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Its History 73
which we employ today as companion faces to roman types probably derive from the more graceful italic of Ludovico Arrighi, a Vatican scribe. Early italic faces featured upright capital letters, italic capitals not being sloped until about 1540. Italic type was used as text at first because of its economy in making possible more words on a printed page, but in time italic came to be selected for special use where emphasis or distinction was required.
The great type designer Garamond probably drew upon the type faces of Jenson and Aldus for his roman faces and followed Arrighi for his italic. The two designs, roman and italic, became companion faces during the mid-16th century in Garamond’s time. Independent of manuscript forms, Garamond’s designs were noted for their clarity, freedom, delicate beauty and gracefulness of design. Many very legible and practical present-day types are based on them.
Other designers who followed Garamond included Robert Granjon, a Frenchman who cut new faces, including italics based on Garamond’s faces, for the Holy See in Rome; and Christopher Van Dyck, of Amsterdam, who cut many beautiful types. Dutch fonts, including the type faces of Bartholomew and Dirck Voskens, were in the ascendancy for some years.
An advancement in roman letter development and a step toward modern type was the very regal face cut by Phillipe Granjean for Louis XIV and called “Roman du Roi Louis XIV.” This letter was adapted and redesigned by Fournier, who narrowed its proportions.
Typography in England was advanced by William Caslon (1722) who followed Jenson’s designs among others, producing type faces that combined great beauty with readability. The type that bears the name Caslon remains a most practical, effective and usable type face—especially in the field of advertising.
A generation later (in 1750) John Baskerville of Birmingham, type designer, paper maker, printer and literary perfectionist, introduced strong, expertly designed types, including the first of the “modern” faces.
The vigorous faces of Caslon and Baskerville, together with those of Garamond, remain great basic types.
In France, Francois Didot (1730-1800) and his sons produced many interesting faces, including types of a modern design. In 1770 Didot introduced the Pierre Simon Fournier point system of determining type sizes—an important contribution to printing.
With the 18th century came the type faces of the “modern”’ designers— as typified by the precise and mechanically perfect faces of Giambattista Bodoni. The type faces of Bodoni in Italy and Didot in France featured modern lines in the construction of roman letters, including thick-and-thin letter strokes and