Antiqua ( lat. Antīqua "ancient") - a class of typographic type fonts with serifs that appeared in the Renaissance in Western Europe. The basis for the developers of the first humanistic, or Renaissance antiquas was a handwritten book handwriting - a humanistic minuscule .
According to one of the historical versions, the first antique was carved by the engraver Nicolas Janson in Venice in 1470 . However, similar fonts were created earlier [1] . In particular, in the mid- 1460s near Rome, in the Monastery of Subiaco, typographers Sveinheim and Pannartz created their own version of the humanistic type. Be that as it may, the first generation of antique fonts is considered to be the Renaissance Venetian antiqua. Later appeared French, Dutch and English versions of this font.
The Renaissance, or humanistic antiqua was distinguished by some lapidarity. The transitional antiqua that came to replace it was more subtle. At the end of the 18th century, French and Italian printing houses, the most famous of which were Bodoni and Dido , developed a new, more rigorous and balanced style - a new (classic) antiqua.
Content
Old-style
Renaissance Antiqua
The Renaissance antiqua in terms of appearance and time of creation belong to two groups: the Venetian and Italian-French.
The Venetian antiqua appeared earlier, it is closest to the prototype - writing with a wide-pointed pen. The contrast between the main and auxiliary strokes is small, the axes of the oval elements are inclined, the serifs are asymmetrical, the drop-shaped elements have the shape of a trace from a wide-nib pen, the jumper in the letter e is inclined.
Modern fonts based on the Venetian antiqua Nicolas Janson and Francesco Griffo - Adobe Jenson, Nicolaus, Centaur.
Italo-French antiqua - later, XVI century; by this time, font production had reached greater perfection, which allowed to increase the contrast between strokes. The jumper in the letter e became horizontal, the serifs became thinner and more regular in shape, the droplets became more rounded.
Today it is represented by the fonts of Garamon , Palatino, Bembo, Caslon and others based on the works of Claude Garamon , Alda Manucius and other authors.
Transitional Antique
The transition from ancient antiqua began at the end of the XVII century. It is traditionally believed that the new font design was first created for the needs of Louis XIV, King of France. The work was based not on handwritten drawing, but on geometric constructions and “natural proportions”.
In the 18th century, the Baskerville font was created (named for its creator John Baskerville ).
Transitional antiquas are distinguished by a stronger contrast, the vertical axes of oval letters, rounded symmetrical serifs, and a semi-closed shape of the signs. The shape of the characters was influenced by the invention of the pointed pen in the 17th century (see the section The Effect of Calligraphy on the Shape of Characters ).
The number of transitional antiques is small, but they have the widest application.
New Antique
The most correct and geometric among the different styles of antiqua. It is characterized by high contrast, vertical axes of oval elements, closed forms of signs, rounded drop-shaped elements. In readability inferior to old-fashioned and transitional antiques.
Abroad was the main font for typing from the end of the XVIII to the beginning of the XX century; in the USSR continued to be widely used [2] until the end of the 80s, especially for scientific and technical literature.
Examples of new antiqua - fonts Bodoni , Didot, Ordinary new [3] , Computer Modern .
Relationship between font pattern and paper properties
Metal typesetting fonts of the Renaissance and Baroque eras (old-style antique and transitional antique) were created for printing on matte paper , available at that time. The new antique was used for printing on glossy paper . To maintain a holistic impression of the publication, this should be taken into account using fonts for printing on paper suitable to them [4] .
Relation of font patterns to national languages
In his famous work Typography, Swiss typographer and graphic designer Emil Ruder draws attention to the fact that fonts can be associated with the language of their creators: “The Garamont font is associated with French, Keslon is associated with English, and Bodoni with Italian. Any of these three fonts, used in a set in another language, can suffer significant aesthetic damage. For example, the Bodoni used in the German set is not the same font; a picture of a foreign text full of capital letters is contraindicated for him ” [5] .
The effect of calligraphy on the shape of characters
Writing with a pen (broad-edged and sharp) influenced the shape of letters in typeset fonts.
When writing with a wide- pointed pen, the thickness of the line depends on the direction of the pen’s movement: whether the pen moves up, down or to the side, which is clearly seen in the letters M and N. When writing, the pen is held at an angle, so the letter O in the old antiqua is asymmetric.
When writing with a pointed pen, invented in the XVII century, the thickness of the stroke depends on the force pressing the pen, and not on the direction of its movement. This, along with progress in working with metal, influenced the shape of the letters: they became more contrasting and symmetrical.
See also
- PT Serif
Notes
- ↑ Antiqua in the dictionary of ParaType studio
- ↑ The Ordinary New headset in the ParaType studio font store
- ↑ Kirsanov D. Web Design. - Symbol Plus, 2006.
- ↑ Bringhurst R. Fundamentals of style in typography. - S. 111.
- ↑ Ruder E. Typography - M., Book, 1982. - P. 44, 45.
Literature
- Kudryavtsev A.I. Evolution of the font form. Moscow, 2007.
- Korolkova A. Live typography. - M., IndexMarket, 2007. (website of the book: http://www.alivetypography.ru ) .
- Felichi D. Typography: font, layout, design. - SPb .: BHV-Petersburg, 2008.
- Bringhurst R. Fundamentals of style in typography. - D. Aronov, 2006.
- Kashevsky, P.A. Fonts. - Mn. : Literature and mastastva, 2012. - P.192.
- Anatomy of the font - an article on the site "Popular Calligraphy".
- Classification of fonts in the dictionary of ParaType studio.
- Antiqua font - an article on the website of the MegaPro Advertising Group.
- The development of Antiqua font in Europe in the 16-19th century is an article on the website of the MegaPro Advertising Group.