfect world in which
copyrighted text is translated into copyrighted glyphs through
copyrighted rules with no more human intervention than it takes
to feed a tape to a machine, while money flows in perpetuity to
everyone involved. There are also those who think that putting
chairs and air-conditioners in hell will make it just as good as
heaven. Actually, working with type is an earthly task, much less
like sitting down and turning on TV than like walking on your
hands across an ever-varied, never-ending landscape that is oth-
erwise too far away to see.
INDEX

The names of typefaces are italicized aperture 12, 97, 119, 120, 132, 321
in this index, but no distinction is Apollinaire, Guillaume 21
made between generic names, such Apo/line 341
as Garamond or Badoni, and specific Apollo 104, 139, 215, 238, 257, 336
ones, such as Bembo or Aldus. apostrophe 87-88, 302, 310
reversed 316
abbreviations 30 apprenticeship system 139
punctuation of 88 Arabic 23, 65, 106, 111, 114, 142, 181, 184,
accents see diacritics 186, 205, 291-95, 303, 310, 311, 313,
acronyms 30, 48-49, 88 319, 322, 336, 337
acute accent 301 arch (diacritic) 302
Adobe Systems 184, 199, 346, &c architectural scripts 270-71
Aeneas 338 Architype Renner 212
aesc 50, 288, 289, 301 Argo 344
African languages 116, 288-95, 319 Ariadne 226, 282, 345
see also Hausa; Khoisan languages arithmetical signs 302, 319, 320
Agfa Monotype 199, 207, 346 Armenian 142, 343
see also Monotype Arnholm, Ronald 53, 222, 234, 235, 258,
Aicher, Otl 346 339, 352
Akhmatova, Anna 110 Arnold, Matthew 191
Akzidenz Grotesk 97, 132 Arrighi 32, 67, 79, 124, 140, 186, 206, 217,
Albanian 91, 291, 306 222, 233, 333, 345
Albertan 213, 342 Arrighi, Ludovico degli 85, 124, 140,
Albertina 213, 275, 280, 334 173, 222, 227, 235, 243, 244, 333
Albertus 282, 287, 345 Arrus 215,J40
Alcuin 100, 120, 212, 213, 247, 345 artistic styles & typography 119-42
Aldine types 125, 225, 321 ASCII 180
Aldus 52, 64, 78, 96, 104, 137, 214-15, Asian languages 201, 288-95
277. 282, 284, 345 asterisk n 303
alpha iota 301 asymmetry 164
Amasis 94 at sign 303
American Standard Code for Informa- ATF see American Type Founders
tion Interchange (ASCII) 180 Athapaskan languages 301
American Type Founders (ATF) 100, Attika 345
141, 212, 347 Augereau, Antoine 230, 333
American Uncial 269, 338 Augustea 282, 287
Amerigo 344 Auriga 334
Amethyst 215, 342 Austin, Richard 47, 129, 216, 228, 278,
ampersand 78, 301 333, 341, 353
Amsterdam Type Foundry 347 Avant Garde 282, 287
analphabetics 75-92, 300-320, 321 Avenir 336
Andromache 338 Avestan 117
Angelico, Fra 284 axis (of letterforms) 12, 123, 127, 128,
angle brackets 302 321, 325, 329
angle quotes see guillemets
Anglo-Saxon 288-89, 301, 308, 318, 320
""'
back matter 72-73
Antigone 274, 275, 344 see also endnotes
antiqua, defined 84 backslash 303
 Bahasa Indonesia 91 bicycle racing & typography 95
Baker, Arthur 270 Bigelow, Charles 58, 258, 334, 338, 356
Ballade 342 Biko! 91
Balzac, Honore de 348 bilingual typography
Bancroft, John Sellers 137, 352 see multilingual typography
Bannikova, Galina 279, 355 binding 195
bar 303, 307, 316 Binney, Archibald 334
Barbedor 340 bitmapped fonts 182
Index Barbou 229, 336 bitmaps 182, 322-23
Bahasa - Baroque 12, 51, 57, 84, 86, 94, 97, 98, 101, Bitstrearn 348, &c
126-27, 128, 221, 228, 229, 231, 235, type taxonomy 202-3
Ca11celleresca
252, 260, 276, 336, 339 Black, Roger 350
baseline 322 blackletter 32, 103, 127, 266-68, 323, 339
Baskerville 51, 56, n 82, 84, 85, 96-98, Blada 79, 140, 206, 241, 243, 333
97, 98, 104, 105, 129, 206, 209, 216, Blada, Antonio 243
273, 331 Blake, James 355
Cyrillic 279, 280 blam 288, 292
Baskerville, John n 97, 129, 138, 188, bleed (in printing) 323
211, 216, 218, 228-29, 274, 333, 348 Blokland, Erik van 350
Basque 91, 290-94 Blokland, Frank 122, 226, 233, 252, 258,
bastarda 266, 267, 322 334, 349
Bauer, Johann Christian 267, 347, 356 Badoni 37, 94, 105, 106, 131, 217, 279,
Bauer Foundry 212, 347, &c 324, 334
Behrens, Peter 352 Greek 113, 276
Belarusian 298-99, 304 Bodoni, Giambattista 106, 128, 131, 211,
Bell 47, 95, 99, 129, 216, 228, 249, 331 217, 228, 253, 274, 276, 334
Bell, John 47, 129, 216 body (of type) 323
Bell, Marvin 99 Boge, Garret 352
Bembo 37, 51, 84, 93, 94, 96, 104, 105, boldface 53-56, 60, 103-5
122, 124, 125, 140, 216-17, 227, 242, Borchtorp, Ludo If 279, 334
243, 244, 338 bowl (ofletterform) 324
Bembo, Pietro: De Aetna 217 braces 303-4
Bengali 181 brackets 76-n, 84-8s, 302, 304, 318
Benjamin, Walter 19 Brand, Chris 213, 275, 280, 334, 349
Benton, Morris Fuller 132, 218, 222, Breton 91, 306
223, 231, 234, 347 Breughel 336
Beowolf 190 breve 304
Berenice 334 Broese foundry 347
Berkeley 219, 220 bullet 304
Berling 84, 85, 217, 322, 336 Bulmer 131, 218, 324
Berling Foundry 347 Bulmer, William 218
Berlow, David 206, 219, 350 Burns, Aaron 351
Bernard, Saint, of Clairvaux 267 Butti, Alessandro 282, 354
Bernhard, Lucian 333, 347, 356 Byron, George Gordon 217
Berry, Jean, due du 267
Berthold, Hermann 347 Caecilia 94, 112, 218, 331, 341
Berthold Foundry 132, 348, &c Caecilia Metella 218
Besley, Robert 131-32, 223, 349 caesura 303
