![]() (This was not the Caslon foundry of the eighteenth century, set up by William Caslon I: William Caslon III had left his family's business, buying up the type foundry set up by Joseph Jackson, a former apprentice of William Caslon II, and his son William Caslon IV had then succeeded to running this foundry. ![]() The "Egyptian" typeface was released by the Caslon type foundry of Salisbury Square, London, run by William Caslon IV. (The term "Egyptian" has since become associated with slab-serif typefaces.) The name "Egyptian" may originate from the image of sans-serifs being historical in style, the Egyptomania of the period and the "blocky" nature of ancient Egyptian architecture. The name "Egyptian" had become commonly used in England by 1816 to describe this style of lettering for example on September 13, 1805, the painter Joseph Farington wrote in his diary of seeing a memorial engraved "in what is called Egyptian Characters". However, it was some decades before a printing typeface would be released in this style, now commonly used. Historian James Mosley, the leading expert on early sans-serifs, has suggested in his book The Nymph and The Grot that Soane's influence was crucial in spreading the idea of sans-serif letterforms around the end of the eighteenth century. Sans-serif lettering in block capitals had been developing in popularity over the past decades, initially due to interest in classical antiquity in which inscriptions often had minimal or no serifs, and come to be used by architect John Soane and copied by others, particularly in signpainting. Caslon Two Lines English Egyptian in an early specimen book Įgyptian is a typeface created by the Caslon foundry of Salisbury Square, London around or probably slightly before 1816, that is the first general-purpose sans-serif typeface in the Latin alphabet known to have been created.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |