Old Style Type

As a follow up to a lecture on Typography, I have decided to look further at the History behind the Old Style Typefaces.


The Old Style Typefaces are known as having strong roots from calligraphy, however as opposed to other typefaces such as Humanist Types, Old Style saw a strong change in direction and typefaces as we know them today, started to take shape. Old Style Types are generally known as being more refined, using a range of thick and thin strokes which give the letters a sharper appearance, particularly in the letters serifs. Letters such as 'e' which once had more angled cross bar's became horizontal.


It was also during this time that italic type appeared, the idea behind italic type was for it to be used in books where the space given meant that the texted had to be more condensed. There were four very popular versions of 'Old Style' type which were created between the 15th and 18th Centuries. Some of them today are still used such as Adobe Caslon and Stempel Garamond.


Today Old Style can still be found on the internet. Fonts such as Times New Roman and Palatino Linotype are regarded as being internet friendly, however it is felt that today it is better to use sans serif fonts for large body's of text, whereas serif fonts work best on the internet for headers and subheaders.


Information found on: ilovetypography.com & Sitepoint.com