Bezier, Pierre 182 Caflisch 270, 343
Bezier splines 182-83 Caledonia 137, 226, 273, 333, 336
Bi Sheng u9 Californian 219, 220
bibliographies 81 Calisto 322
bicameral alphabets 322 Cancelleresca bastarda 246, 344
capitals, height of 324 Cherokee 96, 113, 142, 241
see also case; small capitals chevrons
caret, dumb 308 see guillemets
Carmina 47, 100, 219, 345 Chinese 142, 181, 184, 301, 304, 313
Carolina 120 Ching, Frank 272
Caroline script 120-21, 176, 212, 215, Chipewyan 117
247 Choe 270
Carolus 336 chromatic scale & page
caron 304 proportions 146
Index
Carr, Dan 334,J50 cicero (type measure) 324, 329 capitals -
Carter, Harry 280 circumflex 305
Cristal
Carter, Matthew 87, 186-87, 229, 243, Cistercian Order 267
278, 284, 286, 334, 337, 348, 352 City 251
Carter, Thomas F. 119 civilite types 188, 271, 344
Carter & Cone 348 Clairvaux 267
Cartier 219, 221, 282, 287, 335, 340 Clarendon 59, 106, 132, 223
case, upper & lower 49, 53-55, 120, 179, clarendon types 223, 330-31
311-12,322 class-based kerning 203
Caslon 51, 59, 67, 98, 113, 126, 221-22, classification of typefaces 12-15,
234, 279, 331, 334, 344 121-36
Caslon, William 51, 126, 211, 221-22, Claudius 339
255, 273, 274, 276, 334-35, 344, 346, Cloister 222, 234
348 Cobden-Sanderson, Thomas 222
Caslon, William IV 255, 355 Cochin, Nicolas 348
Caslon Foundry 348, 355 Codex 251, 282, 287, 343
Caspari 226, 256, 264, 265, 335 Codex Sinaiticus 175
Cassandre, Adolphe Mouron 348 Colines, Simon de 85, 189, 210, 273,
Castagna, Andrea de! 284 277.335
Casteljau, Paul de 182 colon 35, 76, 305
Caste/lar 62, 64, 160, 282, 287, 327 Colonna, Francesco: Hypnerotomachia
Catalan 91, 290-92, 304, 310, 313 Poliphili 171, 241
Cataneo 216, 340 color, typographic 25, 107, 194, 324
Catches, Violet 115 Colwell, Elizabeth 100
Cebuano 91 Colwell Handletter 100
cedilla 304 Comenius 47, 85, 223, 345
Centaur 67, 79, 84, 94, 105, 122, 140, Comenius, Jan 223
202, 206, 217, 222, 233-34, 244, 333, comma 77, 78, 305
339.342 inverted 311
Century Schoolbook 223 Complutensian Greek 273, 274, 338
chancery types 256, 273-74, 324 Compugraphic 346
Chaparral 100, 222, 344 Cone, Cherie 348
Chappell, Warren 79, 249, 281, 335, 353 Consort 223
chapter openings 62-63 contrast 60, 102, 111, 130, 324
character count 29 Convention 340
character sets 76, 179-82, 258-59, copyfitting 26-31, 35, 36-39, 73
288-95, 301-20 copyright (symbol) 305
vs glyph palettes 185-88, 331 Cornford, Francis M. 108, 109
Charlemagne 100, 120, 283, 287, 344 Cossgrove, Carl 227
Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus) 120, counter (of letterform) 194, 324
124 Courbet, Gustave 131
Charter 96, 279, 334 Credo 342
Cheltenham 96 Cree 113, 142
Cheneau 334 Cristal 282, 287
 Cronos 343 dialogue, typography of 81
crossheads 65-67, 324 'didone' types 121
culture & typography 22, 99-u4, Didot 94, 131, 210, 276, 335
u9-42, 143, 180, &c Greek 112, 113, 276, 336
curl (diacritic) 3ll Didot, Am braise Firmin
currency symbols 305-6, 317-18 see Firmin-Dido!, Ambroise
cursives 32, 56-59, 76, ll2, 265, 324 Didot, Hrmin 128, 131, 210, 253, 335, 351
Cyrillic 279 Didot, Francois-Ambroise 335
Index Greek 273-74 diesis 307
Cronos see also chancery types Diethelm, Walter 350
Cycles 343, 355 digital typography 94-95, 111, 136, 137,
- Edo
Cyrillic 32, 96, 107, 110, 114, 142, 179, 142, 182-85, 196-97, 198-99, 203,
181, 185, 205, 279-81, 298-99, 334 207, &c
pryamoi 279-80 Dijck, Christoffel van
Czech 180, 289-95, 301, 302, 304, 315 see Van Dijck, Christoffel
Czech Uncial 340 dimension sign 82, 307
dingbats 324, 325
dagger 306, 307 Diogenes 277
Dair, Carl 219, 221, 282, 335, 340 /Jiotima 100, 219, 224, 225-26, 239,
Daniels, Gerard 226, 256, 265, 335, 349 282, 345
Danish 50, 91, 301, 314, 317 Diotima oi Mantinea 225-26
Dante 125, 133, 206, 225, 244, 282, 338, dipthongs, typographic 92
340 see also ligatures
dashes 76, 80-84, 306 /)ocumenta 226, 334
em dash 80-81, 83 Does, Bram de 79, 139, 236, 249, 335,
en dash 80-81 349
swung dash 314, 318 Dooijes, Dick 351
three-to-em dash So, 332 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 107
see also hyphen dot leaders 35, 71, 324
Davenport, Guy 21 dotless i 51, 288, 307
David, lsmar 335 double acute 306, 307
David Hebrew 335 double grave 307
Davis, Miles 36 Doves Roman 222
De Roos 342 Double Augustin Open Capitals 344
Dead Sea Scrolls 171 Downer, John 136, 265, 340, 348, 349,
Deberny & Peignot 141, 348 350
Deepdene 209, 225, 337 o P 1 see resolution, digital
Dehccio, Giovanni 244, 285, 335, drama, typography of 21
339, 348 drop caps see versals
degree sign 306 dropline paragraphs 40, 325
[)elphin 251, 282, 287, 343 nT 1. see Dutch Type Library
Demos 102, 256, 344 Due de Berry 267
Denise 334 duck-foot quotation marks 86
depth oi page 37-38 dumb quotes 308
Derby 270 Dutch 34, 50, 91
Detterer, Ernst 222 Dutch Type Library 128, 349
Devanagari 142, 181, 184, 322 Dwiggins, William Addison 79, u3,
djType 245, 348 137, 226, 227, 269, 333, 336, 353
diacritics 34, 76, 89-92, 299, 300-320 dyet 288, 308
editing 200-201
Greek 110-11, 112, 179, 296-97, 328, Eaglefeather 57, 270-71, 330
329 Eaves, Sarah Ruston 188
diaeresis 306-7, 328 Edo 116

