Typography Tuesday
This week we present a few samples of ITC Founder’s Caslon digitized by Justin Howes, and released by the International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in 1998. These images are reproduced from Howe’s article “The Complete Caslon” published in Matrix 17, Winter 1997, published in England by John and Rosalind Randle’s Whittington Press, and a revised version of the same article in Type & Typography: Highlights from Matrix, the review for printers and bibliophiles, published in West New York, N.J., by Mark Batty Publisher in 2003.
In 1998, ITC released the first four sizes in what was eventually to become a series of thirteen digital types based directly on 19th-century designs by William Caslon. To establish these fonts, British typographer, type designer and historian, and former curator of the Type Archive in London, Justin Howes digitized printed specimens directly from resources at the St. Bride Library in London to create individual-sized types as a family of digital fonts. Originally called Ligature Caslon, ITC Founder’s Caslon comprises twelve sizes of Caslon Old Face from 8 to 72 pt, with an additional Poster size and an assortment of flowers.
You may try to click on the images for captions, but as we have noticed recently that captions have not been appearing regularly in the Tumblr dashboard, we repeat them here from top to bottom:
Mark van Bronkhorst’s design to ITC’s U&lc (Upper and lower case) magazine launching ITC Founder's Caslon in 1998.
Specimens of Founder’s Caslon, 8 pt through 30 pt.
Quousque: Optical differences from one size to the next from a design for a Caslon commemorative T-shirt produced in 2002.
Sample from Matrix 17 showing “Ligature Caslon,” Caslon’s English Roman, Fry’s ‘imitation’ Caslon, and 14 pt. Stephenson Blake Caslon.
Sample from Matrix 17 showing 30 to 72 pt Caslon, with 14 pt. Caslon and Pica English Old Black.
Sample from Matrix 17 of a page from The Diary of Lady Willoughby (1844), reset in “Ligature Caslon” (i.e., ITC Founder’s Caslon).
Our copies of Matrix and Type & Typography: Highlights from Matrix are donations from our friend and benefactor Jerry Buff.
View our other Typography Tuesday posts.
