Originally Posted October 14, 2020
From Gothic to Baskerville
In contrast to the Gothic and Venetian styles of typography created in the 1400s, the 1500s brought the “Old-style” font to fame. Fonts like Garamond and Goudy Old Style were prevalent during this century. The main difference of the time was that these fonts were created to be printed rather than handwritten. This change led to letters taking on a more upright appearance with high contrast between the thick and thin elements of typefaces.
Near the beginning of the 1700s, Caslon Font, created by Wiliam Caslon, was the most popular type in England and America. The style of typography had a hand-like quality and could be printed by presses easily. Caslon had an attractive appearance that was easy to read and suited long passages of text. This font could later be commonly found in newspapers, invented in 1752, where the font gained rapid exposure with the public.
The iconic Baskerville font was also invented during this time. This font featured very high contrast lettering that had elements of classical and modern typography. The creator, John Baskerville, went to great measures for his text and even redesigned the printing press to capture the intricacies of his type font. This font spread quickly from England to the rest of Europe, where countries eagerly took on adaptations of the text. Today, the elegant properties of Baskerville live on in our books and daily typography, as the font has remained a popular choice around the world.
Sites used:https://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/articles/a-history-of-typeface-styles-type-classification/embed#?secret=F29AoYGYbE