370
EETS (Greek Font Society) 350
Egyptian 505 59, 236 Fairbank 216, 227, 336
'egyptian' types see slab-serif types Fairbank, Alfred 140, 227, 336
Eichenauer 335 Fairfield 137, 226, 227, 342
Eidenbenz, Hermann 132, 223 Falcon 137, 336
El Greco 270 families, typographic 53-59, 102-6,
Eldorado 336 140,208
Electra 79, t13, 137, 226, 227, 336 Fann Street Foundry 349, 355
Electrix 340 Farnese 91, 288, 295, 308
Index
elevated caps see versals 'fat face' 267 EETS -
Elizabeth 100 Faulkner, William 83-84
fonts
ellipsis 82-83, 308 Ferrari, Julia 334, 350
Elsner, Veronika 349 Fibonacci, Leonardo 155
Elsner & Flake 349 &c Fibonacci series 155-58, 167, 196
Elsschot 334 Fidelio 340
Elzevir 126, 265, 344 Figural 79, 108, 109, 228, 236, 340
em 25-26, 138, 325, 328, 332 figures 46-48, 53, 309, 326, 327, 328,
em dash 80-81, 83 329, 331, 332
Emigre Foundry 340, 349, &c spacing & kerning of 31, 33-34,
en 325 71-72
en dash 80-81 Fijian 91, 313
endnotes 68-70 Finnish 91, 306
eng 288, 308 Firmin-Didot, Ambroise 273, 274, 276,
Enschede, Johann en Zonen 141, 349, 336, 350
&c Fishman, Janice Prescott 100, 338
Enschede Font Foundry, The 141, 341, fist 309-10
349, &c Flake, Gunther 349
Erasmus, Desiderius 271 Fleischman, Johann Michael 128, 228,
Erbar, Jakob 353, 356 273. 276, 336, 349
Erhardt 235, 339 Fleischmann 128, 228
Ericus 336 Flemish 91
Esprit 113, 135, 226, 252, 344 fleurons 63, 221, 285, 3t1, 325
Esselte Letraset 349 Flora 79, 102, 249, 256, 264, 344
Estienne 339 FL&R see justification
Estienne, Henri 11 85 flush & hung 325
Estienne, Robert 78, 85 folios (page numbers) 165-66, 175,
Estonian 306, 318 323, 325
eszett 50, 288, 308 Fonderie Olive 354
eth 288, 308 Font Rureau, The 350 &c
ethel 50, 288, 309 Fontana 340
ethnocentricity, typographic 89-90 fonts
Euler 345 bitmapped 182
Eusebius 222 defined 325-26
ew (I) 288, 292, 303 digital m, 182-85, 206-7, 209, &c
Ex Ponto 252, 271, 344 editing 35, 79, 181, 184-85, 198-207
exclamation mark 35, 77, 309 GX 184, 190
Excotfon, Roger 270, 354 licensing 199-201, 209, 211
Exertier, Jean 350 naming 208, 211-13
Expressionism 83, 134, 228 OpenType 34, 52, 184-85, 190, 202,
extenders 325 205, 206, 237, 240
extension (ofletterform) 112 pi 110, 238
eye (of letterform) 324,J25 PostScript 182-84, 189, 201, 202
ezh 289, 309 pretypographic 121

371
 fonts (continued) Garamond, Claude 74, 78, IOI, 122, 123,
selection of 93-117, 198-208 141.172, 188, 189, 230-32, 245, 246,
TrueType 182-84 337, 355
TrueType Open 184, 190 Greeks 188, 273, 274, 2n, 337
FontShop 190, 198-99, 208, 350, &c italics 235, 245, 337
food & drugs 19, 49, 94, 96, 117 Garamont 231
footnotes 68-69 Garnet, William 355
fore-edge 326 Geoffrey of Anjou 241
Index Forsberg, Karl-Erik 84, 85, 217, 336, 347 geometric form 95, 132-33, 136, 139,
fonts - Forum 337 144-53, 257, 258, 274, 328
Foster, Robert 283, 342 Geometric Modernism 14
Greek
Foundry, The 133, 212 Georgia 96
Fournier 129, 206, 228-29, 331, 336 Gering, Ulrich 219
Fournier, Pierre Simon 129, 228-29, German 34, 37, 43, 50, 91, 114, 180,
336 288-94, 306, 316
Fox (Algonquian language) 114 Geschke, Charles 346
Fox, Benjamin 132, 223, 349 Gestalt 338
fractions 81-82, 310, 329 GFS see Greek Font Society
fraktur 32, 266, 267, 326 Gilgengart 345
Franklin, Benjamin 129 Gill, Eric 47, 53, 57, 58, 140, 207, 234,
Franklin Gothic 132, 255 246, 258, 260, 277. 337, 354
French 34, 37, 43, 50, 82, 91, IOO, 180, Gill Sans 47, 53, 206, 234, 258, 264, 2n,
288-95, 304, 305, 306, 307, 316 279, 324, 337
Frere-Jones, Tobias 350, 351 Gills, Michael 349
Friar 337 Giovanni 343
Friedlaender, Henri 336 glam 297
Friedlander, Elizabeth IOO glottal stop 310, 311
Frisian 91 glottalization 114, 115, 116, 302
Froben, Johann 85, 210 Glypha 336
front matter 72-73 glyphic (vs graphic) form 270
Frutiger 96, 105-6, 237, 253, 257, 264, glyphs & glyph palettes 179, 185-90,
265, 279, 336 325, 326, 331
Frutiger, Adrian 47, 58, IOI, 105-6, editing 200-207
118, 131, 139, 141, 215, 235, 237, 238, golden section 150, 155-60, 175
243, 253, 257, 271-72, 283, 286, 335, Golden Type 222
336-37, 348, 353 Golgonooza Letter Foundry 350
Fruttiger, Walter, Foundry 350, 354 Gothic art 136, 266
Fulfulde 116 Goudy, Frederic 31, 79, 102, 140, 201,
Fulin, Miloslav 350 213, 219, 220, 225, 231, 234, 267, 268,
Fundici6n Tipografica Bauer 347, 350 269, 337, 339, 342, 347, 352
Fundici6n Tipografica NeufVille 350 Goudy Old Style 337
Futura 47, 95, 96, 106, 133, 212, 253, 257, Goudy Sans 337
264, 279, 342 Goudy Text 267,J37
Goudy Thirty 268, 337
""'
Gaelic 310, 290-94 Grafotechna Foundry 141, 350, &c
Galliard 87, 229, 243, 331, 334, 337 Grandjean de Fouchy, Philippe 351
Gamma 252, 344 Granjon 230, 339
Ganeau, Fran~ois IOO, IOI, 354 Granjon, Robert 125, 188, 229, 230, 243,
'garalde' types 121 271, 273, 276, 337, 346, 354
Garamond 51, 85, IOo, IOI, 104, 105, grave 310
I06, 122, 189, 230-32, 343 Greek 24, 89, 96, IOO-I02, 107-13, 142,
Jannon's types known as IOI, 126, 162, 179, 181, 184, 185, 205, 255, 256,
231-32, 339, 351 273-75, 296-97

