What??? Times New Roman was designed by Monotype in ca. 1930 for the Times of London. Times Roman is the Linotype version of this same face. Therefore, Times Roman cannot be the first serif typeface!
The first typeface with serifs on it would have been cut in Italy sometime after 1460. Remember, before Gutenberg invented printing in the west in ca. 1450, there were no typefaces or fonts in Europe! (In China and Korea, movable metal type seems to have been invented earlier; Gutenberg probably had no knowledge of these things, though).
Lettering and calligraphy predate typefaces by about several thousand years. But lettering or calligraphic styles are just that; they are styles, not typefaces.
So, now that we’ve got that straight, the first serif typefaces may have been cut by Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, two German printers who left Mainz for Italy, openning the first printing press there. But it is debatable whether their typefaces are really serifed. Nicholas Jenson’s typefaces (ca. 1470 in Venice) are often considered the world’s first serif types.
But these typefaces didn’t really have names. Names became attached to typefaces later, when typefounders began marketing their fonts to other printers.
The first letters with serifs on them were probably carved into stone by the Romans. Again, these letters don’t really have names either. There are sometimes refered to now as Capitalis Monumentalis, or just monumental Roman lettering. The stone-carved letters on the Trajan Column in Rome are probably the most famous examples of these.
Although names is what last after a person or a city dies, you should know that the invention of the typophile scroll bar is as old as the papyrus roll ; this because to form the long strip that a scroll required, a number of such sheets of papyrus were united, placed so that all the horizontal fibres parallel with the roll’s length were on one side only. So, for your interest, one modern book you can flip the pages is “The Nymph and the Grot” by James Mosley (1999).
I think the question was asked when the first Roman typeface was made. I think the answer is that sometime just before it was used in 1470, Nicolas Jenson or someone working for him made one. Then, depending what you meant by serif, font and first, people can argue.
I’d disagree with you on Nicholas Jensen ... if I had all my notes with me. But then again, this is interesting enough to make a point of looking through my notes.
( Edit: Make that, I’d “kindly” disagree with you. )
Do you disagree with me because you don’t think that Jensen’s letters had serifs,* or because he wasn’t the first? If he wasn’t the first, were Sweynheim & Pannartz first, or did someone else do them first in the intervening seven years or so?
* Do your reasons for Jensen’s serifs not being serifs match any of the Jensen diamond ideas in The Stroke?
P.S.: Hrant, if the Jensen cut-off diamonds aren’t serifs, then the Textura diamonds, a la Gutenberg’s letters, certainly aren’t :-)
*Laughing my head off and rolling on floor laughing so hard* i am not ’pulling tits’ here and definately not pulling my own :D just shows how much i’ve learnt in my typography lessons at university and how hard the tutors work to get that knowledge to us :D i’m in my 2nd yr but not of a typographic course but graphics and please dont say ’how the hell did you pass your 1st yr?’ i did even though i dont know what the 1st ever serif font to be designed is called let alone who even attempted the neat cuts, making them into serifs. sorry guys and thats why i’m on here to learn more than what my tutor gives. I AM interested in type and want to be as good as you all one day so can’t i have a 2nd chance on here. please dont throw me out :D and NO, i’m not pulling my tits on this one ;)
I find the idea that Times Roman predated the printing press an amusing balance to the idea that Times Roman didn’t exist before Microsoft Word (as Republican bloggers claimed in 2004).
Though many historians attribute the development of serifs to the ancient Romans, it was in fact of Egyptian origin, particularly “slabs”.
The association of the term “feet” as being synomonous with the typographic term “serif” was due to the fact that these terminals were originally depicted in hieroglyph (see below):
Frequently these “feet” were situated on a rendered baseline (especially on bird feet):
The illustration below shows the direct correlation between bird feet and serifs used for the lowercase “i” —
In addition to the development of formalized serifs, early hieroglyphs of birds suggest that the Egyptians invented the flared terminal and semi-sans as clearly shown below:
Which is a long about way of wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!
God. It’s 11 PM. I was trying to relax and wind down. Then I see this. Thanks. Now I’ll never get to sleep.
So here’s a question:
Even though there were no “typefaces” proper, by the 15th century the alphabets were pretty much standardized, weren’t they? I mean, the early puch cutters weren’t really “designing” new types, they were copying standard types in use by the scribes of that era.
It’s a technology thing. Would we say that typefaces were never designed before Postscript just because no one had done so yet?
>I mean, the early puch cutters weren’t really “designing” new types, they were copying standard types in use by the scribes of that era.
Jenson and Griffo based their types on existing letter forms from scribes. However, they figured out how to give the letters and words more even color than hand-written letters, and so made type more readable than hand writing. This sculpting of letters for even color was a huge advance—which we still arguably haven’t improved upon significantly. Also each scribe to some extent would have their own hand—and type designer his own style.
thanks Dan for that info but i’m still confused over lowercase serif fonts. were they invented during the Capitalis Monumentalis? i mean, was it only uppercase during that time? what about small caps? whst is curvise and semi cursive lettering? please explain. Thanks for your time, very highly appreciated :)
>but i’m still confused over lowercase serif fonts.
>were they invented during the Capitalis Monumentalis?
You still do not seem to understand! Before Gutenberg (or whoever else might have been first, perhaps someone in China or Korea) cast his first fonts, there weren’t any typefaces and there weren’t any fonts. Their were many different ways to write or carve the alphabet, but none of these were types or fonts. Fonts are means of mechanically reproducing a specific design over and over again.
Lowercase letters were codified centuries after the Romans settled on the forms of what we now call uppercase letters. An argument could be made that lowercase letters first appeared before 300 AD, but a good simple answer is that they didn’t arise until the early middle ages.
