ANTIQUE LOOK This paper discusses a typeface that is widely considered amongst type historians to be the first reproducible slab-serif type (Five Lines Pica Antique & Two Lines Nonpareil Antique)(Fig. 1 & 2). This typeface was designed by Vincent Figgins (1766-1844). It first appeared in 1815 with the publication of: Specimen of Printing Types, by Vincent Figgins, Letter Founder, West Smithfield, London. The typeface was originally called Antique, however that name is unfitting because it was not antique for its time of production and it does not feature “antique” typeface properties (i.e. heavily bracketed serifs, strong stoke contrast, and classical proportions) found in a typeface like Garamond. The general family name of Antique was later dubbed Egyptian and these typefaces are now described as Slab-Serif or Egyptian. Antique has a geometric structure seen in its boxy appearance where most of the glyphs fit snuggly inside of a square or rectangular form. Additionally letters (C, G, O, Q) look like they are based on a circle. Other letters have some combination of rectangle, square, circular, and oval forms. Horizontal and vertical strokes, as well as serifs are almost uniformly thick. It has uniformly heavy “coloring,” and little texture due to the low contrast between stokes (Fig. 1 & 2).
Figure 1. (Adjacent page) Reproduction of the first appearance of antique .
ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ 1234567890 Figure 2. Figgins Antique, open-type-face font re-designed in 2007 by Hand-in-Hand Typefoundry
Distinctive to this typeface and to Slab-Serifs in general are the large geometric serifs. This typeface has not only large serifs but also a large body. This is a “fat” face, referring generally to a type that is ultra bold in the non-serif portions, possibly invented in 1803 by William Caterol’s pupil and successor Robert Thorne1. While Antique is both an Egyptian and a Fat Face, typefaces do not always fall into both classifications. Some typefaces have very thin serifs but are bold and heavy making it a Fat Face (Fig. 3). Inversely, some slabs have bold serifs and a thin body (Fig.4).
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Philip B. Meggs & Alston W. Purvis. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. 4th ed. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons, 2006. Page 145
Each page is numberd in a slab-serif or decorative number in order to illustrate the dynamic impact fat-face and display typeface design (like that of Antique) had to the field of type design
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Antique is classified as Mechanistic under The Vox-ATypI classification system. It does evoke machine like qualities referring not only to its hard angles but also to its origin in the Industrial Revolution. The Adopted British Standard classification is Slab-Serif, but it’s also commonly referred to as Egyptian. Slab serif with subtle bracketing, tighter widths, taller forms, and stronger stroke contrast are referred to as Clarendon. These types are used more often as body fonts (Fig. 5) while Slabs with less contrast and bolder serifs are used more in display.
Figure 3.
Catherin Dixon’s description of type contains defining characteristics for understanding the nature of Antique. The typeface originally debuted as capital letters only; giving reason to believe its use was primarily for impact advertising. Additionally, we can derive from the absence of weight that this face was perhaps designed with little thought for alternative use. The ends of the terminals end mostly in abrupt slabs. Some of the letter-forms however have distinct variations from this. These variations, according to Grey, are quality’s that help identify a fat face. The R has a curly tail and the G a pointed spur (Fig. 2). Specimen books were printed regularly with combinations of first appearances and re-appearances that contained modified, updated,
Figure 4.
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Alexis LTD Regular
improved and expanded fonts2&3. Hoefler criticizes Figgins’ Two Lines Pica Antique No. 2 from his specimen book of 1838 and compares it to his typeface Sentinel, a contemporary slab serif available through Hoefler & Co. (Fig. 6). We can see in Antique that there is a mixture of strong geometric consistencies (O & Q) with noticeable variations in stroke weight (S & N). When analyzing individual letter-forms this mixture makes the typeface feel a little non-uniform but when studying the font overall it feels uniformly mixed. In this 1838 publication we can see Figgins attempt at a lowercase pair for another slab similar slab, Minion Large (Fig. 6). The capital C (which is nearly identical to Antique) looks strangely heavier than the following lowercase letters. According to Hofler, getting lowercase slabs to fit well with uppercase was a problem that took nearly a century to refine. He suggests that Sentinel balances geometric constancy and stoke variations better as well as giving you a well paired lower case in a verity of weights. Even if the notion that it was better were completely true (it could be argued against), the faults found in Antique gives it a quirky charm that Sentinel lacks in its refinement.
