EXAMPLE 501
Heavy strokes in vertical positions
Generally the distribution of thick and thin lines in Roman letters, as shown in Example [496], is as follows: All vertical strokes are thick (excepting in M, N, U). Horizontal strokes are thin. Diagonal strokes running down from left to right are thick, and from right to left are thin (excepting Z, z).
When this rule is reversed, as was actually done by a nineteenth-century typefounder in a weird attempt at novelty, there is begotten a monstrosity. Good typography requires that basic principles be adhered to.
In the recent recutting of the Roman type-face of Nicholas Jenson, the founders went all the way back to his type for their models, and did not content themselves, as they did near the end of the last century, with copying Morris’s type or the faces of other foundries. As Jenson based the design of his types closely on Italian manuscripts, we have in such a face as Cloister Oldstyle many of the characteristics of the pen-made letters, one of which is the position of the thick strokes on round letters. The thick strokes on the O, as an instance, instead of being vertical, are diagonal. This is due to the manner of holding the pen when lettering. When held to write vertically and horizontally, the pen makes lines as in Example [498]; when held at a slant, the pen makes thick lines diagonally as in Example [499]. The Caroline Minuscules, upon which the lower-case types of Jenson were based, were written with a slanted pen.
In Example [500] are to be seen two well-known type-faces on which the slanted-pen thick strokes are used. In Example [501] are two faces that could be made by writing vertically. It was Mr. Goudy who reintroduced into type forms a characteristic of Jenson’s Roman—that of having the lower serifs extend more to the right than to the left, as shown by Example [495-B].
Ascenders and Descenders.—Not a little of the beauty of Roman type-faces lies in the ascending and descending strokes, and one reason why our types are becoming more beautiful is that we are going thru a period of restoration—the long-missing ascenders and descenders are being given back to us, after an absence of many years.
What should be the length of these strokes? Edward Johnston, in “Writing and Illuminating and Lettering,” illustrates this point (Example [503]), and says: “The lines in massed writing are kept as close together as is compatible with legibility. The usual distance apart of the writing lines is about three times the hight of the letter o. The descending strokes of the upper line must clear the ascending strokes of the lower line.”
Bodoni, the Italian typefounder, had a system of measurement for the proportions of his lower-case letters: “Divide the body of the type into seven parts and let two at the top and two at the bottom be for the ascenders and descenders and the three in the middle for the other letters.”
The ascenders and descenders, as found in Cloister Oldstyle and in the original Caslon Oldstyle, approximate the proportions given by Bodoni.