Caslon Egyptian Font Windows

23.04.2020

Caslon's Egyptian in an early specimen book.

The Two Lines English Egyptiantypeface is a font 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.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[a]

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.^[8]^[9] Historian James Mosley, a leading expert on early sans-serifs, has suggested in his textbook 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.^[1] However, it was some decades before a printing typeface would be released in this style, now commonly used. The name 'Egyptian' had become commonly used in England by 1816 to describe this style of lettering; it 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.^[10] (The term 'Egyptian' has since become associated with slab-serif typefaces.) 'Egyptian' is the only part of its name referring to its design: the first part of its name in specimen books, Two Lines English, is simply the standard name used at the time for its size, around 28 modern points.^[11]

The 'Egyptian' typeface was released by the Caslon type foundry of Salisbury Square, London, run by William Caslon IV. (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.^[12]) It is somewhat 'classical' in style, being capitals-only, formal in design and not particularly bold (although still bolder than conventional body text fonts), appearing similar to Soane's lettering. The matrices survive in the collection of the Type Museum, London, with some replacement letters.^[13]

Caslon's Egyptian typeface was shown in the foundry's specimen books, the earliest edition with a date dated 1816 although some possibly earlier.^[b] It appears sandwiched by larger and much more ornate typefaces, apparently not marketed with any prominence. Aside from its documented existence and survival, the reasons behind its creation are not clear, especially since no contemporary uses of it have been found. Mosley suggests that it may have been created on commission by a specific client.^[15]

The matrices of the Caslon sans-serif were acquired by the Stephenson Blake company when it took over the Salisbury Square Caslon company. Sans-serifs returned to printing when Vincent Figgins' foundry started to issue a new series of sans-serifs starting around 1828, so the company revived the matrices and matching versions in other sizes (of lower quality of execution) were cut.^[13]^[7] (These should not be confused with Stephenson Blake's unrelated 'Grotesque' typefaces of the late nineteenth century.)

The Roman fonts are based on Greek alphabet’s western variations, first developed by the Etruscans who ‘borrowed’ ancient Greek fonts, and then the Romans who developed it and adjusted it to form the old Latin font. Some of the Roman characters sound differently today, others w lost or gained, and a variety of Roman style fonts appeared. The best website for free high-quality Caslon fonts, with 23 free Caslon fonts for immediate download, and 106 professional Caslon fonts for the best price on the Web. Freefonts Free Fonts search and download. Sign up Log in. Caslon Free Font.

Signage in a Caslon Egyptian revival at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Several digital revivals of Caslon's Egyptian have been made, for commercial use Cyrus Highsmith of Font Bureau (adding an invented lower case) and for private use by Justin Howes and James Mosley. Howes' revival is used for signage at Dulwich Picture Gallery, designed by Soane.^[16]^[17]^[15] In 1987 metal type was cast by Oxford University Press from the original matrices to print a special edition of reprinted type from the early nineteenth century crafted by Ian Mortimer.^[18]

To mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the first dated printing of a sans-serif typeface, a conference was held at Birmingham City University in September 2016.^[14]

Notes[edit]

^Though not the very first. Printing types had already been made in a sans-serif style for ancient Greek and Etruscan, and by Valentin Haüy for embossing letters to be read by the blind.^[5]^[6]^[7]
^Historian John A. Lane, who has examined surviving Caslon specimens, suggests that the design is actually slightly earlier and may date to around 1812-4, noting that it appears in some undated but apparently earlier specimens. The matrices also were first used in unsuccessful attempts to punch out different fonts, which also may date to some years before 1816.^[14]

References[edit]

