Baskerville Font Spec Book

Baskerville 170/204, 23/17

by Marissa Downing

B askerville A Font’s History

Baskerville 23/17, 170/204, 12/12

Designed

J

by

(1706 – 1775) An English printer and type designer known for being a perfectionist.

ohn Baskerville

—John Baskerville, 1758 (Anatomy of a Typeface)

Baskerville Italic 12/15 Baskerville Bold 12/15

“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.”

Baskerville Italic 23/21 Baskerville 120/204

Invented in

1757

Baskerville 23/17, 170/204, 36/43

Created in

E Birmingham,

ngland

Baskerville 23/28, 56/67, 12/15

Used for the

Canada wordmark which was established in 1980.

Baskerville 12/15, 120/207, 36/30 Baskerville SemiBold Italic 24/29

t

Characterized by high contrast between thick and thin strokes.

ransitional

serif typeface

Baskerville 10/12, 70/84 Baskerville Italic 10/12

According to a study done by The New York Times, Baskerville is

1.5%

easier to read compared to Georgia, Comic Sans MS, Tmes New Roman and Helvetica.