372
Greek (continued) Heraklit 209, 240, 274-75, 277, 345
diacritics 110- n, 296-97 Herculanum u8, 283, 286, 337
linguists' 297 Hermes Trismegistos 286
Modernist 274-75 Hess, Sol 212, 352
monotonic 110, 328 Hiligaynon 91
numeric 297 hinting. digital 207, 326
polytonic no, 274, 329 historical authenticity 98-99
taxonomy of 273-75, 328 history of letterforms 12-16, 98-99,
Greek Font Society 349 I19-42
Index
Greenlandic 288, 318 Hoefer, Karlgeorg 105, 255, 268, 269, Greek-
grids 166-67 270, 339 Integra
Griffo 338, 340 Hoejler 338
Griffo, Francesco 122, 125, 140, 164, 171, Hoefler, Jonathan 244, 285, 338, 351
188, 189, 210, 211, 216, 225, 227, 241, Hoefler & Frere-Jones 351
243, 273, 274, 277. 321, 337-38 Hoell, Louis 217, 345
guillemets 86, 310, 316 hoi 311
Guillen de Brocar, Arnaldo 273, 274, Holiday, Billie 36
2n,338 Hollander 233, 256, 344
Gurtler, Andre 59 Holmes, Kris 58, 100, 258, 334, 338, 356
Gutenberg, Johann Gensfleisch 103, Hopi 113, 293
l19, 120, 155, 179-80, 188, 189, 190, horizontal motion 25-36, 163
266 Howes, Justin 221-22, 348
42-line Bible 180, 188 Hudson, John 282, 338, 356
gutter 326 humanism 12, 260, 321, 326
Guyot 334 Humanist 521, 531, 777 ( = Gill Sans,
Guyot, Francois 25>, 338, 354 Syntax, Frutiger) 202
GX fonts 184, 190 Hungarian 43, 91, 180, 301, 306, 307
Hunt Roman 345
Haarlemmer 96, 233, 245-46, 247, 248, Hyperion 345
258,J44 hypertext 193
Haarlemmer Sans 258 hyphen
Haas, Johann Wilhelm 350 forms 76, 78-80, 3n
Haas Foundry 132, 350 usage 42-44,88-89
haeek 304,J15 see also dashes
Hadassah Hebrew 336
Hadriano 337 Icelandic 91, 288-95, 308, 318
Haida 114, 115 Igbo n6
Hammer, Victor 269, 338 lkarus 356
Hammer Uncial 338 illustrated books 21-22, 161
handsetting 179-80, 186 Ilocano 91
Handy, John 216, 218 Imprimerie Nationale 351
Harris Intertype 351 indents 39-43
Hartz, Sem 137, 245, 247 Indonesian 91
Hausa n6, 180, 313 Industrial Revolution 255
Hauy, Valentin 255 initials
Hawaiian 91, n5 large see versals
headings 65-67 in personal names 30, 33, 34
Hebrew 23, 65, 89, 106, 111, 142, 162, ink 195
179, 181, 205, 3ll, 313, 319, 322 inline letters 62, 326-27
hedera 311 inscriptional letterforms 75-76,
Hell, Rudolf 353, &c 119-20, 255, 256, 259, 326-27
Helvetica 32, 78, 95, 96-98, 97, 106, 132, instinct & typography 143-45
211, 255, 265, 273, 279, 350 lntegra 340

373
 International Organization for Jessen 339
Standardization (1so) 327 Joanna 234, 246, 337
character sets 76, 180, 301-20 Jones, George W. 141, 222, 230, 339, 353
paper shape & sizes i48, 153, 154, 175 Journal 100, 134, 234, 340
International Phonetic Alphabet (1 PA) Juliana 137
II6, 299, 327 justification 26-27, 42-44, 190-92,
International Typeface Corporation 325, 327
(ITC) 351
Index Intertype (International Typesetting Kaatskill 213, 337
International Machine Co.) 351 Kabel 279, 339
intonation 88-89 Kaiser, Erhard 128, 228
- Lambrecht
Inuktitut n3, 341 Kapr, Albert 355, 356
Ionesco, Eugene 21 Karner, Lui 244, 285, 335, 339, 348
iota subscript no-II, 296-97, 329 Karow, Peter 190-92, 356
Iridium 336 Katsoulides, Takis n3, 276, 278, 350
Isadora 338 Kazcun, Alex 227
ISO see International Organization for Keere, Hendrik van den
Standardization see Yan den Keere, Hendrik
Italian 91, 289-94 Kennerley 79, 201, 234, 337
Italian Old Style 337 Kennerley, Mitchell 234
italic 53-55, 56- 59, 60, 74, 103, II2, Kepler 343
124-25, 137, 140, 265, 275, 327 kerning 32-34, 50, 69, 87, 137, 138, 199,
Aldine 125, 210 203-7, 327
alphabet length 27, 57 polynomial vs binomial 35
capitals 54-55, 59, 331 Kesey, Ken 21
Colines 210 keyboard layouts 75, 90-92, 138, 180
Dante 125 Khoisan languages n5, 309, 320
Didot 210 Kinesis 235, 338
Fournier 229 Kis, Miklos 126, 137, 141, 235, 273, 276,
origins 124 339
transitivity 56 Kis (=Janson) 235, 331
unserifed 255, 264 Klingspor, Karl 352
upright 57, 271 Klingspor Bros. Foundry 352
vs sloped roman 56-59 Kobayashi, Akira 259-60
italicization quotient 264 Koch, Peter Rutledge 277
,.., Koch, Rudolf 134, 267, 268, 284-85, 335,
Jaguar 251, 270, 343 339, 352
Jamil/e 338 Koch Antiqua 339
Jamra, Mark 235, 338 Kokoschka, Oskar 134
Jan non (= Mono type 'Garamond') Komensky, Jan Amos 223
100, 101, 230-32, 279, 331 Kompakt 345
Jannon, Jean 100, 101, 126, 230-32, 276, Korean 142, 181, 185, 304
338-39, 348, 351 kra 288
Janson 126, 137, 235, 339 Krijger, Henk 339
Janson, Anton 235 Krimpen, )an van
Japanese 76, 142, 181 see Van Krimpen, Jan
Jenson n2, 184, 222, 233-34, 235, 339 krouiek 317
Jenson, Nicolas 16, II2, 122, 189, 339 Kudryashev, Nikolai 355
blackletters 104-5, 268 Kuzanyan, Pavel 279, 355
Greek 2n, 273, 274, 277 Kwakwala n4, 289-95
roman 16, 104-5, 2II, 222, 233, 235,
258 Lakhota n5, 291, 294
types and replicas 222, 339 Lambrecht, Joos 339