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Clarendon AaBbCcDcEeFfGg HhIiJjKkLlMmNn OoPpQqRrSsTt UuVvWwXxYyZz Gent pella de esti simi,Oriori dolore istio cor aut lab inus, sam eum se coriti sundi adionse quideliqui ut alibuscil ipsus es. Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
Figure 7
Vincent Figgins, and Wolpe Berthold. Vincent Figgins: Type Specimens, 1801 and 1815, Reproduced in Facsimile;. London: Printing Historical Society, 1967.
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“Hoefler & Co.” Sentinel Fonts: History (Sentinel’s Ancestors). Accessed October 1, 2014.
JF Ringmaster Regular
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ABOUT FIGGINS The following biographical paper is largely based of information gained from Talbot Reed’s, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries with supplemental material from other sources. Vincent Figgins was trained under the letter founder Joseph Jackson (Fig. 8) from age 16 to 26 and from the years 1782 until Jackson’s death in 17924. After his death, the foundry had a debt to be settled if it where to continued to be operated under Figgins5. It is not clear if this was simply rent or some other indemnity. Needless to say, the overhead was too large and Figgins was forced to abandon continuing in the place where he started. For the beginning of his career, he lived in the shadow of William Caslon’s legacy starting when Caslon III bought his beneficiary’s foundry. Figure 8 Mr. Figgins was molded by Joseph Jackson who received esteem and class in his time. Figgins’ adaptation and experimentation of his masters classical style made him fall into the shadows of the early 1800’s typographic chaos as well as that of the historical heavyweights like Caslon.
Figgins wanted to practice as a type founder but found himself in need of a philanthropist to fund the establishment of a new foundry. Talbot includes on page 335 an excerpt from a letter Figgins wrote to John Nickels, the donor who generously gave Figgins $2,000 to establish this foundry (Fig. 9). This letter suggests a close friendship between the two men. Figgins penned, “...You gave me large orders and assisted me with the means of executing them...for fifteen
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Figure 9 The Figgins Foundry
Reed, Talbot Baines. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries; with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. London: Faber and Faber, 1952, 12.
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Talbot, 335
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years, you, my dear sir, never refused me your assistance, with ought which I may have given up...”6 Sometimes the career of an influential artist, designer and people in general are due to generous supporters without whom they may not have succeeded. When Caslon bought the foundry, he inherited Jackson’s final cut types, clients and contracted work. One such client, the printer/publisher Thomas Bensley had previously had Jackson cut a 2-line English Roman for use in a publication for which the first part had been completed7. Bensley decided that Figgins should re-create this type (seen in the specimen print of 1792) (Fig. 10) instead of purchasing the original type outright for use from Caslon8. Perhaps this is because Bensley simply found Figgins more affordable. Or, maybe Bensley felt that Figgins had been wronged and thought that he should continue to work with Figgins because this would make the second typeface more authentic and compatible with the first typeface. Either way, early on Figgins broke away from relying on this kind of inconsistent work, receiving new orders form Bensley, the Oxford University Press and from his patron and friend John Nichols9. By 1800 Figgins was receiving orders from the English Royal Family’s printer Messrs. Eyre and
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Reed, 14.
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Reed
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Reed
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Strahan for publication of the Commission of Enquiry into the State of the Records of the Kingdom10. By 1807-09 Figgins was producing similar work for Scotland’s government11. Talbot suggests in his chapter about Figgins that the pressure to “go modern” and away from the traditions of Jackson’s training was the reason it took Figgins so long to produce new works. Talbot is referring generally to the period of 1800-1815. He was perhaps focused on coming out with superior design in a modern style that was not flashy but of sustenance. Wolpe however notes that Figgins was producing versions of his 1815 specimen publications throughout the early 1800’s. His continued relationship with Thomas Bensley printing house is evident in the watermarks of publications from 1799, 1808, 1813, 1814 and Antique’s 1815 debut12. I found inconsistencies, differences in perspectives and gaps of knowledge where none would be expected. For example, there is little mention of when or how the development of Antique happened. It is said by Meggs on page 147, “The inspiration for this highly original design, first shown by Figgins is not known. Whether Figgins, Thorn, or an anonymous sign painter first invented this style is one of the mysteries surrounding the sudden appearance of slab-serif letter-forms.”
