 | |
| Category | Serif |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | William Miller, Richard Austin |
| Foundry | William Miller |
Scotch Roman is a class of typefaces popular in the early nineteenth century, particularly in the United States and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom. These typefaces were modeled on a design known as Pica No. 2 from the Edinburgh foundry of William Miller. Some accounts suggest that Miller's type, the oldest surviving specimen of which dates to 1813, was cut by Richard Austin, who had previously produced the Bell types for the British Letter Foundry. [1]
In typography, a typeface is a set of one or more fonts each composed of glyphs that share common design features. Each font of a typeface has a specific weight, style, condensation, width, slant, italicization, ornamentation, and designer or foundry. For example, "ITC Garamond Bold Condensed Italic" means the bold, condensed-width, italic version of ITC Garamond. It is a different font from "ITC Garamond Condensed Italic" and "ITC Garamond Bold Condensed", but all are fonts within the same typeface, "ITC Garamond". ITC Garamond is a different typeface from "Adobe Garamond" or "Monotype Garamond". There are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly.
Richard Austin (1756–1832) was an English punchcutter. He was the original cutter of the typefaces now known as Bell, Scotch Roman, and Porson. Born in London 4 August 1756 and christened at St Luke's Old Street, he studied seal, die and copper-plate engraving as an apprentice to John Phillips near Finsbury Square. He married Phillips' daughter Sarah and set up on his own about 1786. He was hired by John Bell's British Letter Foundry in 1788 as a punch-cutter, to imitate Didot's 1782 types "de la troisième manière," cut by Pierre Vafflard to F-A Didot's designs. Bell sold his interest in the foundry to S & C Stephenson. When the foundry closed in 1797, Austin bought in his own punches and sold strikes to Fry & Steele, Figgins, and Caslon. Strikes were even sold in North America. Austin cut Greek types for Cambridge University Press in 1806-8, following designs provided by the famous drunken master Richard Porson. He probably also cut the Sarcophagus Greek that preceded it. Austin then provided strikes to William Miller's foundry in Edinburgh & Alexander Wilson's Sons' foundry in Glasgow, creating the types now known as Scotch, before founding his own Imperial Letter Foundry in London in 1815, with his son George. The first Miller Specimen of 1809 is now lost. Wilson's earliest specimen showing the improved types is dated 1812. Richard Austin died circa 20 August 1832, leaving the foundry to his son George, whom many credited with the innovations in type designs manifest in the Scotch types. Austin's other sons were John Phillips Austin, a music engraver, and Richard Turner Austin (1781-1842), a painter and commercial wood engraver.
Bell is the name given to a serif typeface designed and cut in 1788 by the punchcutter Richard Austin for the British Letter Foundry, operated by publisher John Bell, and revived several times since.
The name "Scotch Roman", which entered use in the United States late in the same century, was applied to a slightly modified recasting of Miller's type by the A.D. Farmer foundry of New York. It is believed to derive from "Scotch-face", a term which was originally used by a different type designed in 1839 by typefounder Samuel Nelson Dickinson of Boston, and cast for him by Alexander Wilson and Son in Glasgow. [1]
Versions of Scotch Roman were subsequently released by a number of other typefoundries, including both Linotype and Monotype, in the early twentieth century. These were generally derived from the A.D. Farmer design, and shared with it a number of modifications such as a flat-topped lowercase t. [2]
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company is a corporation founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine, a system to cast metal type in lines (linecaster) invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It became the world's leading manufacturer of book and newspaper typesetting equipment; outside North America, its only serious challenger for book production was the Anglo-American Monotype Corporation. It also offered phototypesetting and digital products before being taken over by Monotype Imaging in 2006.
Scotch Roman typefaces are a serif font, suitable for both body text and large text such as headings. De Vinne described Scotch Roman as "a small, neat, round letter, with long ascenders, and not noticeably condensed or compressed." [3] They can be classified as "modern" from their large ball terminals, horizontal serifs, sharply vertical axis and high stroke contrast. Nonetheless, Scotch Romans have a number of differences from the styles of Bodoni and Didot that are often held to typify the modern genre: the serifs, while very broad and flat, remain bracketed, apertures are frequently narrow, and stroke widths tend to be slightly more modulated. [4]
In typography, a serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface, and a typeface that does not include them is a sans-serif one. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" or "Gothic", and serif typefaces as "roman".
Theodore Low De Vinne was an American printer and scholarly author on typography. De Vinne did much for the improvement of American printing.
In typography, an ascender is the portion of a minuscule letter in a Latin-derived alphabet that extends above the mean line of a font. That is, the part of a lower-case letter that is taller than the font's x-height.
These typefaces were extremely influential on many modern typefaces, including Caledonia, Georgia, and Escrow (commissioned by the Wall Street Journal). [5] Miller, by Matthew Carter, is a modern revival of the Scotch Roman genre. [6] Scotch Modern is a redrawing of an American version of Miller's design, said by designer Nick Shinn to be closer to a Didone, and hence a Scotch Modern rather than a Scotch Roman [7]
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.
Georgia is a serif typeface designed in 1993 by Matthew Carter and hinted by Tom Rickner for the Microsoft Corporation. It was intended as a serif font that would appear elegant but legible printed small or on low-resolution screens. The font is inspired by Scotch Roman designs of the 19th century and was based on designs for a print typeface in the same style Carter was working on when contacted by Microsoft; this would be released under the name Miller the following year. The typeface's name referred to a tabloid headline claiming "Alien heads found in Georgia."
Miller is a serif typeface, released in 1997 by the Font Bureau, a U.S.-based digital type foundry. It was designed by Matthew Carter and is of the 'transitional' style from around 1800, based on the "Scotch Roman" type which originates from types sold by Scottish type foundries that later became popular in the United States. It is named for William Miller, founder of the long-lasting Miller & Richard type foundry of Edinburgh.