374
Lange, Gunter Gerhard 269, 270, 347 Lubalin, Herb 282, 351
Lanston, Tolbert 137, 352 Luce, Louis-Rene 351
Lanston Monotype 140, 212, 352 Lucida 57, 94, ioo, 102, 264, 334, 338
Lanston Type Co. 352, &c Lucida Sans 96, 116, 258-59
Lardent, Victor 97 Ludlow Typograph 353
Latienne 338 Ludwig & Mayer 353
Latin 24, 37, 114, 181, 184, 185, 205 Lunda 336
Latvian 180, 304, 313, 319 Lutetia 103, 245-46, 275, 281, 344
Laudatio 341 Lutetia Open Capitals 344
Index
Laurentian 340 Lydian 249, 335 Lange -
lay of the case 179 Lyrical Modernism 15, 133
mechanical
Lazurski 96, 110, 280, 340
Lazurski, Vadim 110, 279, 280, 340, 355 Macedonian 291, 301, 308
Le Be, Guillaume, the elder 243, 340 macron 313
1.e Corbusier [Edouard Jeanneret[ Magnificat 270, 341
Modulor system 157, 158, 167, 169 Majoor, Martin 53, 79, 208, 246, 247,
Le Monde 96,J41 260-62, 340, 350
leading 36-37, 327, 328 Malay 91
Legacy 96, 102, 222, 234, 235-36, 246, Malayalam 142, 184
339 Malin, Charles 225
Legacy Sans 53, 264, 265 Maltese 288-295, 303, 315
Legende 271 Manfredi, Victor 116
Legrand, Marcell in 351 Mannerism 97, 125-26, 229, 243, 276,
letterfit 35 337
LetterPerfect 352 Mantegna, Andrea 284
letterpress 93-94, 138 Manticore 282, 338
Lettersnider, Henrie 266, 340 Mantinia 186, 229, 284, 334
letterspacing 30-32, 202-3 Manuscript 209, 228, 236
lettrines see versals Manutius 334
Lexicon 236, 335 Manutius, Aldus 85, 125, 171, 241
Libra 342 Maori 115, 289-94
licensing 199-201, 209, 211 Marconi 345
Lii'ko, Zuzana ioo, 134-35, 136, 188, Mardersteig, Giovanni 125, 133, 225,
234, 340, 349 280, 282, 338, 340, 354
ligatures 31, 50-53, 179, 188, 312, 327 margins 165-78, 323
line length see measure Marigold 270
Linotype Library 198, 350, 352-53, &c Maring, Herbert 267
Linotype machine 137-42, 139, 352, &c Martin, Robert 218
Lipton, Richard 215, 340, 348, 350 Martin, William 131, 118
lists (typography of) 35-36, 70-72 Martinez Meave, Gabriel 340
Liszt, Ferencz 217 Massin, Robert 21
lithography 138-39 Master of Basel 210, 227
Lithos 100, 118, 281, 283, 344 Matheis, Helmut 353
Lithuanian 304, 312, 313, 314, 315 mathematical symbols 302
logic, symbolic 303, 305, 313, 314, 318 mathematics & typography 145
logical form 20-24 Matthiessen, Peter 21
logical not 312, 314 Matthiopoulos, George 278, 350
logograms 49, 76, 327 Matura 270
logotypes 49 Mauritius 343
Lombardic Capitals 267 Mayan languages 116
longs 51, 288, 294, 312 McDonald, Rod 221, 335, 340
louse 313 measure 26- 28, 161, 163, 328
lowline 313 mechanical typesetting 137-42