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Wolpe
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Reed
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Reed
The foundry ran under Mr. Figgins produced a wide range of histrionically significant first appearances in typography. Eventually the foundry was ran jointly by James Figgins, Vincent’s sun who adopted the business until its closing in the late 1800’s. Nicolete Gray illustrates on pages 193-197 that collectively under the Figgins foundry name they where able to be the first to produce a lowercase , a shadowed, expanded, phantom, and perspective wights of slab serifs. Additionally it is apparent that they made numerous other first appearances in the categories of Sans serif, Fat Face, Clarendon to name a few.
Fig. 11 Display faces of 1840’s. V. & J. Figgins, Epitome of Specimens
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Rio Grande
MOULDED BY TIME The challenges and needs for Antique where made largely in response to aspects of the Industrial Revolution but also in conjunction with Figgins’ personal career development strategy and historical trends. Figgins matured in the 19th Century, a time of great change including the advent of many new technologies, a rapidly expanding middle class and a rapidly increasing and diverse marketplace. Developed in response to these changes, specifically that of a changing economy, Antique demanded attention in advertisements with its new and uniquely bold and dramatic look. Figgins developed Antique in response to the typefaces developed and marketed by his competitors Thorn and Caslon who where already attracting attention with their accomplishments. The shift to bigger and bolder typography was perhaps inspiring him with what was happening in the foundries and in print material but also perhaps with what local sign painters where displaying as he traversed the urban landscape. The beginning of the 1800’s was a time of rapid experimentation in the art of communicating with type as well as a time of dramatic socio-economic shifting. Nineteenth-century design is often pigeonholed as chaotic, vulgar, excessively ornamental and
disharmonies in its mixture of styles and compositions13(Fig 1). The trend was to make bigger, bolder and more elaborate type to demand attention and sell to the rising urban populace. Slabs and sans serifs demand attention in a way that is unlike traditional serif types. They both (generally) have a grounding effect, with heavy unwavering geometric uniformity14. However popular types in contrast like Caslon demanded attention because they refused to stand out with flashy new attributes15.
Reproducible wood or metal cut type was usually designed for a wider variation of use, meaning, client purpose. Now that there where were larger demands for strikingly custom type due to big business expansion, type designers filled the gap where sign painters couldn’t. Sign painting takes time and skill (a precious commodity) and at the end of the day it costs more for a single ad then running one printed ad which can be re-used.
The advent of new production technologies like the lateral wood router (developed in the1820s by Darius Wells) allowed for rapid production of wood types and was a contributing factor in the explosion of unrefined type specimens16. The field may have simply been overrun with amateur type designers with the ability to publish every new variation of type they could possibly come up with, unrefined, just to put their name on it and make a profit17. Despite this, the era was filled with dozens of new and exciting display styles, some “refined,” some not (Fig 2 & 3.).
Egyptomania was brought to Western Europe through the influx of Egyptian imagery and culture from the Napoleonic conquest of 1798 to 1801. Generally, Europeans considered all things foreign fashionable and used the term Egyptian to describe anything new and unfamiliar, including slab serifs. This is similar to Japonisme (the mostly French obsession with everything Japanese) and its influence on the graphic arts in the late 1800’s. It seams as though Europe was looking for (and perhaps still is) ways to associate with “the other,” and thus gave foreign names to new products based on popular trends in aesthetics.
Sign painted lettering was also thought to be affecting type and one can assume inversely that typography was affecting sign painting. Hand lettering allows for highly customized typography, which the artist can tailor to the client’s needs.
Figgins took advantage of the early part 1800s’s wave of typographic exploration by producing a host of new letter-forms that in all likelihood would have been produced even if he had not. While Figgins Antique remains an important
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Wolpe
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Eskilson, Stephen. “The Nineteenth Century: An Expanding Field.” In Graphic Design: A New History. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
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Eskilson
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Elskilson
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Elskilson
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contribution to type design, it lives in the shadows of contemporary slabs as well as the plethora of innovations of the time period. Figgins was however an extraordinary typographer, turning a grim career outlook into a prosperous one with numerous firsts and a fruitful legacy.