>i mean, was it only uppercase during that time?
Yep. Well, only sort of. You see, since there was no “lower”case, there could not be any “upper”case, now could there? There was only one case. It looked a lot like what we call uppercase today. But even when the first “lowercase” letters were written, they weren’t quite seen as an addition to uppercase letters, but rather as a totally separate style, entity, or evolution. Some scribe wrote all in “uppercase”, some all in “lowercase”—but they saw the two as different independent styles. The mixing of upper and lowercase letters together would only came later, probably in the high middle ages.
>what about small caps?
Small Caps are really a typographic invention in my opinion. That is, they weren’t invented until “typography” was already around, that is, after the invention of typefaces in 1450 and thereafter. If I recall correctly, Aldus Manutius (Venice, ca. 1500) made use of small caps in his books. But I can’t verify that, nor do I know if other printers before him used them or not. So, no exact date here from me!
>whst is curvise and semi cursive lettering? please explain.
>Thanks for your time, very highly appreciated :)
This is a bit too many questions ;-)
Perhaps someone else will step in and answer this one for. But if I were you (and I was in your situation once, not all that many years ago…) I would go to your University library and read some old books about the development of the alphabet, of writing, and of printing. Then you’ll know the answers to these questions inside and out.
thankyou so much Dan. i have been reading too many books and so much information to take in and havent been able to digest anything because theres just too much to understand and i keep getting muddled up and cant remember things and order of it all but anyway thankyou for sharing your knowledge. i’m very greatful.
David Bolten of Alembic Press presents wonderfully in depth references to type job cases:
Case (Typecase)
a wooden drawer partitioned into many small boxes, used to store the separate type characters. The cases are held in a frame or rack, often with a bracket on the top to allow two cases (eg an upper and lower) to be held open one above the other, and in front of which the compositor stands whilst setting the job. Some cases have no internal partitions, and are used to store wood letter (or blocks, dingbats, etc.). Over 200 different styles of case are shown here, but there are many others.
> OMG! wow, that is amazing Norbert Florendo! i shall keep that in mind :D
BTW — Miss Giggles, I’m glad you enjoyed the humor, but I hope you understand I was just pulling the turkey’s leg, lest you quote me as a reference. ;-)
I couldn’t find a graphic of the English Upper Case since the linked illustration is actually constructed from html special characters placed over an “empty case” illustration. I hope Miss Giggles follows the link for a more detailed explanation and illustration.
————————————————————————————-
WARNING!!!! THE “EGYPTIAN TURKEY SERIFS”
REFERENCES ABOVE WAS ONLY A “JOKE”!
————————————————————————————-
My examples of hieroglyphic “feet” being the origins of serifs had been taken seriously by some readers, and for that I apologize.
Since I am a strong supporter of typographic education, I will be more cautious when presenting information “tongue-in-cheek”.
OMG! i am soooo MAD at you Mr Norbert! students like me are really going to take your word. I think you need a spanking for being a naughty boy. bring back the cane lol :D only messing, WARNING! DON’T TAKE THIS SERIOUS! hahaha. but please dont do it again NF. it really confused me :D
Not to revive this dead thread, but you might want to look up Adolf Rusch, Miss Giggles. From what I’ve seen, his roman predates even Sweynheym and Pannartz’s. Odd, since he printed in Germany.
Not to exclude fraktur I hope (last time I looked they had “serifs”),I believe the first acknowledged typeface name (posthumous) is the DK-Type used prior to B42 (42-line Bible, aka the Gutenberg Bible) but also in the later B36 (36-line Bible).
let’s be pragmatic about this and simple,
most will agree that the 1st serif would be after Guttenburg invented movable type. Before, it wouldn’t be a rational way to create type. It was all done by hand up til then, starting with picographs on caves over 30,000 years ago, then the persian cuneforms, after the egyptians hieroglyphics at around 2500 BC. The 1st alphabet was created by the phonecians at around 1300Bc and then everyone jumped in.
Preceding the use of the 1st serif you’d see a various amount of written blackletter on manuscripts using the roman alphabet. in 1456 when guttenburg created a machine to print with movable type, he was printing blackletter at first until nicholas jenson designed the 1st serif. There is no offical name but a few popular recreations or fonts based on the 1st serif from original pages printed at the time are available from today’s foundries. Ex: Adobe Jenson by robert Slimback or Centaur by Bruce Rogers and an original italic by Frederick warde.
Obviously, there are possibiliies that someone else made a serif before Jenson or was the original designer and Jenson got credit, but what does that have to do with dating or naming the 1st serif that we know about so far. Nothing.
Hehe typos on typophile are a plenty :)
I also caught picograph=pictograph on my previous spread.
I’d like to add that the 1st serif lower/uppercase by nicholas jenson was a mix of written humanistic style and also there is influence of the roman cap from the romans. trajan is based on Roman lettering and you can see serifs. So, is the 1st serif from Roman cap lettering that does not have any lower case or is it nicholas jenson’s lower case serif post Gutenburg?
I don’t know Mac_D. I haven’t been following this thread but I think there were some earlier serif faces in France, I think I read it somewhere... but now I’m in my parent’s house and left all of my books home.
I’m much more curious about the fact that Nicholas Jenson’s serif type is derived partly from roman capital lettering pre-dating the 15th century. Does this mean the romans invented the 1st serif type? There is in fact serifs on lettering found on roman architecture.
as to your comment about earlier serif faces found in France rather than Italy, could be true but I’m sure it’s very close in date and the romans are much more earlier than either your mysterious french type or Nicholas well-know serif. so the question is really about the romans and the fact that the 1st serif type used is actually from the roman empire or even greek empire. It might only be uppercase and only have certain characters from that era, but the serifs are there.
