Hopefully his work was not derivative of the dubious ink spread theory that was spread around like peanut butter in internet discussions groups. Disappointingly the gentleman reproduced Caslon with ink globes and all. It was of great interest to me that another foundry digitised the various sizes of the original Caslon. An account of the project was duly noted and published in my typographical journal, 'The Fount'. Lanston's revival of Caslon employed uncommon type revival techniques. If you want a closer to source Caslon than Lanston's Caslon Oldstyle 337 for setting text you'd best start shopping for hand-set foundry type. What joy is there to be right for the wrong reason? In some countries there is.īut can you imagine the remarks had we released five on six point, linear scaled to twelve point.Īnyway, if John had stated he preferred the weight of Adobe Caslon in six point over Lanston's Caslon 337 in six point I may have even agreed with him. There should be a law against type that small.
Type that small is excellent for labelling dangerous products or for redistributing the wealth of a centenarian. Caslon 337 for your setting.īut that is because you are not setting six point, you are setting 11 on 12 point linear scaled to 5 on 6 pt.Ĭaslon 337 six pt.'s x height is equal to less than most faces of 5 pt. Also I do not subscribe to any puerile concept that William Caslon intended his face to become bolder by inferior press work.īut I do agree that Caslon 337 is light and difficult to read if you choose six pt. Ĭertainly, I for one, do not prefer Adobe's Caslon over Lanston's Caslon 337 in text sizes. ¶ I AM AT GREAT VARIANCE with John's observations about weight. They are, however, ideal for letterpress printing from polymer plates. The Lanston fonts were digitised from smoke proofs of metal patterns, and as such carry none of the weight associated with ink spread. 'Although the forms of Adobe Caslon have been somewhat 'cleaned up', compared to the delightfully eccentric 18th century forms of the original, it does possess a better weight than, for example, the Lanston Type Co.'s Caslon 337 (which is much more historically accurate). Trusting John will understand this is not a personal attack on him.Īnd, trusting John's pension for correctness, he will thank me for making note of those errors.
So I have taken this opportunity to set the matter straight. Type designers that engage themselves in type revivals make much ado about ink spread on hand made papers.Īnd John is so well respected in the type community I fear following generations will parrot the error into fact. However, in this writing I am going to address an issue in which John Hudson, Tiro Typeworks, mis-spoke about ink spread and the bolding of type. Lanston's digital release expresses in minutiae Lanston's punch cutting replication of Caslon Oldstyle in 1915.Ĭaslon 337 was very well received by the type community. ¶ CASLON 337 was the most ambitious production of a digital face up to the time of its launch.