A SPECIMEN OF
BASKERVILLE TYPEFACE Designed by JOHN BASKERVILLE of BIRMINGHAM letter-founder and printer
MDCCLIV
Baskerville Mt Std Original foundry: G. Peignot et Fils Claudia Giannotti
INTRODUCTION OF
BASKERVILLE TYPEFACE by Michael Bierut
BASKERVILLE IS THE TYPEFACE OF TRUTH an experiment of Errol Morris
THIS ESSAY WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN AUGUST 2012
BASKERVILLE - INTRODUCTION Baskerville I know in my heart that graphic design is important. Sometimes the fate of nations deRegular pend on it, sometimes it's the missing link between a soft drink brand and Einstein's Spe8/9,6 pt cial Theory of Relativity, sometimes it just makes you happy. But I also know that the ingre-
dients used by graphic designers colors, shapes, typefaces — are fundamentally mysterious. Baskerville Regular 11/13,2 pt
What do they mean? How do they work? Why does one work better than another? What criteria should we use to choose? This ambiguity can be maddening, especially to clients, who in desparation will invoke anecdotes and folk wisdom to help control an otherwise rudderless process. I've been told in meetings that triangles — to take one example — are the "most energetic" (or the "most aggressive"?) shape. Black can be ominous or elegant.
Baskerville Regular 14/16,8 pt
Triangles can be trendy or timeless. And typefaces? Hmm! Typefaces can be...anything you want them to be, right? There are many reasons to pick any one typefaces, all of them more or less arbitrary. So imagine a client demands that text be set in "the most credible typeface."
Baskerville I would probably hide a smile and say there's no such thing. But there is such a thing, Bold says Errol Morris†. Several weeks ago, Morris, the Academy Award-winning docu8/9,6 pt
mentary filmmaker and author, posted a simple quiz in his New York Times Opinionator blog. Ostensibly, the object of the quiz was to determine if the reader was an optimist or a pessimist.
Baskerville Bold 11/13,2 pt
You read a short introduction about the likehood of an asteroid hitting the earth, and then an indented passage from a book by David Deutch‡, in which he claims "we live in an era of unprecedented safety" and will likely be able to defend ourselves against such an impact. Morris then asked the reader to agree or disagree with the truth of that claim, and to indicate the degree of confidence the reader had in his or her conclusion.
Baskerville Bold 14/16,8 pt
The result, supposedly, was to determine how many of us are optimists versus how many are pessimists (finding the statement to be false).
*Michael Beirut is a graphic designer, design critic and educator. He was vice president of graphic design at Vignelli Associates. Since 1990 he has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram. He has won hundreds of design awards and his work is represented in several permanent collections.
BASKERVILLE - INTRODUCTION Baskerville Semibold 8/9,6 pt
But it was all a trick. Morris was actually testing something completely different: the effect of fonts on truth. Or to be precise, the effect on credulity. To find out, he had a colleague, Benjamin Merman, create a program that changed the font of the indented David Deutch passage each time the article was first opened. Each person taking the quiz would read the passage in one of six randomly assigned fonts: Baskerville, Computer Modern, Georgia, Helvetica, Comic Sans, or Trebuchet. So the test had nothing to do, really, with optimist or pessimism.
Baskerville Semibold 11/13,2 pt
Instead, it was meant to find out if setting the passage in one typeface or another would lead people to believe it more. Now, if you're like me, you already know what the least trustworthy typeface is, right? It's got to be Comic Sans: goofy, unloved, mocked Comic Sans. And it turns out we're right.
Baskerville Semibold 14/16,8 pt
According to Morris, people seem to be consciously aware of Comic Sans: it was in the news as recently as a few weeks ago, when it caused a minor dustup in the midst of the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle.
Baskerville Bold Italic 8/9,6 pt
This awareness seems to engender, in Morris's words, "contempt and summary dismissal". And good riddance, say I and countless other graphic designers. But what about the other side of the equation? Is there a font that inclines us to believe that a sentence that is set in it is true? After analyzing the research, Morris says the answer is yes. And that typeface is Baskerville.
Baskerville Bold Italic 11/13,2 pt
To Morris's surprise, the results of the test showed a clear difference between the performance of Baskerville and other fonts — not just Baskerville and Comic Sans (no contest); or Baskerville and Trebuchet or Helvetica (a clear serif versus sans distinction); but even Baskerville and Georgia (a lovely, and arguably even more legible serif by Matthew Carter).
Baskerville Bold Italic 14/16,8 pt
Compared to versions in the other typefaces, the passage set in Baskerville had both the highest rate of agreement and the lowest rate of disagreement.
He is also a founding writer of the Design Observer blog with Rick Poynor, William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand. Bierut currently serves on the governing board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists; in January, 2007, he redesigned the Bulletin's Doomsday Clock to give it a more modern feel. Bierut is also known for his involvement in the film Helvetica.