“mysterious French type” indeed,
It may be so mysterious no people have ever seen it. Maybe they mean that Jenson was originally French.
“1st serif type used is actually from the roman empire or even greek empire”
The original question was “first serif font”, the font of which implied metal type and the rest of the letterpress process, which brought out the original Jenson answer, though Tiffany and others seem to have notes, and books that state otherwise. And, while Greeks and Romans might have had templates for the drawing their serif bearing type, they didn’t make fonts.
So, maybe the Jenson answer is to the question “Who cut the first serif font that was useful and well marketed enough that it was used and/or copied quickly all over Europe and in the new world for hundreds of years.” On the other hand, I’d be fascinated to find anything different, or specific documentation that Jenson was influenced by another type or type maker.
Much of what I’ve been able to find related to incunabula tends to support Nicholas Jenson’s cutting and printing of the first known “Roman typeface” ca. 1470.
BUT — this reference from the “Dawn of Western Printing” Incunabula site is very specific on the “first Roman type” used in 1465!
Roman script is one of the two major scripts in the Roman alphabet. Roman script started and spread from Italian humanists’ attempt to revive the style of handwriting used in ancient Roman inscriptions and to imitate the Carolingian style of handwriting used at the end of the 8th century. C. Sweynheym and A. Pannartz first used Roman type in 1465, and its use later spread to Germany. These Roman typefaces, however, retained a slightly Gothic flavor compared with today’s Roman type. The present-day Roman type is based on the one first used by N. Jenson in 1470, which is said to be the most beautiful of all Roman typefaces.
BTW — these are great sites for research on types used in early printing:
Ok, I found it. Frutiger shows a couple of roman type samples dated september 1470, printed in “La Sorbonne”, France. Jenson’s contemporary but no earlier.
FRUTIGUER, Adrian.
En torno a la tipografía.
Gustavo Gili.
Barcelona, 2002.
Anyway Norbert has the oldest serif roman sample now.
But that isn’t what I would call a serif font as it is mimicking the lettering style of the incunabula which are in turn mimicking the hand-lettered books found previously.
Well it’s printed with the characters of a metal font and it has serifs, I don’t think it’s relevant if the intention of the punchcutter was to mimick actual handwriting (according to Bringhurst type is idealized writing). Are Griffo italics or Gutemberg’s textura not considered acual italic or textura fonts because they mimicked handwriting?
Maybe the serifs on these samples are not structured and systematic as today ones but they exist, what other name could we give to the horizontal apendices on the stroke endings of letters?
If the question is regarding the first Roman type produced. I believe it to be the type of Nicolas Jensen about 1470. At least that is what we were told in our printing lesson books back in the 50’s. (That’s 1950’s!) As most know, true Roman capitals had been in existance for centuries as inscriptional work in stone.
Jenson’s use of a lowercase that matched in style the caps was the first. A hint of things to come, was as has been posted here, the first shift towards a complete roman typeface. In my old lesson books these type of Sweynheim and Pannartz were classifies as a semi or half roman becuase of the flaring of the stems which gave a hint of a serif.
In this post I am not taking into consideration the terminations of textura letters, although I can certainly see why some consider these to be serifs. I am thinking the question was in regards to Romans as we know them.
About twenty-five years ago I cut a metal version of the S&P semi-roman from drawings that I did, not referring directly to the original type. I had taken a damned good look at the type before I attempted my own drawings just to get it into my brain. The result is an 18 point type which I hand-cut and electroplated into matrix form and cast here at my foundry. I’ve used it no more than three or four times in the intervening years; mostly because I have found little use for a type of this archaic nature. I got a chance just in the last few months to print with it in completing my book: “Leaves From The Pie Tree”.
Backs to Jenson’s type: a great many feel that it has never been bested by any other roman, and all of the major typesetting machine companies and type foundries took a whack at making their versions of it.
Thanks for that wonderful anecdote Jim, and for your work over the years. Could we twist your arm enough for you to post a scan of a sample of your S&P semi roman?
Also, is your book “Leaves From The Pie Tree” on the market yet? If so, where might an old geezer purchase it?
In the book ’Letterletter,’ by G. Noordzij, Chapter 11 is entitled “The Truth about the Serif.”
It traces the development of the roman-style serif by scribes—before the invention of printing—but also says that the style we as we know it is a product of punch cutting. I don’t know how accurate his account is, but it certainly worth reading if you want to understand the evolution of the serif.
I’d be happy to make a scan, but believe it or not I don’t have a scanner. Maybe I can get a friend to scan it for me. Meantime, P22 has a very small scanned image of one of the pages from “Leaves” in the RTF section of their site, which doesn’t show much other than a fuzzy representation of the Quill type which I designed and cut for the printing of the book.
I have about a dozen copies of Leaves still unsold.
Yes, the roman caps had serifs, so did the Unical letters used by the european scripes starting from the 4th century to the 9th century. the earlier ones are sometimes serifed. But do we take these into account? If so then we will never find the 1st serif font.
If the original poster is looking for the 1st serif font that has had the most dramatic impact after Gutenburg then it goes to Nicholas Jenson. Now as to which font available digitally today is the best-know recreation on offset press... that’s another issue.
I would argue that what the scribes had were not serifs so much as the pen/brush leaving the page.
I’m not arguing or disagreeing that Nicolas Jenson didn’t have the first typeface (not font, as technically that refers to software and we know that isn’t so).