375
 'media val' types 84 Morison, Stanley 97, 140, 207, 227, 246,
Medici ( = Palatino) 211 270, 354
Meier, Hans Eduard 47, 106, 141, 261, Morris, William 222
340 Mosley, James 255
Melior 52, 85, 345 movable type, early history of 119
Memphis 133, 331 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 229
Mendoza 52, 100, 101, 108, 112, 237, 340 Mrs Eaves 188
Mendoza y Almeida, Jose 79, 101, 112, mu(µ) 313
Index 200, 237, 240, 340, 351, 354 multicultural typography 102-17, 142
mediaval - Menhart 340 multilingual typography 22, 50, 91-92,
Menhart, Oldi'ich 79, 134, 141, 228, 236, 106-17, 142
Noordzij
269, 284, 340, 350 multiple-column pages 37-38, 39, 44
Mergenthaler, Ott mar 137, 352 multiple master (MM) typefaces 184
Meridien 47, 58, 96, 100, 101, 105-6, 215, music & typography 19, 21, 24, 35, 45,
237, 238, 243, 257, 265, 322, 336 83, 100, 117, 144, 146-47, 162, 163,
Meta 343 166-67, 198, &c
Metro 336 musical signs 313
Mexica 340 mutton see em
Michelangelo 215, 240, 277, 284, 287, 345 Myriad 96, 343, 344
Microsoft 204, &c
Middleton, Robert Hunter 353 nang 319
midpoint 75-76, 313 nasal hook 304, 314
Miedinger, Max 97, 211, 350 nationalism, typographic 100-102
Miller & Richard 353 Native American languages 34, 113-16,
Millet, Franc;ois 131 201, 288-95, 304, 314, 319
Mills, William Ross 230, 240, 338, Syntax character set 261
341,J56 Navajo 113, 115, 180, 289-94, 303, 314
Mincho katsuji 76 Nebiolo Foundry 354
Minion 49, 59, 96, 106, 107, 201, 281, negation sign 314
237, 343 Neo Hellenic 108
Cyrillic 107, 280 see also New Hellenic
Greek 107, 275 Neoclassicism 13, 57, 77, 84, 94-95, 97,
Miscomini, Antonio 219, 2n. 341 99, 101, 113, 128-30, 135, 136, 138, 162,
Mistral 270 216, 229, 241, 259, 274, 278
Miyamoto, Kenneth 21 Neocodex 340
'modern' types 121 Neogothicism 129
Modernism 14, 15, 48, 95, 97, 132-34, Neohumanism n. 97, 133, 217, 225, 237,
243 239, 241, 244, 246, 328
Modula 340 Nero 341
modular scales 166-69 Neue Hammer Unziale 269
modulation Neufville Foundry
between roman and italic 57 see Fundici6n Tipographica Rauer
of penstroke 76, 120, 130, 255, 328 Neugebauer, Michael 270, 349
Modular system 157 Neu/and 284-85, 287, 339
monitors, typography for 192-93 New Hellenic 111, 112, 274, 277-78, 343
monochrome types 95 Nicholas, Robin 227
monotonic, Greek uo Nigerian languages 116, 288-95
Monotype 122, 133, 206-7, 354, &c Nobel 342
machine 137-42, 139, 180, 354 Nofret 100, 104, 135, 219, 224, 226, 239,
see also Agfa Monotype 345
Monotype, Lanston 140 nomenclature 211-13
Montaigne 342 Noordzij, Christoph 349
Monument 228, 284, 287, 340 Noordzij, Gerri! 335, 341, 349
Noordzij, Peter Matthias 112, 218, 341, Palatino 52, 59, n 94, 95, 96-98, 97,
349 104, 115, 133, 141, 204, 209, 211, 214,
Norstedt Foundry 354 215, 239-40, 253-54, 274-75, 277,
Norton, Robert 219-21 278, 282, 284, 345
Norwegian 50, 91, 288, 301, 314, 317 Cyrillic 281
notes, textual 68-70 origin of name 211
Novarese, Aldo 282, 354 Palatino, Giovanni Battista 211
novels, typography of 20-21, 81 Palomba 251, 270
Nueva 344 Pan-Nigerian alphabet 115-16
Index
null 314 Pannartz, Arnold 212, 343 Noordzij -
numerals 46, 95-96, 314 paper 94-95, 100, 138, 143-45, 162, 195
Plantin
see also figures Paradox 344
nut see en ParaGraph International 354, &c
paragraphs 39
""'
obelisk 306, 307, 314 Para Type 354, &c
obelus 306 parentheses 76-n 84-85, 315
obliques 54-55, 56-59, 126 Parker, Douglass 21
octothorp n 313, 314 Parliament 340
Odd-job Sanserif 97 Parmenides 107, 277
Officina 96, 136, 239, 279, 343 Parmenides 334
offset printing 93-94, 136, 139 Pascal 340
ogonek 115, 304, 314 Pegasus 345
Ojibwa 113 Peignot, Charles 348
Old Style Antique 341 Peignot, Remy 282
'old style' types 121 Pepita 270
Olive Foundry 354 Pericles 283, 287, 342
Olivieri, Ruggiero 280 period (full stop) 77.315
Omnia 269 Perpetua 58, 322, 337
omicron iota 309 personality 99-102
Ondine 271-72, 283, 337 Peter, Friedrich 270, 341
Open Kapitalen 281 Peters, John 282
openings, textual 61-65, 281 Phemister, Alexander 131, 341, 353
OpenType fonts 34, 52, 184-85, 190, Phidias 240, 2n 284, 345
202, 205, 206, 237, 240 Philippine languages 91
Optima 47, 94, 137, 211, 259, 264, 345 phonetic types 116-17, 327
Granda 233, 344 phonomark 315
ordinal letters 312 Photina 79, 200, 209, 240, 340
Organica 340 phototype 139-40
Orion 345 pi fonts 110, 328
ornaments 40 pica 25, 73, 177-78
see also fleurons; hedera defined 328-29
orphans (typographic) 43 Pie Tree Press & Foundry 354
orthographies, new 113-17 Pigiarniq 341
orthotic types 89, 273-74, 2n 328 pilcrow 77,J15-16
outdents 40 Pilgrim 337
outline letters 326-27 Pindar 269, 338
overdo! 115, 315 pipe 316
Ovid 271 pixels 192-93
Plantagenet 96, 240-41, 341
""'
page shapes 10, 143-78 Plantin 279
pagination 42-44, 165-66, 175, 178 Plantin, Christophe 78, 122, 252, 338,
see also folios 355
palatal hook 315 Plantin-Moretus Museum 74.355

377
 Plato Quadraat Sans 260, 264
Symposium 226 quaints 329
Timaeus 168 Quay, David 212
Poetica 125, 186, 188, 189, 237, 241, 244, question mark 35, n 316
331, 343 Quiche 116
poetry, typography of 21 quill, pointed 130
point, typographic 25, 73, 177-78, 323 quotation
defined 329 block form 40-41, 86, 323
Index Di dot point 323, 324, 329 marking 64-65, n 86-87, 311, 316
Plato - Poliphilus 79, 125, 140, 206, 241-43,
'"'
racism, typographic 89-90, 180
roman 333, 338
Polish 50, 91, 180, 288-95, 303, 314, 315 Radisch, Paul Helmuth 344
Polk, Noel 83 Raffia 339
Polygraphmash 355 ragged setting 27-28, 325, 326
Polynesian languages 115 see also justification
Pompeijana 286, 337 Raleigh 221
Pontifex 78, 95, 133, 176, 211, 243, 322, random variation 188-90
341 rasterization 326, 330
Popp!, Friedrich 78, 133, 176, 211, 243, Ratdolt, Erhard 189, 342
341 rationalism 128, 216, 329
Popp! Antiqua 341 Realism 14, 95, 97, 131-32, 136, 321, 322
Popp/ Exquisit 341 Reformation 100

Porchcz, Jean-Fran~ois 341 Regulus 334

Parson w8, 111-13, 278, 333, 341 Reiner, Im re 270, 342, 347
Parson, Richard 111, 113, 274, 278, 341, religion & typography wo, 231, 333
350 Renaissance form 12, 30, 32, 78, 86, 94,
Portuguese 91, 304, 305, 306, 318 97, 98, 99, 106, 122-25, 127, 134, 138,
Post, Herbert 347 156, 157, 162, 201, 222, 230, 234, 241,
Postmodernism 15, 135-36, 227, 240, 246, 251, 261, 337
252 Renner, Paul 47, 133, 212, 253, 257, 342,
PostScript fonts 182-84, 189, 201, 202 347, 356
Pott, Gottfried 120, 267 Renner Antrqua 342
Pradell, F.udald 342 Renner Grotesk 342
Praxis 102, 249, 256, 344 Requiem 244, 285, 338
Preissig 134 resolution, digital 94, 192, 324, 330
Preissig, Yojtech 134, 342, 350 screen monitors 192

