The author even owned up to making the conversion from Bembo to Baskerville, when writing his own manuscripts.īierut and Svendsen have designed infographics, diagrams and historic visuals that trace the story of Baskerville, the man and the font. In fact the title of the book, a playful reference to the important announcements made by 19th-century town criers, is extracted from a Baskerville-printed edition of the Holy Bible. When I pick a typeface to write with, I now research it to learn about its history as well as where and how it was utilized when it was initially developed. In his essay, Morris traces the typeface’s origin to John Baskerville and his incessant pursuit to master the art of “letter-founding”. The face first appeared in 1766 under the name of Isaac Moore, the foundry manager. However, after doing some study on this type, I discovered that the origin story and growth of the font, which was inspired by old styles, was rather fascinating. Hear, All Ye People Hearken, O Earth has been published as the 44th edition of the Pentagram Papers, a monograph that the design firm sends to an exclusive list of individuals each year. Morris revealed his findings in a two-part essay published in – naturally – the Times and has now repulished it in a book designed by Pentagram’s Michael Bierut and Jessica Svendsen. Morris found that Baskerville provoked the most optimistic responses – a sign that the typeface made the statement more believable. ![]() The quiz was published in six arbitrarily assigned typefaces – Baskerville, Computer Modern, Georgia, Helvetica, Comic Sans and Trebuchet – which categorised the readers’ responses. But the fact that 61 per cent of the readers were optimists had little meaning for Morris, whose actual intention was to examine how “typography shapes the way we see the truth”. The online quiz, conducted in 2013, was a test to separate the optimists from the pessimists, and invited Times readers to agree or disagree with the line, “we live in an era of unprecedented safety”. Errol Morris, filmmaker behind the award-winning documentaries “The Thin Blue Line” and "Fog of War," conducted his research in the form of a social experiment disguised as a quiz on The New York Times’ website. He developed a new and better ink he exploited the recent invention of so-called woven paper and he generally. After four years' work, he produced the first of the elegant Baskerville fonts. He applied his uncommon engraving skill to printing and typography. He argues that Baskerville's.Designers all know that the style of a font influences readers’ perception but few have concrete data to back this up. Baskerville was forty-four when he took up the business for which he's known today. But he sees Baskerville's Greeks as part of a trend toward simplification in the eighteenth century, a design that is fully typographic in contrast to the calligraphically oriented Greeks that prevailed then. Leonidas explains that their negative reputation can be attributed to the classical bias of Robert Proctor and Victor Scholderer, who have most defined the attributes of a Greek typeface. Only three essays touch on those subjects and none directly, other than Gerry Leonidas' discussion of Baskerville's little-known Greek types, cut for the Oxford University Press in 1763. Drawn from the papers presented by both practitioners and academics at a 2013 conference organized by the Baskerville Society, the book covers the arc of Baskerville's life and his activities from writing master to japanner to printer.īaskerville's printing and the typography of his books do not feature prominently in the volume. ![]() ![]() The eleven essays in John Baskerville attempt to go beyond both the salacious aspects of Baskerville's life and the uncritical reverence attending his types and books to situate him and his work within the broader cultural context of eighteenth-century England. Sarah Eaves (housekeeper, mistress, and eventually wife), and the manner of his burial have all been entertaining subjects of discussion rivaling commentaries on the quality of his books and the merits of his types-criticized by contemporaries but now held in high esteem. His views on religion, his life with Mrs. Baskerville, designed in 1754, is most known for its crisp edges, high contrast and generous proportions. John Baskerville (1707-1775) remains one of the most intriguing figures in printing history for his life as much as for his work. OctoDesigned by a perfectionist and self-taught printer, Baskerville is the eighth font to be explored in our ‘Know your type’ series. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017. Sion Hill Court Wolverly, Wocestershire, Village in Enlgand 1728 - John. Born near Kidderminster in Worcestershire, he began his career as a writing-master, and moved on to stone-cutting. Caroline Archer-Parre and Malcolm Dick, editors, John Baskerville: Art and Industry of the Enlightenment. John Baskerville (170675) came to typesetting and printing at the age of fifty, after making a fortune in ‘japanned wares’.
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