Font or Fount is related to the word ’foundry’, which comes from the latin for ’pouring’. A foundry melts metal and pours it into moulds. One complete pouring of a bowl of melted lead at a printer’s foundry shop filled one size of one design of an alphabet with repeated characters in proportion to usage—hence one fount or font (pouring) of type.
All other meanings of ’a font of type’ are an extension of this original one. So yes, Jenson made punches, matrices, and poured fonts of type.
Gah. OK OK. I’m in over my head. Or rather this cold is rendering me stupid. The word font is used in EULAs to refer to the software. My bad. Mea culpa. So we should be using the word font/fount in this thread. I’ll go away now.
ps. While you’re recovering, you might read the great story, ’The Know It All’, by Somerset Maughm. It’s about a very annoying guy. I kept thinking of it while typing my post, feeling guilty :)
“The first typeface to be fully Roman is, I think, the one that the R-Printer [Adolf Rusch] was using at Strasburg by 1467 (Fig. 35). It has classical capitals of rather a rough kind and the characters of the lower case have been given serifs to match them and are widened and rounded so that their curves are consistent with those of the capitals.
[...]
There were typefaces reproducing the Italian humanists’ calligraphy before 1467. At Subiaco, Sweynheym and Pannartz began using the first of them in 1464 or 1465.”
From Harry Carter’s A View of Early Typography, p.47.
When I can get some time, if anyone is at all interested, I can look at the dates on the Rusch and Mentelin books at the Newberry here in Chicago. They have several. My memory tells me that one of them is dated 1464 and uses the typeface that Carter mentions above. But both librarians and my memory can be wrong.
If I’m not mistaken, and the books at the Newberry are actually from 1464, I’ll probably pay for their reproductive services to take some photos. If IP allows, I’ll post a link to them here.
The date I have in mind may not come from documents at the Newberry, but from D B Updike. Page 65, volume I, of Printing Types says: “But the font of the “R Bizarre”, as it is often called, was the first roman letter used by Adolf Rusch of Ingweiden (“the R Printer”), who printed it in an edition of the Rationale of Durandus, at Strassburg, as early as 1464.”
The image below is a detail of Figure 22 from Printing Types. The caption is: “First Roman Type used in Germany: Rusch, Strassburg, c. 1464”. Sweynheym and Pannartz’s first type follows as Fig. 24 and is dated 1465. This is, of course, not to suggest that Updike is flawless in his research.
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20.Nov.2006 4.17am
What??? Times New Roman was designed by Monotype in ca. 1930 for the Times of London. Times Roman is the Linotype version of this same face. Therefore, Times Roman cannot be the first serif typeface!
The first typeface with serifs on it would have been cut in Italy sometime after 1460. Remember, before Gutenberg invented printing in the west in ca. 1450, there were no typefaces or fonts in Europe! (In China and Korea, movable metal type seems to have been invented earlier; Gutenberg probably had no knowledge of these things, though).
Lettering and calligraphy predate typefaces by about several thousand years. But lettering or calligraphic styles are just that; they are styles, not typefaces.
So, now that we’ve got that straight, the first serif typefaces may have been cut by Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, two German printers who left Mainz for Italy, openning the first printing press there. But it is debatable whether their typefaces are really serifed. Nicholas Jenson’s typefaces (ca. 1470 in Venice) are often considered the world’s first serif types.
But these typefaces didn’t really have names. Names became attached to typefaces later, when typefounders began marketing their fonts to other printers.
The first letters with serifs on them were probably carved into stone by the Romans. Again, these letters don’t really have names either. There are sometimes refered to now as Capitalis Monumentalis, or just monumental Roman lettering. The stone-carved letters on the Trajan Column in Rome are probably the most famous examples of these.
But I have no idea what you are really asking!
20.Nov.2006 4.47am
Although names is what last after a person or a city dies, you should know that the invention of the typophile scroll bar is as old as the papyrus roll ; this because to form the long strip that a scroll required, a number of such sheets of papyrus were united, placed so that all the horizontal fibres parallel with the roll’s length were on one side only. So, for your interest, one modern book you can flip the pages is “The Nymph and the Grot” by James Mosley (1999).
20.Nov.2006 6.55am
Duh, Times New Roman was invented by the Romans. ;o)
20.Nov.2006 8.15am
Is that squooshed ?
http://www.vannacalzature.it/Storia_italiano/romani.htm
Just learnt the acronym ROLF
20.Nov.2006 11.36am
Rolling On Linoleum Fainting?
Dan, why do you think those diamonds in Gutenberg’s font don’t count as serifs?
hhp
20.Nov.2006 12.10pm
I think the question was asked when the first Roman typeface was made. I think the answer is that sometime just before it was used in 1470, Nicolas Jenson or someone working for him made one. Then, depending what you meant by serif, font and first, people can argue.
20.Nov.2006 12.18pm
That is opening up a whole new can of worms.
20.Nov.2006 12.30pm
I’d disagree with you on Nicholas Jensen ... if I had all my notes with me. But then again, this is interesting enough to make a point of looking through my notes.
( Edit: Make that, I’d “kindly” disagree with you. )
20.Nov.2006 12.43pm
See, I told you that giggles is pulling our tits!
Muzz
20.Nov.2006 12.54pm
Do you disagree with me because you don’t think that Jensen’s letters had serifs,* or because he wasn’t the first? If he wasn’t the first, were Sweynheim & Pannartz first, or did someone else do them first in the intervening seven years or so?
* Do your reasons for Jensen’s serifs not being serifs match any of the Jensen diamond ideas in The Stroke?
P.S.: Hrant, if the Jensen cut-off diamonds aren’t serifs, then the Textura diamonds, a la Gutenberg’s letters, certainly aren’t :-)
20.Nov.2006 12.54pm
“See, I told you that giggles is pulling our tits!”