prelims 35-36, 72-73 Reynard 343

Present 272 Rhapsodic wo, 268
prime 307, 316 rhythm 25 -44, 45, 193
Primer 342 Rialto 244-45, 285, 335, 339
Prince, Edward 222 Riggs, Stephen R. 115
printing 93-94, 136, 138-39, 194-95, Rimmer, Jim 213, 342
203 ring (diacritic) 306, 317
proofing type 193-94 Rockwell 331
proportion 25-44, 143-78 Rococo 127-28, 228, 229, 336
punchcutting 133, 138, 186-87 Rogers, Bruce 79, ws. 122, 140, 207,
punctuation 30, 3s, 75-89 222, 233, 339, 342
Pushkin 280, 340 romain du roi 129
Pye, David 189 Roman Empire 120, 124, 152, 162, 317
roman type
quad sec em alliances 53-55
Quadraat 96, 102, 244, 246, 260, 343 alphabet length 27, 57
Cyrillic 281 boldface 55-56, 60
roman type (continued) Scala 79, 96, w4, 208, 246-47, 260,
components 124 262-63, 340
historical development 119-42 Scala Sans 53, 208, 260, 262-63, 264
sloped 56-59, 126, 2'1, 261 Scangraphic 355 &c
specimens 213-65, 281-87 Schadow 343
vs script 270-72 Scheller & Giesecke 355, 356
see also case; small capitals Schneidler, Ernst 271, 343
Romanee w3, 245, 246, 275, 344 Schoeffer, Peter, the elder 274
Romanesque art 332 Schoeffer, Peter, the younger 200
Index
Romansch 91 Scholderer, Victor 111, 112, 274, 277-78, roman -
Romanticism 13, 86, 95, 128, 130-31, 343, 350, 354
serifs
135, 138, 217, 218, 253, 274, 321, 322 Schule, Ilse 100, 268, 353
Romulus 58, 233, 245-46, 248, 260, 282, schwa 288, 290, 317
287, 327, 344 Schwabacher 266, 268
Romulus Sans 209, 260, 344 Scotch Roman 333
Ronaldson, James 334 screen monitors, typography for
Roos, Sjoerd Hendrik de 269, 342, 192-93
349, 351 screened text 62
Rosart, Jacques-Francois 228 scribal tradition 136, 138-39
Rosenberger, August 239, 259, 284 broadpen vs pointed quill 130
Rossum, Just van 188, 190, 350 Chinese & Japanese 10, 76
rotunda I05, 255, 266, 268, 330, 339 Egyptian 10, 161-62, 173, 175
Ruano, Ferdinando 244 European io, 120-21, 161, 164, 173,
Rumanian 91, 180, 279, 304, 305, 319 196, 215, 255, 269, 281
running heads & footers 20-21, 65, Greek 162
70, 166 Hebrew 162
Ruse 341 justification 190
Russian 32, 111, 298, 304 modulation of penstroke 75-76, 255
see also Cyrillic punctuation 76, n 78, 86
Rusticana 118, 286, 337 Roman 75-76, 255
Ruzicka, Rudolph 137, 226, 227, 342, 353 scribes 32, &c
script types 89, 127, 270-72
""'
Saami languages 288, 303, 308, 309 scroll form 162, 171
Saban 34, 52, 104, I06, 230, 246, 343 section sign n 317
Sabon, Jacques 246, 356 semicolon 35, 317
Sack, Freda 212 Serbo-Croatian 279, 288-99, 302,
Safaev, Tagir 239 307, 308
Sakwa, Jacqueline 340 Seri a 96, I02, 247, 340
Saladin 341 Seria Sans 53, 261
Sallwey, Friedrich 272 Serifa 331
Saito & Saltino 270 serifs
Samaritan 343 abrupt & adnate 321
Samson 269, 338 bilateral & unilateral 322, 330
San Marco w5, 255, 268, 339 concave & convex 93
Sanlecque, Jacques de, the elder 243, defined 93
342 inscriptional 119-20
Sanlecque, Jacques de, the omission of 255-56
younger 342 reflexive & transitive 56, 329, 332
sanserif types 97, I02, w5-6, 255-56, roman & italic 56, 330
330 on screen 193
Sanskrit 292-94, 313, 318, 319 scutulate 330
Sanvito 270, 343 slab 330-31
Saskia 343 see also sanserif; slab-serif

379
 set-width 71-72, 137, 205 spaces (continued)
Shannon 100, 338 hair 326
Shaw, Paul 352 hard 43, 326
Shchukin, Anatoli 279, 355 mid 328, 332
Sheffer's stroke 303 thick 331
Sheldon 245, 344 thin 331
Shen Kuo 119 Spanish 43, 50, 91, 180, 289-94, 306,
sidebearings 202-3 309, 3n, 312, 316
Index side heads 65-67, 330 Spectrum 94, 96, 133, 233, 246, 247-48,
set-width - sidenotes 68, 161, 176 275, 344
Siegel, David 271, 272, 346 speech, as reference for typography
Tagalog
Sierra 100, 338 49,88-89
sigma no Spiekermann, Erik 136, 239, 343, 350,
signatures (gatherings) 73 352
signposts, textual 20-21 sputnik 313
Silentium 247, 344 square brackets 318
Silica 343, 355 Squire 270
Simoncini, Francesco 231 Stan, Tony 219, 231
Simplex 342 stem 331
sinkage 160 Stempel 106
Sistina 215, 240, 284, 287, 345 Stempel Foundry 101, 133, 141, 355, &c
sizes, typographic 45, 157, 321, 323 Stephenson, Blake & Co. 223, 348, 349,
Skaryna, Frantsysk 279, 343 353, 355
Skolt 289, 295, 309 Stinehour, Christopher 277
slab-serif (egyptian) types 132, 136, Stone 94, 96, 102, n5, 343
218, 239, 330 phonetic u6
Slimbach 343 Stone, Sumner 343, 346, 355
Slimbach, Robert 49, 59, 107, 122, 125, Stone Print 343
188, 200, 222, 230, 233, 237, 241, Stone Type Foundry 355, &c
244, 270, 274-75, 280, 281, 339, 343, Stradivari, Antonio 141
344, 346 Stratford 345
slope, defined 331 subheads 38,65-67
sloped roman 54-55, 56-59, 126 subscripts 309
Slovak 290-95, 302, 304 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 218
Slovene 304 Sully fonquieres 340
small capitals 31, 46, 48-49, 53-55, 60, superscripts 68-69, 71, 309, 316
63, 103, 312, 322 swash 54, 55, 59, 324, 331
Cyrillic 32, 279 Swedish 91, 301, 306
Smaragd 281, 286, 327, 345 Sweynheym, Konrad 212, 274, 343
Smeijers, Fred 244, 260, 281, 343, 350 Swift 79, 233, 249, 256, 344
Smith, Eve 191 swung dash 314, 318
software, typesetting 51-52, 90-91, 180, syllabics, Canadian 341
188-90, 192, 196-97, 198-207 symmetry 164
solid setting 37, 331 Syndor 340
solidus 81-82, 317-18 synonymy 2n-13
Soncino, Gershom 85 Syntax 32, 47, 96, 106, 202, 261, 264,
Song of Songs 64 265, 279, 340
Sophia 186-87, 189, 286, 334 Native American character set 261
Sorbian 293, 295, 304 Syriac 343
sorts (typographic) 22, 179-88, 331 system maintenance 195-97
spaces ,,.,
between sentences 28-30 tables 36, 70-72
between words 26-31, 332 Tagalog 91, 318

