#CASLON FONT HISTORY PDF#

One little slip of the graver could mean the loss of more than a day’s work. Since the method of letterform sculpture employed in punchcutting was basically subtractive, meaning that soft steel was being taken away from negative areas instead of being added to positive areas, accidentally cutting too deeply could be costly. Furthermore, the whole process typically involved making special preliminary punches, called “counterpunches,” to stamp the hollow, recessed, interiors of characters, those non-printing white spaces like the upper and lower rectangular counter forms inside an H or the ellipse inside an O, which at small sizes were tricky (if not impossible) to gouge out accurately using a graver, and were too confining for a file. Files were utilized especially for delicately refining an array of outward-facing, flat or convex edges, such as the top and bottom of an H or the outside of an O. Also, files were needed to efficiently remove quantities of steel surrounding a character and help to give it its outer shape the process was seldom a matter of using gravers exclusively. For example, engraving instruments (gravers) first had to be made and carefully sharpened for the job. Invariably, the punchmaking process began not with the immediate carving of a desired character, but rather with the creation of various tools and implements needed to fashion the final punch. Its objective was that of achieving (albeit far less directly than one might wish) a three-dimensional impression of a character from which type could finally be cast. Admiration of the craft notwithstanding, the making of punches was, in itself, strictly a means to an end. Ultimately, this hardened shank would be used as a punch for striking a matrix, or a number of matrices, from which to cast that one size and style of character needed for printing.

In essence, the job required a proficient engraver, like Caslon, to carve in relief the mirror image of a letter, figure, or other character of the desired type size on one end of a shank of annealed steel, later to be hardened by means of tempering. Because of its exacting nature, punchcutting was ordinarily performed to best effect under a magnifying lens. The work was tedious and called for steadfast precision in addition to acute eyesight. It took the longest to learn and it involved the highest degree of artistic scrutiny. The first task, known as punchcutting, was generally recognized as the most difficult of the four, an employment that called for meticulousness, perseverance, and extraordinary technical control. In fact, the production process that was used in Caslon’s time was painstakingly intricate and included no fewer than four distinct tasks, each involving a separate set of skills. But typefounding has never been just a simple matter of molding hot metal. The first Latin types produced by William Caslon in England around 270 years ago were made the way virtually all movable types had been made up to that time: they were cast one character at a time, each by hand.

This text was first published in 1995 on the back of a poster introducing the Not Caslon typeface.Ĭaslon types have been in existence now for about half as long as the art of typefounding has been practiced in the western world.

#CASLON FONT HISTORY PDF#

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Caslon font history