LOL!!! That must have a whole different meaning down under Muzz :-)
ChrisL
20.Nov.2006 12.55pm
> See, I told you that giggles is pulling our tits!
Here, here. I agree!
20.Nov.2006 12.57pm
I was kindly disagreeing the David, not you Dan.
20.Nov.2006 1.01pm
Oh.
20.Nov.2006 1.13pm
*Laughing my head off and rolling on floor laughing so hard* i am not ’pulling tits’ here and definately not pulling my own :D just shows how much i’ve learnt in my typography lessons at university and how hard the tutors work to get that knowledge to us :D i’m in my 2nd yr but not of a typographic course but graphics and please dont say ’how the hell did you pass your 1st yr?’ i did even though i dont know what the 1st ever serif font to be designed is called let alone who even attempted the neat cuts, making them into serifs. sorry guys and thats why i’m on here to learn more than what my tutor gives. I AM interested in type and want to be as good as you all one day so can’t i have a 2nd chance on here. please dont throw me out :D and NO, i’m not pulling my tits on this one ;)
20.Nov.2006 2.15pm
missgiggles,
Read the book “Origin of the Serif” for a very good an readable explanation of the serif.
http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Serif-Edward-M-Catich/dp/0962974005/sr=1-1/...
ChrisL
20.Nov.2006 2.27pm
You probably passed your first year because you’re not afraid to
ask questions. For a teacher, that is an increasingly rare delight.
hhp
20.Nov.2006 7.45pm
I find the idea that Times Roman predated the printing press an amusing balance to the idea that Times Roman didn’t exist before Microsoft Word (as Republican bloggers claimed in 2004).
20.Nov.2006 9.21pm
How about the Korean type used here
http://www.jikjiworld.net/content/english/jikji/index.jsp?top=01&sub=2&l...
it’s a bit serify from 1337
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jikji
21.Nov.2006 4.00am
Cuneiform although cut in clay originally not stone.
Tim
21.Nov.2006 8.02am
Eve.
peace
21.Nov.2006 8.08am
Some might say Adam had the serif:-)
ChrisL
21.Nov.2006 8.38am
When the Word was made flesh, was it originally serif or sans serif?
21.Nov.2006 8.45am
Aye, there is the rib :-)
ChrisL
22.Nov.2006 5.39pm
I thought Adam was a ligature - at least when he was in action…
peace
22.Nov.2006 8.34pm
Though many historians attribute the development of serifs to the ancient Romans, it was in fact of Egyptian origin, particularly “slabs”.
The association of the term “feet” as being synomonous with the typographic term “serif” was due to the fact that these terminals were originally depicted in hieroglyph (see below):
Frequently these “feet” were situated on a rendered baseline (especially on bird feet):
The illustration below shows the direct correlation between bird feet and serifs used for the lowercase “i” —
In addition to the development of formalized serifs, early hieroglyphs of birds suggest that the Egyptians invented the flared terminal and semi-sans as clearly shown below:
Which is a long about way of wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!
22.Nov.2006 11.19pm
speechless...
God. It’s 11 PM. I was trying to relax and wind down. Then I see this. Thanks. Now I’ll never get to sleep.
So here’s a question:
Even though there were no “typefaces” proper, by the 15th century the alphabets were pretty much standardized, weren’t they? I mean, the early puch cutters weren’t really “designing” new types, they were copying standard types in use by the scribes of that era.
It’s a technology thing. Would we say that typefaces were never designed before Postscript just because no one had done so yet?
23.Nov.2006 6.00am
>I mean, the early puch cutters weren’t really “designing” new types, they were copying standard types in use by the scribes of that era.
Jenson and Griffo based their types on existing letter forms from scribes. However, they figured out how to give the letters and words more even color than hand-written letters, and so made type more readable than hand writing. This sculpting of letters for even color was a huge advance—which we still arguably haven’t improved upon significantly. Also each scribe to some extent would have their own hand—and type designer his own style.
24.Nov.2006 10.57am
> we still arguably haven’t improved upon significantly.
Exactly because we’re stuck on the succubus that
is even color, and have yet to truly leverage notan.
hhp
25.Nov.2006 6.21am
sorry Alessandro. i cant read that language on http://www.vannacalzature.it/Storia_italiano/romani.htm
25.Nov.2006 7.39am
thanks Dan for that info but i’m still confused over lowercase serif fonts. were they invented during the Capitalis Monumentalis? i mean, was it only uppercase during that time? what about small caps? whst is curvise and semi cursive lettering? please explain. Thanks for your time, very highly appreciated :)
25.Nov.2006 7.41am
OMG! wow, that is amazing Norbert Florendo! i shall keep that in mind :D
25.Nov.2006 8.00am
>but i’m still confused over lowercase serif fonts.
>were they invented during the Capitalis Monumentalis?
You still do not seem to understand! Before Gutenberg (or whoever else might have been first, perhaps someone in China or Korea) cast his first fonts, there weren’t any typefaces and there weren’t any fonts. Their were many different ways to write or carve the alphabet, but none of these were types or fonts. Fonts are means of mechanically reproducing a specific design over and over again.
Lowercase letters were codified centuries after the Romans settled on the forms of what we now call uppercase letters. An argument could be made that lowercase letters first appeared before 300 AD, but a good simple answer is that they didn’t arise until the early middle ages.
>i mean, was it only uppercase during that time?
