![]() William Caslon IV’s sans serif was categorized as “Two Lines English Egyptian,”. It looks lovely, but was superseded in both practicality and readability by the system devised by Louis Braille, himself a student at the school Haüy founded. It was first embossed and then often carefully inked over the top so that it could also be read visually, as in the photo above. The typeface, which, along with his method, is called the Haüy System, is an early form of sans serif, but it reads more like an upright italic or a disconnected script. In 1784, a year of preparation during which he devoted himself to educating a single student, Haüy developed an embossing typeface with which to make tactile books. (Image source: Camille Sourget)Īnother interesting typographic innovation was the work of Valentin Haüy, who founded a school for blind children in 1785. Haüy’s type, created to emboss pages so as to be read by touch, was oddly ornate for its purpose. Circa 1748, the foundry of William Caslon (with whom you should be familiar) cut the first known sans-serif Etruscan type for the Oxford University Press, although there are earlier usages of sans serifs in similar applications. Strangely enough, the first “sans serif” type was created not for the Latin alphabet, but for use in 18th-century academic works on Etruscan culture, which preceded the Roman Empire in the geographical area of modern-day Italy. The earliest sans-serif letterforms were, of course, not type, but inscriptions, dating back to as early as the 5th century BC, and enjoyed a resurgence in engraving and inscriptions in the 18th century.Ĭaslon’s Etruscan type, as seen in a 1766 specimen book. To follow the progression of sans serifs, we must step back in time a number of years. By the time slab serifs were being popularized, early sans serifs had already been around for some time in a variety of forms. ![]() When we left off in part 1, it was circa 1815, with the first appearances of slab serifs, also called Mechanistics or Egyptiennes. First typefaces created expressly for display purposes.Very heavy weight and low contrast between thick and thin.Named after Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni.Extreme contrast between thick and thin.Virtually vertical axis and high contrast between heavy and thin strokes.First appeared in the late-17th century.Designed independently, sometimes on a grid. Still has a tilted axis but less obvious than in Humanist type.Named after influential type designers Claude Garamont and Aldus Manutius.Less calligraphic influence because type began to be viewed as separate from writing. ![]()
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