William Caslon was born in 1692 in cradley, Worcestershire, England. In 1706 at the age of 13 he began a seven-year apprenticeship as an engraver with a London harness marker. In 1716 he became a self-employed engraver of gunlocks and barrels, and as a bookbinders tool cutter. In 1721 the society for promoting Christian knowledge commissioned Caslon to cast Arabic alphabets where his font became an instant success. In around 1720 William Caslon founded a typeface foundry called the Caslon Foundry. That foundry became the leading English typeface foundry of the 18th and early 19th centuries. He died in 1766. Caslon is cited as the first original typeface of English origin. Caslon’s font is characterized by its short ascenders and decenders, bracketed serifs, moderately high contrast, robust texture and moderate modulation of stroke. The Caslon’s typeface has become one of the most famous typefaces in the world today. The first copy of the declaration of independence was printed in Caslon. There are many typefaces that have been derived from Caslon’s font in existence. Caslon’s type is now considered a good, readable typeface for text.
William Caslon designed a number of serif typefaces in his lifetime, some of which are still used today. The first three fonts by William Caslon were Arabic, Hebrew and Koptic. He also designed typefaces such as Caslon 540, Caslon Bold, Caslon Old Face, Big Caslon, Caslon Open Face, Williams Caslon Text and most likely in any other that has the name ‘Caslon’ on it.
The United States Declaration of Independence was set in Caslon type, which would have to be one of William Caslon’s greatest accomplishments.
The name ‘Caslon’ comes from the 18th Century typeface that was designed by William Caslon. This serif typeface was printed in the earliest English language texts and is also know to the typeface used for the New Yorker Magazine.
William Caslon’s typefaces immediately became popular and were used for many important printed works. Caslon’s type became so popular that the expression about the typeface choice, ‘when in doubt, use Caslon,’ came about.
After William Caslon’s death in 1766, his typefaces fell out of favour but were revived in the 1840s, some of which are widely used today.
In 1716 he built his own type foundary in London, which produced some 16 years later his most famous typeface Caslon. He first started out in his business as an engraver of gunlocks and barrels and as a bookbinders tool cutter. He later established contact and encouragement through the printers William Bowyer and John Watts that lead to cutting type punches for various presses London.
In 1720 he designed an “English Arabic” typeface used in the New Testament. Soon after in 1722 he released his first typefaces, which were based on seventeenth century Dutch old style designs and were used extensively in England because of their practicality. 1726 was when the typeface Caslon was first used and soon after it’s release he received loans and sufficient trade, which enabled him to complete the setup of his foundary. Up until the 1780’s there were few books that weren’t printed in one of his typefaces.
http://www.indexhibit.org/participants/
While researching portfolios of graphic designers, i came across a few that i really liked. The links are as below:
http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/13657
http://www.colors-of-kludge.com/index.php?/
http://www.robobop.com/sketch/
http://www.awork.pl/
http://roman.koenigshofer.net/
The questions we have been asked is ‘Why are most books printed in serif type?’ and ‘Which typeface is more readable?’ Well, fonts come in many different styles, based around the serif and sans serif type. Serif fonts have a decorative feel to them, much like the ‘Times’ style fonts. Sans serif fonts have a modern feel to them, much like the ‘Helvetica’ style fonts. So which one seems best suited for printed books/novels? It all has to do with the readability. The readability depends on how letters work together in words and in lines of text. But before we test the readability of the font, we must consider the differences between printed and digital text. When displaying text on-screen/digital, a letter with fine diagonal features and curves will appear different depending on the range of dots on the screen. This is because each tiny part of a letter relies on a pixel to be filled with colour, i.e. Black. If you look closely at your screen you will see how the pixels make up each letter. In particular typefaces, the range of pixels that make up one letter sometimes make it hard to interpret what letter it is, this is why sans serif type more so than serif type is most common for on-screen use. The smaller the font size on-screen the harder the text will be to read due to the collaboration of pixels. The larger the font size on-screen the finer and more detailed the text will be, making it more readable. This problem doesn’t arise when printing serif type as paper does not have pixels, which makes serif type on paper more readable than serif type on-screen. This may be one reason why most books are printed with serif type, because typographers feel that serif text is more readable. But I believe it has more to do with the traditional side. When printing first came about, type was set in more serif fonts than sans serif. And most books you see around today that may be very old, are set in serif type. Nowadays the majority of books are set in a serif type, because serif type flows as you read it, making it more readable than sans serif type. Serif fonts are used in traditional printed material such as books and newspapers. Many magazines use sans serif type as some editor’s state that they are cleaner and more readable. Serif type may be considered as a display type face which should only be used for headings or titles. Although sans serif type may also be used for headings and titles. Whatever you use your typeface for, it all depends on whether it looks good and it’s readable. There are many theories and debates suggesting sans serif type is more readable than serif type, and others suggesting the opposite. There have been ridiculous statements suggesting that ‘serifs are used for body text because sans serif causes fatigue’. But I think it’s just how you prefer the type, what you’re use to reading and which typeface is more readable to you. In the end I think it all comes down to your own decision.