Fig. 11 Street Life of London,1877
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Ziggurat Black
TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION The Industrial Revolution was a time of significant technological innovation. Coal fueled steam power and the mechanization of industries led to significant increases in the general speed of life. New printing technologies affected the printing industry similarly causing the proliferation of printed communication to rapidly increase. Some of these printing-related inventions developed in this era which dates to 1760-1840 include: Traditional Mettle Casting, Copper Engraving, Sand molding, Stencil matrices, Wood Cuts, Lithography, and Photography. In 1814, Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Baur sold their steam powered press which could produce over a thousand pages an hour to the London Times18. In 1843, American Richard Heo’s rotary steam press produced eight times that 19. In general, the costs to produce printed material went down. Newspaper companies were stocked with an abundance of new cheap paper that further increase the production and diversification of printed material20. New iron presses enabled the printer to produce large areas of dense type more easily21.
Figgins Type Foundry was comprised of many artisans, craftspeople and workers that collectively produced type under the name Figgins. It is wrong to say that Vincent himself did all the work. The technology of the time made specialization necessary. Each foundry worker was assigned a specific task that involved a specific process. I found no evidence to suggest that traditional metal casting was not used almost exclusively. In this system, there is (arguably as paramount as the designer) the primary punch cutter. This individual is responsible for turning the two-dimensional outline of the design into hard metal type by literally cutting away at metal. These “punches” are then pressed into a mold to create a matrix that is then filled with molten metal to create a set of that typeface. Beyond the punch cutter and type designer there are numerous positions including the justifier, mold maker, caster, breaker-off, rubber, kerning, setter-up, and dresser22. The process from design to casting to the final product took months, which meant a team would need to be dedicated to a particular design. Producing a well-designed and marketable font upon completion is thus import in this production method. The Industrial Revolution was a time of significant technological innovation. Coal fueled steam power and the mechanization of industries led
Figure 12 Excerpt from Gray
to significant increases in the general speed of life. New printing technologies affected the printing industry similarly causing the proliferation of printed communication to rapidly increase. Some of these printing-related inventions developed in this era which dates to 17601840 include: Traditional Mettle Casting, Copper Engraving, Sand molding, Stencil matrices, Wood Cuts, Lithography, and Photography23. In 1814, Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Baur sold their steam powered press which could produce over a thousand pages an hour to the London Times24. In 1843, American Richard Heo’s rotary steam press produced eight times that25. In general, the costs to produce printed material went down. Newspaper companies were stocked with an abundance of new cheap paper that further increase the production and diversification of printed material26. New iron presses enabled the printer to produce large areas of dense type more easily.27. Figgins Type Foundry was comprised of many artisans, craftspeople and workers that collectively produced type under the name Figgins. It is wrong to say that Vincent himself did all the work. The technology of the time made specialization necessary. Each foundry worker was assigned a specific task that involved a specific process. I found no evidence to suggest that traditional metal casting was not used almost exclusively. In this system, there is (arguably as 23.
Wolpe, 28
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Elskilson
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Eskilson, 28-29
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Eskilson, 28-29
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Eskilson, 28-29
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Eskilson, 28-29
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Eskilson, 28-29
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Tyman, 68
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Tyman, 68
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Tyman, 68
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paramount as the designer) the primary punch cutter. This individual is responsible for turning the two-dimensional outline of the design into hard metal type by literally cutting away at metal. These “punches” are then pressed into a mold to create a matrix that is then filled with molten metal to create a set of that typeface. Beyond the punch cutter and type designer there are numerous positions including the justifier, mold maker, caster, breaker-off, rubber, kerning, setter-up, and dresser28. The process from design to casting to the final product took months, which meant a team would need to be dedicated to a particular design. Producing a well-designed and marketable font upon completion is thus import in this production method. The process of making a typeface is initially a subtractive process. Antique has uniquely distinctive white space where only very small geometric shapes where cut away29. A counterpunch was likely used help create consistent uniform negative spaces. A single marking tool with a specifically designed shape for the counter, strikes the mettle and marks where to cut away in one step.
rations in style which where more economically risky then the marketing of traditional types. However as the century progressed, letterpress types began to reflect the characteristics found in woodblock type produced as early as 180830. Additionally, potential sources of inspiration for these new metal decorative types came from mosaics, embroidery and31 even extended to include the decorative drop-caps hand-lettered by monks. Wood type deteriorates in quality much faster then metal and takes a longer time to produce full multiple sets of type because each letter must be individually made. Whereas, once a mold has been created, it’s a very easy process to cast multiples of the same letter. Decorative handwriting was used in copper engraved printing in the late 18th through the early 19th century32. Lithography and Chromolithograph would later allow for even faster more expressive forms of typographic expression.
