2) Robert Besley (1794–1876) & Hermann Eidenbenz (1902-1993)
3) Originally in 1845, redesigned in 1953
4) Slab serif
5) Linotype.com – Slab serifs
Many typeface catalogs, including our own, group all serif typefaces together under one umbrella-category. But in truth, there are many different kinds of serifs, e.g., Renaissance serifs, baroque serifs, unbracketed modern serifs, Latin serifs, wedge serifs, etc. One of the most popular styles of seriffed letter, especially for display type, remains the slab serif.
The slab serif is a genre of letterforms that has been in use for almost 200 years. Throughout this time, many different sub-styles and groups have come in and out of use. The following Font Feature discusses five categories of slab serifs that may be found in the Linotype library. For our sake, we will call these categories Clarendons, Contemporary Text Faces, Classic Text Faces, Standard-Bearers, and Massive Display Examples.
During the early 19th century, especially in Britain, letter drawers began creating thicker versions of letterforms common in European printing during the 18th century, e.g., the types of the Fourniers, Giambattista Bodoni, or the Didots. These new letter styles began to appear throughout British society. Artists, artisans, printers, and typefounders … they all would come to embrace these new ideas. In the realm of typefounding, these faces came to represent the age of industrialization, and also the beginnings of advertising. This also marked the birth hour for typefaces that would be marketed by their makers for “display” use. Quite common today!
As far as the typefaces go, the first examples seem to have been all-caps alphabets; faces with lowercase letters would come a bit later. In the UK, many of these early slab serifs were called “Egyptians,” even though they had very little to do with Egypt. Enthusiasm in Western Europe was quite high during this time period; Napoleon and his army had faced off against the British there, and hieroglyphics were in the process of decipherment. Perhaps the naming of typefaces as “Egyptian” had something to do with this popularity.
6) Belizio, Serifa, Figaro
7) The Raven by Poe published. Annexation of Texas. Rubberband invented. Naval Academy opens. Texas admitted into statehood. Great Irish Famine. Manifest Desitny first discussed. Florida becomes a state.
8) I couldn’t find any!
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“Clarendon is among the most evocative and colorful of the Victorian faces. The lighter weights are a later development that extends the functionality of the face, being more suitable for text setting than the bold form that is the basis of the genre. Although the broad width of the letters makes it a relatively uneconomical face for setting extended texts, the serifs are exceptionally durable and will retain their form under conditions for poor reproduction, surviving either low screen resolution or unsympathetic conditions of printing. Clarendon will hold its legibility fairly well when used as a screen font in web applications or when printed onto low-quality paper. It is also effective for architectural and environmental applications, because the strong serif forms can be easily cut out and reproduced in 3D media.”
-From The Complete Typographer by Will Hill
“Besley designed the original Clarendon in 1845 while working on the design staff of the Fann Street Foundry in London. Besley had joined Willian Thorowgood, owner of the firm, in 1838. After Thorowgood retired in 1849, Besley took over the firm and renamed it Besley & Co. Besley’s partner was the skilled punchcutter Benjamin Fox who had assisted him in creating Clarendon.
In 1845, Clarendon was the first typeface registered under a new English law that permitted type designs to be copyrighted for a three-year period. However, despite the legal protection, the face soon became one of the most plagiarized typefaces of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The name Clarendon came to not only refer to a specific face, but also to a subcategory of slab- or square-serif typefaces with bracketed serifs. Some of the later faces that belong to this subcategory include Consort, Egizio, Fortune, and Playbill. In England, Clarendon became synonymous with the term boldface as a description of weight, and the face is sill used in the Oxford English Dictionary to offset entries from their definitions.
The original Clarendon was modeled after the Egyptian faces, with bracketed serifs replacing the Egyptian square serifs. Unlike its progenitors, which were used only as display types, Clarendon was designed to serve as a condensed text type. Overall, Clarendons have the structure of romans, but lack the thin strokes typical of those faces. In fact, Clarendons often accompanied roman types, playing a role similar to contemporary boldface.(Type families containing both roman and boldface were not common until later in the century.) The bracketing of the serifs and an increased thick-and-thin stroke contrast allowed Clarendon to blend harmoniously with roman type. The intermixing of Clarendon with roman types represents one of the first instances when boldface was used instead of italics as a means of indicating emphasis – a practice that continues to this day.
Clarendons sit midway between the sever blockiness of the Egyptian slab serifs and later bracketed slab serifs such as Century Schoolbook. The serifs of19th-century Clarendons are not as thick as those of most Egyptians and the tapering provided by the brackets softens the harsh angularity typical of slab-serif faces.
The original Clarendon was a bold, condensed face, but Besley later released a slightly expanded version. This version became popular in the printing business as a display face and later its pleasing proportions made it the model for most Clarendon revivials.”
-From Revival of the Fittest edited by Philip B. Meggs & Roy McKelvey
“Clarendon is an English slab-serif typeface that was created in England by Robert Besley for the Fann Street Foundry in 1845. Besley went as far as trying to patent the typeface, and Clarendon is now known as the first registered typeface. However, the patents at the time lasted only three years; as soon as the typeface became popular, it was copied by other foundries. The original matrices and punches remained at Stephenson Blake and later resided at the Type Museum, London. They were marketed by Stephenson Blake as Consort, though some additional weights (a bold and italics) were cut in the 1950s.
It was named after the Clarendon Press in Oxford. The typeface was reworked by the Monotype foundry in 1935. It was revised by Hermann Eidenbenz in 1953.
The font was used extensively by the government of the German Empire for proclamations during World War I.
Clarendon was used by the United States National Park Service on traffic signs, but has been replaced by NPS Rawlinson Roadway. In 2008, the typeface was utilized extensively by the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain in the re-launch of their corporate identity. “
-From the Clarendon Wikipedia page
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“The most useful Founts that a Printer can have in his Office are Clarendons: make a striking Work of Line either in a Hand Bill or a Title Page, and do not overwhelm the other lines: they have been made with great care, so that while they are distinct and striking they possess a graceful outline, avoiding on the one hand, the clumsy inelegance of the Antique or Egyptian Character, and on the other, the appearance of an ordinary Roman Letter thickened by long use.”
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