^ ^a^bMosley, James. 'The Nymph and the Grot: an Update'. Typefoundry blog. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
^Tracy, Walter (2003). Letters of credit : a view of type design. Boston: David R. Godine. ISBN9781567922400.
^Majoor, Martin. 'My Type Design Philosophy'. Typotheque. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
^Tam, Keith (2002). Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century(PDF). Reading: University of Reading (MA thesis). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2015-09-06. Retrieved 2016-10-15.
^'Perkins School for the Blind'. Perkins School for the Blind. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
^Johnston, Alastair. 'Robert Grabhorn Collection on the History of Printing'. San Francisco Public Library. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
^ ^a^bMosley, James. 'Comments on Typophile thread - 'Unborn: sans serif lower case in the 19th century''. Typophile (archived). Archived from the original on 28 June 2014. Retrieved 15 October 2016.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
^Mosley, James (1999). The Nymph and the Grot: the Revival of the Sanserif Letter. London: Friends of the St Bride Printing Library. pp. 1–19. ISBN9780953520107.
^John L Walters (2 September 2013). Fifty Typefaces That Changed the World: Design Museum Fifty. Octopus. pp. 1913–5. ISBN978-1-84091-649-2.
^Alexander Nesbitt (1998). The History and Technique of Lettering. Courier Corporation. p. 160. ISBN978-0-486-40281-9.
^Chambers, David (1986). Specimen of Modern Printing Types by Edmund Fry 1828: a facsimile. London: Printing Historical Society. p. 17. ISBN9780900003080.
^'Collections'. Type Archive. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
^ ^a^bMosley, James. 'Two Lines English Egyptian (discussion thread)'. Typophile. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
^ ^a^b'The Song of the Sans Serif'. The Centre for Printing History and Culture. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
^ ^a^bSimon Loxley (12 June 2006). Type: The Secret History of Letters. I.B.Tauris. pp. 36–8. ISBN978-1-84511-028-4.
^Hui, Julius. 'From Egypt to Dulwich'. Dalton Maag. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
^'Picture gallery cafe at Dulwich Picture Gallery'. Design Week. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
^'Ornamented types: a prospectus'(PDF). imimprimit. Archived from the original(PDF) on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caslon_Egyptian&oldid=919384819'

All FONT

Art

Pattern

Freshness

Past 3 months

Past week

colour

post

Caslon
Style
Regular
Version
Converted from D:FONTTEMPCASLON-N.TF1 by ALLTYPE
Regular
CaslonZL
Style
Regular
Copyright
Copr.Lanston Type Co Ltd, 1990
Regular
Caslonia
Style
Regular
Copyright
22.111. 1.96 4.01 m klein
Regular
CaslonZH
Style
Regular
Copyright
Copr.Lanston Type Co Ltd, 1990
Regular
Caslon 3
Style
Regular
Copyright
Copyright (c) 1991 Digital Typeface Corp.
Regular
CaslonBold
Style
Bold
Copyright
Copyright Copr.1992 Image Club Graphics, Inc.
Bold
CaslonBook
Style
Book
Copyright
Copyright Copr.1992 Image Club Graphics, Inc.
Book
Caslon 540
Style
Regular
Copyright
Copyright (c) 1991 Digital Typeface Corp.
Regular
EgyptianBold
Style
Bold Qtype font download.
Copyright
Copyright Copr.1992 Image Club Graphics, Inc.
Bold
CaslonBoldL
Style
Regular
Copyright
Copr. Lanston Type Co Ltd 1991
Regular
Caslon-Book
Style
Book
Company
SoftMaker Software GmbH
Trademark
The typeface name is a trademark owned by SoftMaker Software GmbH and/or its licensors and may be registered in certain jurisdictions.
Copyright
Copyright SoftMaker Software GmbH and its licensors
BookSoftMaker Software GmbH
Egyptian Bold
Style
Bold
Copyright
Copyright l1992 Image Club Graphics, Inc.
BoldSoftMaker Software GmbH
CaslonZH-SC
Style
Regular
Copyright
Copr.Lanston Type Co Ltd, 1990
RegularSoftMaker Software GmbH
CaslonRoman
Style
Roman
Copyright
The programs to draw the splines of this font are Copyright (C) 1992-2001 by George Williams.
RomanSoftMaker Software GmbH
CaslonBoldH
Style
Regular
Copyright
Copr. Lanston Type Co Ltd 1991
RegularSoftMaker Software GmbH
AdobeCaslon
Style
Roman
Trademark
Created by Type-Designer 3.0
Copyright
Copyright (c) 1990, 1992, 1996 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.Adobe Caslon is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
RomanSoftMaker Software GmbH

Got No Heart
Figural W01 Bk SC
Style : Regular
opum
Style : Regular
MADE IN SPAIN 1
Style : Regular
EasyHeraldics
Style : Regular
OpticNerd
Style : Regular
Freebooter Script - Alts
Style : Regular
Thanatos
Style : Regular

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Related Post