380
Tagliente, Giovanantonio 124, 140, Trump Mediaval 52, 78, 84, 85, 95, 243,
217, 343 251, 343
Tahitian 91 Tschichold, Jan 106, 173, 230, 246, 343
Takaichi Hori 76 Tsimshian 114, 289-95
Tavernier, Ameet 343, 355 Turkish 51, 180, 288, 304, 306, 307, 315
taxonomy 12-16, 121-36, 211-13 Twitchell, Denis ll9
Tedlock, Dennis 21 two-column pages 37-38, 39, 44
Tekton 270-71, 272, 330 Twombly, Carol 51, 100, u8, 120, 126,
Telingater, Solomon 279 221, 222, 281, 283, 286, 334, 343,
Index
terminals (of letterform) 12-15, 312, 344, 346 Tagliente -
322,J31 type library ll7
Van Rossum
Tetterode Foundry 347 typefounding 138, 140-42
textblock 145, 148-53, 163-78, 331 typefoundries 346-56
textura 266, 332 Typoart Foundry 356
texture, typographic 25, 114 typography, defined 9-11, 17-24, 209
Thai 24, 100-102, 181
theatrical typography 21, 83
""'
u&lc 38, 332
Thompson, Bradbury 61 umlaut 306-7
Thompson, Greg 350 uncials 120, 269, 275
Thoreau, Henry David 66-67, 156 undercomma 319
thorn 288,J18 underdot 319
Thorne, Robert 349 underscore 319
Thoth 286 Unger, Gerard 79, 102, 233, 249, 256,
three-em rule 81 344, 348, 349
three-to-em dash So, 332 "Dutch Landscape with Letters" 256
Tibetan 181, 184 unicameral alphabets 312, 322, 332
Tiemann, Walter 352 Unicode character set 179-82, 185, 332
tilde 318 Univers 31, 58, 105-6, 174, 240, 273,
Time 251, 343 279, 337
Times New Roman 96-98, 204, 273, University of California Old Style 206,
279 219, 220, 337
phonetic u6 unserifed types 102, 105-6, 136, 255-56,
Tiro Typeworks 356 &c 264,330
title pages 61 Uqammaq 341
titles 30, 61-62 URW 356 &c
titling faces 281-87 Utopia 94, 343
Tlingit u3, u5, 291-95, 302 uvular consonants us
Toriumi-Lawrence, Carol 271 Uzbek 299>304
torso 48, 193
see also x-height Vafflard, Pierre-Louis 335
Trajan 100, 120, 286, 344 Van Blokland, Erik 190
Trajan us 52, 79, 82, 95, 249, 335 Van den Keere i22, 252, 334, 344
Cyrillic 249 Van den Keere, Hendrik 122, 252, 344,
'transitional' types 121 349, 355
trema 306 Van Dijck 206, 207, 252, 331, 344
tribes, typographic 53-59 Van Dijck, Christoffel 51, 126, 245, 252,
tricameral alphabets 311-12,J22 265, 344, 349
Trinite 79, 139, 249-51, 265, 335 Van Gogh, Vincent 134
Triplex 136, 264, 265, 340 Van Krimpen, Jan 58, 103, 133, 140,
TrueType fonts 182-84, 190, 201, 202 141, 207, 233, 245-46, 247-48, 249,
Trump, Georg 78, 84, 85, 243, 251, 268, 251, 258, 260, 274, 275, 281-82, 344,
270, 282, 343, 353, 356 349, 354
Trump Deutsch 268>344 Van Rossum, just 188, 190, 350
 VanderLans, Rudy 349 white line 332
Veijovic 252, 322, 344 whiteletter 89, 332
VeljoviC, jovica 113, 135, 226, 247, 252, widows (typographic) 44
271, 344, 346 widths of letters 35, 71-7i, 137, 19i, 215
Vendome 100, 101, 209 Wilhelm Klingspor Schrift 268, 339
Venezia 222, 339 Wilson, Alexander 274, 278, 345
Venture 345 Wilson Greek 278, 334
versals 63-65, 281-87, 325, 332 Winchester 336, 345
Index verse 41-42 Wolf, Rudolf 133
VanderLans vertical motion 36-39, 163 Wolpe, Berthold 140, 282, 345, 354
Vicenza 333, 345 women in type design 100
- Zippora
Vietnamese 180, 205, 288-95, 304, 308, word space 26-31, 206-7, 332
310, 311, 318, 319 Wright, Frank Lloyd 271
Village N' 1 337 wynn 289, 320
Village N' 2 337
vinculum 320 x-height 48, 112, 113, 332
virgule 76, 81-82, 320 see also torso
Visigoth 270 xylography 119
Viva 344
Vivaldi 270, 341 Y&Y 356
Yasubumi Miyake 76
""'
Wagner, Johannes, Foundry 356 Yeats, William Butler 41, 189
Walbaum 131, 253, 331, 344 Yefimov, Vladimir 280
Walbaum, Justus Erich 131, 253, 344, yogh 289, 320
347 Yoruba 116, 180, 293, 294
Walker, Emery 222
Wallau 339 Zapf, Hermann 47, 57, n 78, 85, 97,
Warde, Frederic 79, 124, 140, 222, 233, 104, 116, 133, 137, 141, 190-92, 211,
333, 344-45 215, 223, 235, 239, 249, 253, 259-60,
Warnock 96, 281, 343 272, 274-75, 277, 278, 281, 284, 345,
Cyrillic 281 352, 355, 356
Warnock, John 346 Zapf Book 345
Weber Foundry 356 Zapf Chancery 57, 345
wedge (diacritic) 304 Zapf Civilite 345
weight of typeface 332 Zapf International 85, 95, 104, 331
see also color Zapf Renaissance 189, 253-54, 278,
Weiss 95 331, 345
Weiss, Emil Rudolf 345, 347 Zapf-von Hesse, Gudrun 47, 100, 120,
Weiss Antiqua 345 135, 212, 215, 219, 224, 225, 239, 247,
Weiss Gotisch 345 281, 282, 286, 345, 348, 355, 356
Weiss Initials 345 Zapfi110 186, 190, 27i, 345
Weiss Rundgotisch 345 Zeno 340
Welsh 91, 180, 201, 289-95, 305, 306 Zippora 334
Werkstatten und Museum fur
Druckkunst, Leipzig 356
This book was designed by Robert Bringhurst.
It was edited and set into type in Canada,
then printed and bound by C&C in Hong Kong.

The text face is Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach.

This is an enlargement and revision of Slimbach's original Minion type
issued by Adobe Systems. Mountain View, California, in 1989.

The captions are set in Scala Sans, part of a family of type

designed in the Netherlands by Martin Majoor. The face was issued
by FontShop International, Berlin, and its affiliates in 1994.

The paper is Glatfelter Laid, made

at the Spring Grove Mill in Pennsylvania.
It is of archival quality and acid-free.