Caslon Antique

[Jules Siegel]

At 05:30 PM 05/28/97 -0400, "Sherwood, Harrison" <hsherwood at btg.com> wrote:

>If it's me and not Raquel (_lovely_ name!) doing that cover, I'm telling
Tom to be happy with Caslon Antique. And sticking to my guns, too! 

Caslon Antique is the kind of bastardized face that makes most typographers
retch. It doesn't really offer a genuine antique feeling because the
distressing is too obviously regular and much too overdone. If you want a
genuine antique look in computer typography, the correct procedure is to
find an old document from the correct period and carefully digitize the
letters that you want, then put them together as words.

There used to be professional typographers who specialized in old hand type,
but I doubt that even they had anything going back much further than 50-60
years. Metal type is fragile and breaks on impact. It's possible that some
of the old dies have survived and the type could then be cast again, but it
might not provide the authentic used look of old printing.

The paper and press are important, too. Modern papers are usually very
regular, often even when handmade, and a typical modern letterpress has much
more precise adjustments than even the best 18th Century press. Bowne &
Company, the printing museum at the New York South Street Seaport, has
functioning old presses and old metal type. I printed the cover for a press
kit there in 1980 when I wanted an antique look. It was good, but it
wouldn't have fooled any one who was familiar with old printed documents.

The antique look doesn't come so much from the distressing but from the fact
that the letters were originally cast from dies that were very distinctively
different from modern typefaces, most of which were very carefully
regularized after the invention of the Linotype and Ludlow casting machines.
Adobe Caslon resembles original Caslon, but it's not the same face. It's
much more regular, among other differences. Antique Caslon is even further
away. To someone who is familiar with old type, it looks like a piece of
fake antique furniture made with one of those special paint and brush kits
that you buy in K-Mart.

--
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Jules Siegel http://www.caribe.net.mx/siegel/jsiegel.htm
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