BASKERVILLE - INTRODUCTION Baskerville This led Morris to the inevitable conclusion: Baskerville is the typeface of truth. John BaskerSemibold ville loved typography, and it's believed that he lost his fortune in pursuit of it, sinking all the 8/9,6 pt money he had into designing and printing complete editions of the works of Virgil and Milton,
not to mention the Bible. Baskerville Semibold 11/13,2 pt
He was an avowed anti-religionist but had a deep and abiding faith in typography. "Having been an early admirer of the beauty of Letters," he wrote in his introduction to Paradise Lost, the perfection of them."
Baskerville Semibold 14/16,8 pt
The typeface we today call Baskerville is based on the fonts he developed in the mid-eighteenth century at his foundry for his private presses.
Baskerville Ironically, a skeptic has created the typeface most likely to induce credulity. Errol Morris writes at the conclusion Italic 8/9,6 pt
of his article: "Truth is not font dependent, but a font can subtly influence us to believe that a sentence is true".
Baskerville Italic 11/13,2 pt
Of course, the truth is the truth no matter what typeface it's in.
Baskerville Italic14/16,8 pt
How long before people realize that Baskerville is even more useful if you want to lie?
†Errol Mark Morris is an American film director of documentaries. In 2003, his documentary film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. ‥David Elieser Deutsch is a physicist at the University of Oxford. He pioneered the field of quantum computation by formulating a description for a quantum Turing machine, as well as specifying an algorithm. He is a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
BASKERVILLE FONT FAMILY Regular Italic Semibold Semibold Italic Bold Bold Italic
GLYPHS FEATURES & DETAILS
BASKERVILLE - FONT FAMILY Italic
Regular
ABCD ABCD 48pt
ABCDEF ABCDEF 36pt
ABCDEFG ABCDEFG 30pt
ABCDEFGHI
24pt
ABCDEFGHI
abcdefghijklmn
18pt
abcdef ghijklmno
abcdefghijklmnopqr
14pt
abcdef ghijklmnopqrst
abcdefghijklmnopqrstu
12pt
abcdef ghijklmnopqrstuvwx
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw
11pt
abcdef ghijklmnopqrstuwxyz
0123456789
10pt
0123456789 Semibold Italic
Semibold
ABCD ABCD 48pt
ABCDE ABCDEF
ABCDEFGH
36pt
30pt
24pt
ABCDEF ABCDEFG
ABCDEFGHI
abcdefghijklm
18pt
abcdefghijklm
abcdefghijklmnop
14pt
abcdefghijklmnop
abcdefghijklmnopqrs
12pt
abcdefghijklmnopqrst
abcdefghijklmnopqrstu
11pt
abcdefghijklmnopqrstu
0123456789
10pt
0123456789
†Baskerville, designed in 1754, is most known for its crisp edges, high contrast and generous proportions. The typeface was heavily influenced by the processes of the Birmingham-bred John Baskerville, a master type-founder and printer, who owed much of his career to his beginnings. As a servant in a clergyman’s house, it was his employer that discovered his penmanship talents
and sent him to learn writing. Baskerville was illiterate but became very interested in calligraphy, and practised handwriting and inscription that was later echoed in strokes and embellishments in his printed typeface.Baskerville is categorized as a transitional typeface in-between classical typefaces and the high contrast modern faces. At the time that John Baskerville decided
BASKERVILLE - FONT FAMILY & GLYPHS Bold Italic
Bold
ABCD ABCD 48pt
ABCDE ABCDEF
ABCDEFGH
36pt
30pt
24pt
ABCDE
ABCDEF ABCDEFG
abcdefghijkl
18pt
abcdef ghijkl
abcdefghijklmno
14pt
abcdef ghijklmnop
abcdefghijklmnopqr
12pt
abcdef ghijklmnopqrs
abcdefghijklmnopqrst
11pt
abcdef ghijklmnopqrst
0123456789
10pt
0123456789
Glyphs - letters
AÀÁÂÃÄÅÆBCÇDÐEÈ ÊËFGHIÌÍÎÏJKLMNÑO ÒÓÔÕÖØPQRSTUÙÚ ÛÜVWXYÝÞZ aàáâãäåæbßcçdðeèéêëf ghiìíîïjklmnñoòóôõöøp qrstuùúûüvwxyýÿþz fi fl ff ffi ffl !&?aàáâãäåæbcçdðeèéê ëfghiìíîïjklłmnñoòóôõ öøœpqrsštuùúûüvwxyý þÿzž¡¿
to switch from owning a japanning business to a type foundry, Phillipe Grandjean’s exclusive Romain du Roi for Louis XIV had circulated and been copied in Europe. The mathematically-drawn characters felt cold, and prompted Baskerville to create a softer typeface with rounded bracketed serifs and a vertical axis. It is difficult to appreciate the qualities of Basker-
Glyphs - numbers and symbols
0123456789 ¼½¾⅓⅔⅛⅜⅝⅞ +<=>|~¬±×÷⁄∂∆∏∑ − ∕∙ √∞ ∫ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ Ωμπ
!"#%&'()*,-./:;?@ [\]_{}¡«·»¿‒–—‘’‚ “”„†‡•․‥…‰‹›⁽⁾₍₎ $¢£¤¥₡€ ^` ¦§¨©®¯´¶¸˘ ˙˚˛˜˝™℮◊ ville without first understanding the process of its creation. Baskerville grew out of an ongoing experimentation with printing technology. John Baskerville developed his own method of working, resulting in beautifully bright woven paper and darker inks. He created an intense black ink color through the tedious process of boiling fine linseed oil to a certain thickness, dissolving
BASKERVILLE - FEATURES & DETAILS
1
Sides arms of the T and the lower arms of E
