Caledonia (typeface)

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Caledonia
CaledoniaSp.png
Category Serif
Classification Transitional serif
Designer(s) William Addison Dwiggins
Foundry Mergenthaler Linotype Company
Date released1938
Design based on Scotch Roman
Bulmer
VariationsNew Caledonia
Also known asCornelia
Transitional 511

Caledonia is a serif typeface designed by William Addison Dwiggins in 1938 for the Mergenthaler Linotype Company and commonly used in book design. As a transitional serif design, one inspired by the Scotch Roman typefaces of the early nineteenth century, Caledonia has a contrasting design of alternating thick and thin strokes, a design that stresses the vertical axis and sharp, regular serifs on ascenders and descenders.

Contents

Dwiggins chose the name Caledonia, the Roman name for Scotland, to express the face's basis on Scotch Roman typefaces. [1] However, though Dwiggins began with the thought of copying the classical Scotch Romans, eventually he drew more inspiration from the Bulmer design of William Martin. [2] The G is open and the R has a curved tail. The t is unbracketed. Italic characters p and q have no foot serif. The character set, as drawn by Dwiggins, was wide, including ranging (old style) figures, lining figures, and small capitals in the text and bold weights. A Greek version of the face is available. Historian of printing G. Willem Ovink describes Caledonia as "one of the most crisp and sprightly modern types". [3]

Hot metal type

Machine composition

Caledonia was made initially for machine composition with foundry type only made later, and then only in Germany. The following variants were designed by Dwiggins and released by Linotype:

Two versions of the typeface were commercially available: one, with longer descenders (preferred by the designer), was cast on larger type bodies than the nominal point size and required leading, while the other, with shorter descenders, was designed for use at size and could be set solid. The roman (paired with either bold or italic) and bold (paired with bold italic) were available in 6–12 and 14 point; the bold was also available in 16, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30 and 36 point display sizes with short descenders only, and paired with an optional bold italic at 18 and 24 point. Linotype also made 36 point matrices for Caledonia Bold Condensed, but it is doubtful that Dwiggins had anything to do with their design. The face was sold by Linotype in England under the same name, and in Germany as Cornelia. [4]

Foundry type

Cornelia, as it was called there, proved so popular in Germany, that the Stempel Foundry cast it as foundry type. [5]

Cold type

Caledonia's popularity as a text face continued right through the cold type era. Linotype offered Caledonia for its Linofilm system, making several modifications to the design, most noticeably an "f" that kerned now that it was no longer limited to the capabilities of the Linotype machine; these modifications have carried over to the digital version. Caledonia roman was also made available in display optical sizes.

Phototypesetting also made unauthorized copies easier than ever to produce, and knockoffs from other companies were sold under the following names: [6]

Digital copies

Derivatives

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References

  1. Mosley, James. "Scotch Roman". Type Foundry (blog). Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  2. Hlasta, Stanley C., Printing Types & How to Use Them, Carnegie Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1950, pp. 111-114.
  3. Ovink, G. Willem (1973). "Review: Jan van Krimpen, A Letter to Philip Hofer". Quaerendo: 239–242. doi:10.1163/157006973X00237.
  4. MacGrew, Mac, American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century, Oak Knoll Books, New Castle Delaware, 1993, ISBN   0-938768-34-4, pp. 56 + 57.
  5. Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson, The Encyclopedia of Type Faces, Blandford Press Lts., 1983, ISBN   0-7137-1347-X, p. 34.
  6. Wheatley, W.F., Typeface Analogue, National Composition Association, Arlington, Virginia, 1988, p. 7 + Lawson, Alexander, Archie Provan, and Frank Romano, Primer of Typeface Identification, National Composition Association, Arlington, Virginia, 1976, pp. 34 - 35.
  7. "Deréon - ZeCraft".