Yep. Well, only sort of. You see, since there was no “lower”case, there could not be any “upper”case, now could there? There was only one case. It looked a lot like what we call uppercase today. But even when the first “lowercase” letters were written, they weren’t quite seen as an addition to uppercase letters, but rather as a totally separate style, entity, or evolution. Some scribe wrote all in “uppercase”, some all in “lowercase”—but they saw the two as different independent styles. The mixing of upper and lowercase letters together would only came later, probably in the high middle ages.
>what about small caps?
Small Caps are really a typographic invention in my opinion. That is, they weren’t invented until “typography” was already around, that is, after the invention of typefaces in 1450 and thereafter. If I recall correctly, Aldus Manutius (Venice, ca. 1500) made use of small caps in his books. But I can’t verify that, nor do I know if other printers before him used them or not. So, no exact date here from me!
>whst is curvise and semi cursive lettering? please explain.
>Thanks for your time, very highly appreciated :)
This is a bit too many questions ;-)
Perhaps someone else will step in and answer this one for. But if I were you (and I was in your situation once, not all that many years ago…) I would go to your University library and read some old books about the development of the alphabet, of writing, and of printing. Then you’ll know the answers to these questions inside and out.
25.Nov.2006 8.14am
thankyou so much Dan. i have been reading too many books and so much information to take in and havent been able to digest anything because theres just too much to understand and i keep getting muddled up and cant remember things and order of it all but anyway thankyou for sharing your knowledge. i’m very greatful.
25.Nov.2006 8.37am
Great stuff Norbert!
hhp
25.Nov.2006 1.05pm
Maybe it would help to define “font” or “fount” and exactly where the terms Upper and Lower case came from.
26.Nov.2006 9.11am
David Bolten of Alembic Press presents wonderfully in depth references to type job cases:
Case (Typecase)
a wooden drawer partitioned into many small boxes, used to store the separate type characters. The cases are held in a frame or rack, often with a bracket on the top to allow two cases (eg an upper and lower) to be held open one above the other, and in front of which the compositor stands whilst setting the job. Some cases have no internal partitions, and are used to store wood letter (or blocks, dingbats, etc.). Over 200 different styles of case are shown here, but there are many others.
English Upper Case
Typecase Index
26.Nov.2006 9.36am
> OMG! wow, that is amazing Norbert Florendo! i shall keep that in mind :D
BTW — Miss Giggles, I’m glad you enjoyed the humor, but I hope you understand I was just pulling the turkey’s leg, lest you quote me as a reference. ;-)
26.Nov.2006 11.04am
Nice links on the cases, Norbert! Your graphic is of the California Job Case. This combined upper and lowers cases into one.
26.Nov.2006 11.26am
> combined
Combines. :-)
hhp
26.Nov.2006 11.28am
Thanks, William,
I couldn’t find a graphic of the English Upper Case since the linked illustration is actually constructed from html special characters placed over an “empty case” illustration. I hope Miss Giggles follows the link for a more detailed explanation and illustration.
27.Nov.2006 5.50am
Happy Gobble Day Norbert!
ChrisL
27.Nov.2006 12.45pm
&2u2, Chris.
I’m surprized you haven’t made a reference to “Happy Feet” in response to my bird illustrations :-)
27.Nov.2006 6.28pm
I am not familiar with it so I just Googled it. A new movie eh, now I get it. I wasn’t birdbrained enough topeck through the logic until now :-)
ChrisL
28.Nov.2006 10.51am
————————————————————————————-
WARNING!!!! THE “EGYPTIAN TURKEY SERIFS”
REFERENCES ABOVE WAS ONLY A “JOKE”!
————————————————————————————-
My examples of hieroglyphic “feet” being the origins of serifs had been taken seriously by some readers, and for that I apologize.
Since I am a strong supporter of typographic education, I will be more cautious when presenting information “tongue-in-cheek”.
— Norbert Florendo
28.Nov.2006 4.00pm
OMG! i am soooo MAD at you Mr Norbert! students like me are really going to take your word. I think you need a spanking for being a naughty boy. bring back the cane lol :D only messing, WARNING! DON’T TAKE THIS SERIOUS! hahaha. but please dont do it again NF. it really confused me :D
28.Nov.2006 5.03pm
IIIIIII got it. IIIIIII’m a student.
So there.
18.Dec.2006 11.02am
Not to revive this dead thread, but you might want to look up Adolf Rusch, Miss Giggles. From what I’ve seen, his roman predates even Sweynheym and Pannartz’s. Odd, since he printed in Germany.
19.Dec.2006 6.24am
Norbert, just found this thread and your comment about feet and serifs is the best! A hearty and belated thanks for the laugh!
22.Dec.2006 11.02pm
Not to exclude fraktur I hope (last time I looked they had “serifs”),I believe the first acknowledged typeface name (posthumous) is the DK-Type used prior to B42 (42-line Bible, aka the Gutenberg Bible) but also in the later B36 (36-line Bible).
Gerald
26.Dec.2006 10.43am
let’s be pragmatic about this and simple,
most will agree that the 1st serif would be after Guttenburg invented movable type. Before, it wouldn’t be a rational way to create type. It was all done by hand up til then, starting with picographs on caves over 30,000 years ago, then the persian cuneforms, after the egyptians hieroglyphics at around 2500 BC. The 1st alphabet was created by the phonecians at around 1300Bc and then everyone jumped in.
Preceding the use of the 1st serif you’d see a various amount of written blackletter on manuscripts using the roman alphabet. in 1456 when guttenburg created a machine to print with movable type, he was printing blackletter at first until nicholas jenson designed the 1st serif. There is no offical name but a few popular recreations or fonts based on the 1st serif from original pages printed at the time are available from today’s foundries. Ex: Adobe Jenson by robert Slimback or Centaur by Bruce Rogers and an original italic by Frederick warde.
