Space doesn’t permit to recount the entire tale here, but for those interested in such details, then head on over to the Typophile e crossbar thread. After searching high and low, and opening just about every type book I own, I decided to post the question on Typophile. I spent quite a time trying to discover why the lowercase e should change so dramatically. You may remember our old friend, the lowercase e of the Humanist (Venetian) types, with its distinctive oblique (sloping) crossbar with Old Style types we witness the quite sudden adoption of a horizontal crossbar (figure 1.3). You can see this, perhaps most notably in the serifs: in Old Style types the serifs on the ascenders are more wedge shaped (figure1.1).Īnother major change can be seen in the stress of the letterforms (figure 1.2) to a more perpendicular (upright) position. As a consequence the Old Style types are characterised by greater contrast between thick and thin strokes, and are generally speaking, sharper in appearance, more refined. The Old Style (or Garalde) types start to demonstrate a greater refinement-to a large extent augmented by the steadily improving skills of punchcutters. It’s certainly one of the most exciting periods in type history. It’s from this period, that we can really see type getting into gear. Old style types, although they owe much to the same roots, show a marked departure from simply mimicking the handwriting of earlier Italian scholars and scribes. Humanist types, we discovered, have strong roots in calligraphy. Today we’re moving along the time line and will spend a little time familiarizing ourselves with some wonderful Old Style typefaces. In the first part of this series, we looked at Humanist typefaces we considered them in their historical context, and took a closer look at some of their distinguishing features and modern-day revivals.
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