- (a) Hooks or beaks.
- (b) Straight (or curved) strokes, thick or thin according to the direction of the pen.
- (c) Triangular “heads” (and “feet”), straight or slanted, and more or less curved and sharpened.
- (d) Thin finishing-curves, horizontal or oblique.
To give uniformity to the various letters of an alphabet it is necessary to treat similar parts as consistently as possible throughout (see No. 5, p. [239]). And the remarkable way in which “heads” impart a “family likeness” to letters closely resembles the same phenomenon among human beings (see pp. [324], [254]).
If we consider the four types of serif, as applicable to straight-pen writing, we find— [p245]
| (a) Hooks or Beaks | Suitable only for certain parts of certain letters (and for informal writing). |
| (d) Thin Finishing-Curves | |
| (b) Straight (or Curved) THIN Strokes | Informal (or Ornamental). |
| (c) Triangular “Heads” | Formal and capable of imparting great elegance and finish. |
For a formal, straight-pen writing, therefore, we may assume that a form of triangular head is, on the whole, the most suitable, while some of the letters may be allowed to end naturally in finishing hooks and curves. [p246]
Heads are easily built up at the ends of thick strokes, but some practice is required to enable a penman to make them on the thin strokes properly and skilfully. On the thin horizontals they are made with an almost continuous movement of the point of the nib from the thin stroke itself (see (a) to (h) fig. [146]) closely resembling the termination of some of the thin strokes in the Irish half-uncial ([Plate VI.]). On the thin oblique or vertical stems a thin crossing stroke is first made, and then shaped [p247] with the pen point to meet the stem (see (i) and (k) fig. [146]).