Obviously, there are possibiliies that someone else made a serif before Jenson or was the original designer and Jenson got credit, but what does that have to do with dating or naming the 1st serif that we know about so far. Nothing.
26.Dec.2006 11.56am
I thought it was Gutenberg (not Guttenburg). Shall we stick to Gutenberg?
26.Dec.2006 2.42pm
Hehe typos on typophile are a plenty :)
I also caught picograph=pictograph on my previous spread.
I’d like to add that the 1st serif lower/uppercase by nicholas jenson was a mix of written humanistic style and also there is influence of the roman cap from the romans. trajan is based on Roman lettering and you can see serifs. So, is the 1st serif from Roman cap lettering that does not have any lower case or is it nicholas jenson’s lower case serif post Gutenburg?
26.Dec.2006 9.05pm
I don’t know Mac_D. I haven’t been following this thread but I think there were some earlier serif faces in France, I think I read it somewhere... but now I’m in my parent’s house and left all of my books home.
Héctor
27.Dec.2006 7.09am
I’m much more curious about the fact that Nicholas Jenson’s serif type is derived partly from roman capital lettering pre-dating the 15th century. Does this mean the romans invented the 1st serif type? There is in fact serifs on lettering found on roman architecture.
as to your comment about earlier serif faces found in France rather than Italy, could be true but I’m sure it’s very close in date and the romans are much more earlier than either your mysterious french type or Nicholas well-know serif. so the question is really about the romans and the fact that the 1st serif type used is actually from the roman empire or even greek empire. It might only be uppercase and only have certain characters from that era, but the serifs are there.
27.Dec.2006 7.57am
“mysterious French type” indeed,
It may be so mysterious no people have ever seen it. Maybe they mean that Jenson was originally French.
“1st serif type used is actually from the roman empire or even greek empire”
The original question was “first serif font”, the font of which implied metal type and the rest of the letterpress process, which brought out the original Jenson answer, though Tiffany and others seem to have notes, and books that state otherwise. And, while Greeks and Romans might have had templates for the drawing their serif bearing type, they didn’t make fonts.
So, maybe the Jenson answer is to the question “Who cut the first serif font that was useful and well marketed enough that it was used and/or copied quickly all over Europe and in the new world for hundreds of years.” On the other hand, I’d be fascinated to find anything different, or specific documentation that Jenson was influenced by another type or type maker.
27.Dec.2006 8.28am
Much of what I’ve been able to find related to incunabula tends to support Nicholas Jenson’s cutting and printing of the first known “Roman typeface” ca. 1470.
BUT — this reference from the “Dawn of Western Printing” Incunabula site is very specific on the “first Roman type” used in 1465!
Roman script is one of the two major scripts in the Roman alphabet. Roman script started and spread from Italian humanists’ attempt to revive the style of handwriting used in ancient Roman inscriptions and to imitate the Carolingian style of handwriting used at the end of the 8th century. C. Sweynheym and A. Pannartz first used Roman type in 1465, and its use later spread to Germany. These Roman typefaces, however, retained a slightly Gothic flavor compared with today’s Roman type. The present-day Roman type is based on the one first used by N. Jenson in 1470, which is said to be the most beautiful of all Roman typefaces.
BTW — these are great sites for research on types used in early printing:
Dawn of Western Printing — Various Typefaces
Incunabula Database — Berkeley
Incunabula Collections — The British Library
Dante Incunabula — 1472, Foligno: JOHANN NEUMEISTER
27.Dec.2006 8.59am
This page from Collection of Images of GfT Founts displays incunabula “founts” used by authors, by styles, by country.
27.Dec.2006 9.44am
Norbert, excellent link.
Without having the proper amount of time to formulate a well though out response, I’d like to add the question:
If the first so-called “serif” typefaces were simply mimicking what the humanists had found in early manuscripts were they really serifs?
A lot of this depends upon your definitions.
27.Dec.2006 1.42pm
Ok, I found it. Frutiger shows a couple of roman type samples dated september 1470, printed in “La Sorbonne”, France. Jenson’s contemporary but no earlier.
FRUTIGUER, Adrian.
En torno a la tipografía.
Gustavo Gili.
Barcelona, 2002.
Anyway Norbert has the oldest serif roman sample now.
Héctor
27.Dec.2006 2.30pm
But that isn’t what I would call a serif font as it is mimicking the lettering style of the incunabula which are in turn mimicking the hand-lettered books found previously.
27.Dec.2006 2.53pm
Well it’s printed with the characters of a metal font and it has serifs, I don’t think it’s relevant if the intention of the punchcutter was to mimick actual handwriting (according to Bringhurst type is idealized writing). Are Griffo italics or Gutemberg’s textura not considered acual italic or textura fonts because they mimicked handwriting?
Maybe the serifs on these samples are not structured and systematic as today ones but they exist, what other name could we give to the horizontal apendices on the stroke endings of letters?
Héctor
27.Dec.2006 3.06pm
Good points. I did say definition is key. I wouldn’t define this as roman, because there are still traces of half-uncial in many of the characters.
27.Dec.2006 3.10pm
If the question is regarding the first Roman type produced. I believe it to be the type of Nicolas Jensen about 1470. At least that is what we were told in our printing lesson books back in the 50’s. (That’s 1950’s!) As most know, true Roman capitals had been in existance for centuries as inscriptional work in stone.
Jenson’s use of a lowercase that matched in style the caps was the first. A hint of things to come, was as has been posted here, the first shift towards a complete roman typeface. In my old lesson books these type of Sweynheim and Pannartz were classifies as a semi or half roman becuase of the flaring of the stems which gave a hint of a serif.
