A history of alphabets from around the world

The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering by Frederic W. Goudy Chapter 11: Notes on the plates, page 3 No.7 The second type of Sweynheim and Pannartz, in which the compression, blackness, & modified angularity are a little less pronounced than in their first type [shown fairly reproduced in fig. 39], which showed a marked leaning toward Gothic mannerisms. Theirs was the first attempt to cut the roman form of letter in type and marks the transition from Gothic to roman, although it is neither Gothic nor entirely roman, but Gothic in color and nearly roman in form. It is the prototype of our roman lower-case letters and therefore of great interest, & a form on which the designer might well exercise his artistic attempts at letter design. These letters have been drawn freely from facsimile reproductions, my intention being solely to preserve the general effect, the actual details of serifs, etc., having been lost in bad presswork and inadequate reproductions. No. 8 Type of Nicolas Jenson, the first pure roman type face, and of great distinction & beauty, not so much in the design of the individual characters, which are round and bold, as in the perfect harmony and symmetry of the letters combined in a page. No one character dominates, each takes its proper place; the letters hang together and show at a glance the great difference between the round open roman form and the somber angular black-letter. It was on this form that William Morris based his "Golden" type. The craftsman can find no better roman letter on which to form a style. These drawings are from photographic enlargements of the types used by Jenson in printing his Eusebius. In the type shown in figure 46, the writer believes that he has rediscovered the principle of spacing individual types in use by Jenson & his contemporaries, but not since - a principle to which the harmonious quality of a page of Jenson is largely due. Every letter stands FIG. 46 'GOUDY LANSTON,' ILLUSTRATING JENSON'S PRINCIPLE OF SPACING TYPES on solid serifs of unusual shape, so planned as to make each letter form coterminous with its type body while maintaining enough white space to set each letter off from its neighbor & preserve to the greatest degree the unity of the word formed by the separate characters. This permits close spacing of words and avoids loose composition. A type page full of white gaps is not clearly framed by its margins, nor is it in pleasing harmony with them. Continue to page 4

Sign up for our weekly newsletter Email: The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering by Frederic W. Goudy Introduction What Letters Are Letters in General The Development of the Roman Capital Letters Before Printing The National Hands The Development of Gothic The Beginnings of Types The Qualities of Lettering Some Practical Considerations Notes on the Plates Greek alphabet Hebrew alphabet Sign language alphabet Cherokee alphabet Russian alphabet Phonetic alphabet Braille alphabet Egyptian alphabet Cyrillic alphabet Aramaic alphabet Morse code alphabet Runic alphabet