Figgins worked in an era when type was made both out of wood and metal. Wood type made during this time was initially less expensive to make and faster to produce allowing for explo-
Figure 13 Richard Heo’s rotary steam press
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Tyman, 68
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Tyman, 68
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Tyman, 68
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Wolpe, 28
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Hustlers
ANTIQUE IN PERSPECTIVE Antique is only offered by the small type designer Hand-In-Hand as a digital OTF or TT font. Hoefler suggested that Figgins’ Antique lacks the refinement of later designed slabs, however the fundamental structure of Figgins face persists in other faces. The descendants of Figgins’ Antique are used mostly in print environments, display signage, hand painted lettering/signs, and headings/sub-headings on websites where a specific “feel” is desired. One noticeable difference from that of Antique is the design of the leg of the “R”. In most contemporary faces the leg thins out and curves up wile some flatten out(fig.14).
Figgins must have know that this face was going to be used almost exclusively as a display face but he could have no idea that this style of letter would come to symbolize the iconic American west and arguably the Industrial Revolution. The style he developed has been used by countless others to create alternatives. Those faces, in turn have been used as inspiration for a host of new recreations including today an era in which new and exciting slabs are being digitally produced and sold. The font Archer for example, designed in 2001 by Hoefler & Frere-Jones has had significant success in recently times due to its adaptability, elegance and character. This Slab has even come to symbolize trendy, young, hip design with many calling it overused and cliche.
MORE ABOUT THE DIGITAL FONT The current digital version of the typeface contains numerous changes, alterations and expansions from the original as documented by these changes noted by the designer and found at MyFonts: http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ hihretrofonts/figgins-antique/ 1. Added glyphs for the 1250 Central Europe, the 1252 Turkish and the 1257 Baltic Code Pages. Added glyphs to complete standard 1252 Western Europe Code Page. Special glyphs relocated and assigned Unicode code points, some in Private Use area. Total of 331 glyphs.2. Added OpenType GSUB layout features: liga and pnum. 3. Added 86 kerning pairs.
The font Giza was designed looking directly at Antique (My Fonts). It is used in Maryland Institute College of Art’s (MICA) primary branding theme with inspiration taken from the hand painted version on the back of the fox building (Pentagram) (fig. 15). There is little usage of this style of a font as primary typefaces in brands seeing it more often as a secondary element. This style is often stereotyped as is used by retro photo reproduction companies and in Wild West style posters (fig. 16).
4. Revised vertical metrics for improved cross-platform line spacing. 5. Redesigned mathematical operators. 6. Included of both tabular (standard) & proportional numbers (optional). 7. Refined various glyph outlines.
National Currency
RRR Figure 14
Antique, Clarendon, Rockwell
Figure 15
ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 Figure 17 Archer Bold
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Figgins, Vincent, and Berthold Wolpe. Vincent Figgins: Type Specimens, 1801 and 1815, Reproduced in Facsimile;. London: Printing Historical Society, 1967. Gray, Nicolete, and Ray Nash. Nineteenth Century Ornamented Typefaces. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. "Hoefler & Co." Sentinel Fonts: History (Sentinel’s Ancestors). Accessed October 1, 2014. Lommen, Mathieu, and Cees de Jong. The book of books : 500 years of graphic innovation / edited by Mathieu Lommen ; [Cees W. de Jong]. n.p.: London : Thames & Hudson, 2012., 2012. catalogUSMAI, EBSCOhost (accessed September 30, 2014). Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs' History of Graphic Design. 4th ed. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons, 2006. Reed, Talbot Baines. A History of the Old English Letter Foundries; with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Eskilson, Stephen. "The Nineteenth Century: An Expanding Field." In Graphic Design: A New History. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.