In this post I am not taking into consideration the terminations of textura letters, although I can certainly see why some consider these to be serifs. I am thinking the question was in regards to Romans as we know them.
About twenty-five years ago I cut a metal version of the S&P semi-roman from drawings that I did, not referring directly to the original type. I had taken a damned good look at the type before I attempted my own drawings just to get it into my brain. The result is an 18 point type which I hand-cut and electroplated into matrix form and cast here at my foundry. I’ve used it no more than three or four times in the intervening years; mostly because I have found little use for a type of this archaic nature. I got a chance just in the last few months to print with it in completing my book: “Leaves From The Pie Tree”.
Backs to Jenson’s type: a great many feel that it has never been bested by any other roman, and all of the major typesetting machine companies and type foundries took a whack at making their versions of it.
I’ve enjoyed reading this thread.
Jim
27.Dec.2006 5.10pm
”...back in the 50’s. (That’s 1950’s!)”
Some of us well remember the 1950s too :-)
Thanks for that wonderful anecdote Jim, and for your work over the years. Could we twist your arm enough for you to post a scan of a sample of your S&P semi roman?
Also, is your book “Leaves From The Pie Tree” on the market yet? If so, where might an old geezer purchase it?
ChrisL
27.Dec.2006 5.58pm
In the book ’Letterletter,’ by G. Noordzij, Chapter 11 is entitled “The Truth about the Serif.”
It traces the development of the roman-style serif by scribes—before the invention of printing—but also says that the style we as we know it is a product of punch cutting. I don’t know how accurate his account is, but it certainly worth reading if you want to understand the evolution of the serif.
27.Dec.2006 6.06pm
Hi Chris
I’d be happy to make a scan, but believe it or not I don’t have a scanner. Maybe I can get a friend to scan it for me. Meantime, P22 has a very small scanned image of one of the pages from “Leaves” in the RTF section of their site, which doesn’t show much other than a fuzzy representation of the Quill type which I designed and cut for the printing of the book.
I have about a dozen copies of Leaves still unsold.
Jim
27.Dec.2006 7.33pm
Jim,
Care to sell me a copy?
Contact me at: chrisL at dezcom dot com
ChrisL
PS: I would be happy to scan a sample for you.
28.Dec.2006 12.11pm
Yes, the roman caps had serifs, so did the Unical letters used by the european scripes starting from the 4th century to the 9th century. the earlier ones are sometimes serifed. But do we take these into account? If so then we will never find the 1st serif font.
If the original poster is looking for the 1st serif font that has had the most dramatic impact after Gutenburg then it goes to Nicholas Jenson. Now as to which font available digitally today is the best-know recreation on offset press... that’s another issue.
28.Dec.2006 1.20pm
I would argue that what the scribes had were not serifs so much as the pen/brush leaving the page.
I’m not arguing or disagreeing that Nicolas Jenson didn’t have the first typeface (not font, as technically that refers to software and we know that isn’t so).
28.Dec.2006 1.53pm
>font, as technically that refers to software
Um, IIRC...
Font or Fount is related to the word ’foundry’, which comes from the latin for ’pouring’. A foundry melts metal and pours it into moulds. One complete pouring of a bowl of melted lead at a printer’s foundry shop filled one size of one design of an alphabet with repeated characters in proportion to usage—hence one fount or font (pouring) of type.
All other meanings of ’a font of type’ are an extension of this original one. So yes, Jenson made punches, matrices, and poured fonts of type.
28.Dec.2006 1.58pm
Gah. OK OK. I’m in over my head. Or rather this cold is rendering me stupid. The word font is used in EULAs to refer to the software. My bad. Mea culpa. So we should be using the word font/fount in this thread. I’ll go away now.
28.Dec.2006 2.04pm
Hope you feel better soon Tiffany!
ps. While you’re recovering, you might read the great story, ’The Know It All’, by Somerset Maughm. It’s about a very annoying guy. I kept thinking of it while typing my post, feeling guilty :)
4.Jan.2007 11.59am
“The first typeface to be fully Roman is, I think, the one that the R-Printer [Adolf Rusch] was using at Strasburg by 1467 (Fig. 35). It has classical capitals of rather a rough kind and the characters of the lower case have been given serifs to match them and are widened and rounded so that their curves are consistent with those of the capitals.
[...]
There were typefaces reproducing the Italian humanists’ calligraphy before 1467. At Subiaco, Sweynheym and Pannartz began using the first of them in 1464 or 1465.”
From Harry Carter’s A View of Early Typography, p.47.
When I can get some time, if anyone is at all interested, I can look at the dates on the Rusch and Mentelin books at the Newberry here in Chicago. They have several. My memory tells me that one of them is dated 1464 and uses the typeface that Carter mentions above. But both librarians and my memory can be wrong.
4.Jan.2007 1.36pm
Scans please!
Héctor
5.Jan.2007 9.39am
If I’m not mistaken, and the books at the Newberry are actually from 1464, I’ll probably pay for their reproductive services to take some photos. If IP allows, I’ll post a link to them here.
The date I have in mind may not come from documents at the Newberry, but from D B Updike. Page 65, volume I, of Printing Types says: “But the font of the “R Bizarre”, as it is often called, was the first roman letter used by Adolf Rusch of Ingweiden (“the R Printer”), who printed it in an edition of the Rationale of Durandus, at Strassburg, as early as 1464.”
The image below is a detail of Figure 22 from Printing Types. The caption is: “First Roman Type used in Germany: Rusch, Strassburg, c. 1464”. Sweynheym and Pannartz’s first type follows as Fig. 24 and is dated 1465. This is, of course, not to suggest that Updike is flawless in his research.