![]() ![]() ![]() One of the committee members, Jacques Jaugeon - at that time better known as a maker of educational board games - in consultation with other members, produced the designs constructed on a 48×48 grid (2,304 squares). The Romain du Roi is often referred to as Grandjean’s type, but the designs were produced by a committee* set up by the French Academy of Science. Remember, this is the Age of the Enlightenment, marked by resistance to tradition, whether that be art, literature, philosophy, religion, whatever so it’s no surprise that this same era should give birth to radically different types. The Romain du Roi marked a significant departure from the former Old Style types and was much less influenced by handwritten letterforms. But today we stand in the cobbled streets of 17th century France Louis XIV is on the throne and Jacques Jaugeon is working on what is now considered to be the first Transitional (or Neoclassical) style typeface, the Romain du Roi or King’s Roman, commissioned by Louis XIV for the Imprimerie Royale in 1692. Today we’ve moved along the time-line to the cusp of the 18th century, the start of a period in history that we now refer to as the The Enlightenment, a time that was to sow the seeds of revolution in France, North America and beyond. In part two we considered the Old Style or Garalde types and also discovered how this era gave birth to the first italic type in 1501. In part one we traveled all the way back to the 15th century to take a closer look at the Humanist or Venetian style types with their distinctive lowercase ‘e’ (remember that sloping crossbar?). Welcome to part three of our Type Terms series. 2014.For a modern-day transitional typeface, be sure to check out the Brill typeface family. "Making Sense Of Type Classification (Part 1)." Smashing Magazine. Eaves - a Baskerville revival named after Sarah Eaves, Baskerville’s wife - all fall into this category. Details become very refined.Įric Gill’s Joanna, Melior, Clearface and Mrs. The serifs are less bracketed and flatten out. The weight difference between the thickest and thinnest points is now exaggerated. The axis is now nearly, if not completely, vertical. In the Transitionals (or Neoclassicals), we see certain trends continuing. Pierre Fournier, uncannily sharing a name with an acclaimed 20th-century cellist, also had an interest in music and developed a new style of typography for musical notation. ![]() Fournier was highly respected in his lifetime, and despite having consulted royalty both within France and internationally on type design and having established printing houses, Fournier is primarily remembered today for introducing the point system as a way to measure type sizes. ![]() Numerous revivals, both metal and digital type, that draw on Baskerville have been made.įournier was among the printers who praised Baskerville’s type, reserving particularly high compliments for his italics. You may have read of the humorous encounter in which Franklin outwitted a critic of Baskerville. This did not please most of the printing world at the time, and Baskerville endured harsh criticism, despite having such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin as friends and advocates of his work. Baskerville, an entrepreneur who dabbled in multiple businesses, developed quite an interest in printing and eventually designed his own type in order to improve on Caslon’s work. Two of the biggest names in type during this period were John Baskerville and Pierre Simon Fournier. Although commissioned in 1692, the entire family of 86 fonts was not completed until 1745. The Romain du Roi - literally the “King’s Roman” - was designed using a strict grid, and its development was an arduous process, involving a committee that included a mathematician and an engineer. In the late-17th century, Louis XIV, as part of a general renovation of France’s Imprimerie Royale (the governmental printing works), commissioned the French Academy of Sciences to create a new typeface. Because this part of type history is also significant, many have asserted that “Transitional” is an inadequate name for it, and this category may also be termed Neoclassical or Realist. In fact, William Caslon was creating typefaces based on Old-Style Dutch type as late as the 1720s. Work was begun on the first Transitional typeface in 1692, long before people had left behind making Garaldes. ![]()
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