2
Swash like a tail of Q
3
Top and bottom serifs of C
4
Ascender of b has the spur
5
No middle stroke on W or w
6
Well below baseline of J
7
Small counter of italic e
8
High crossbar and pointed apex of A
9
Tail of lowercase g does not close
10
Different ampersand of Italic
11
Head serifs generally more horizontal
12
Greater contrast between thick and thin strike
13
Vertical or almost vertical stress in the bowls of lowercase letters
rosin, allowing months for it to subside and finally grinding it before use. As printers would not willingly reveal the methods within their print shops, Baskerville followed other printers closely and made the same purchases as them in hopes of setting up the same press. This routine resulted in the development of higher standards for presses altogether. Existing printing presses did not capture the subtleties of his type, so Baskerville redesigned the press replacing the
wooden platen with a brass one in order to allow the planes to meet more evenly. The wooden platens were usually covered with thick tympanum which helped to absorb pressure and reduce type depth, however, Baskervilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s press used thin tympanum around the metal and the platens were even heated before using them. It was the combination of the contrasting cut in his letterforms, the process of printing, the gloss of his paper and the intensity of his inks that made
BASKERVILLE - FEATURES & DETAILS
TE Q C b Ww J e
1
2
3
4
5
6
A g & hb X o
8
9
10
11
12
13
7
each print so refined. While it found little success during the lifetime of John Baskerville, the typeface made a huge influence in Europe after the printer’s widow sold the Baskerville punches and matrixes to France, where it circulated among foundries. Isaac Moore created its own Baskerville in 1766, along with Bell and Scotch Roman which all reflected the sharpness of the Baskerville roman. Admiration for the English typeface in France and Italy spread, and Bask-
erville’s high contrast letterforms evolved into an emergence of modern faces such as Didot and Bodoni. Baskerville is an elegant book face, and as proven by John Baskerville’s own treatment, it can excel in purely typographic compositions. Today it remains one of the most popular and classic typefaces for print, for its legibility and refined beauty.
BASKERVILLE - FEATURES & DETAILS
Furthermore, it emphasizes
VERTICALITY, CLASSICAL BEAUTY, and as MECHANICAL UNITY;
******************************** however, English audiences and experts,
who were familiar with Caslon, wich is strong visual and highly legible characteristic, did not
welcome Baskerville.
Baskerville Regular 30pt; Baskerville Semibold 46pt; Baskerville Italic 15pt; Baskerville Glyphs: Asterisk 16pt; Baskerville Bold 12 pt; Baskerville Semibold Italic 24pt; Baskerville Regular 12pt; Baskerville Bold 32pt;
BASKERVILLE - FEATURES & DETAILS
«Having been an early admirer of the beauty of letters, I became insensibly desirous of contributing to the perfection of them. I formed to myself ideas of greater accuracy than had yet appeared, and had endeavoured to produce a set of types according to what I conceived to be their true proportion. It is not my desire to print many books, but such only as are books of consequence, of intrinsic merit or established Reputation, and which the public may be pleased to see in an elegant dress, and to purchase at such a price as will repay the extraordinary care and expense that must necessarily be bestowed upon them.»
†
†
John Baskerville, preface to Paradise Lost of John Milton, 1758
BASKERVILLE - FEATURES & DETAILS
FIRST USES OF TYPEFACE PU BL I I V I RGI L I I M A RON IS
B U C O L I C A, G E O R G I C A, ET
Æ N E I S. BIR MI NGH A MIÆ. Ty pis joh a n n is ba sk e rv i l l e. m dcclv ii. 1
T he BOOK of
Com mon P rayer, And Administration of the
S A C R A M E N T S, and other
r i t e and cer emon i es of the
C H U R C H, According to the use of
T he CH U RCH of E NGL A N D: togheter with the
P S A L T E R or
P S A L M S o f D A V I D, Pointed as they are to be fung or faid in Churches. CAMBRIDGE, Printed by JOHN BASKERVILLE, Printer to the University; by whom they are fold, and by B. DOD, Bookfeller, in Ave-Mary Lane, London, MDCCLXII,
1. Baskerville's first publication, an edition of Virgil, 1757.
2
2. Frontispiece of the Book of Common Prayer printed in 1762.
BASKERVILLE - FEATURES & DETAILS
ACTUALLY USES OF TYPEFACE
The Met ropolitan Opera 1
kate spade new york
2
AMERICAN GANGSTER Canada 1. The Metropolitan Opera logo, design by Pentagram studio, Baskerville regular; 2. Kate Spade New York logo, Baskerville regular and Baskerville regular small caps;
3
4
3. American Gangster film's title, Baskerville Semibold; 4. Canada state's logo, Baskerville regular.