James Mosley summarises his early work: "Caslon's pica . As British printers had little success or experience of making their own types, they were forced to use equipment bought from the Netherlands, or France, and Caslon's types are therefore clearly influenced by the popular Dutch typefaces of his period. Caslon would later follow this practice, according to Nichols teaching his son his methods privately while locked in a room where nobody could watch them. Punchcutting was a difficult technique and many of the techniques used were kept secret by punchcutters or passed on from father to son. According to printer and historian John Nichols, the main source on Caslon's life, the accuracy of his work came to the attention of prominent London printers, who advanced him money to carve steel punches for printing, first for foreign languages and then, as his reputation developed, for the Latin alphabet. Ĭaslon began his career in London as an apprentice engraver of ornamental designs on firearms and other metalwork. Some of the types shown were not cut by Caslon, most notably the French Canon roman (probably cut by Joseph Moxon). William Caslon's specimen sheet (dated 1734 but actually issued from 1738 onwards). William Berkson, designer of a revival of Caslon, describes Caslon in body text as "comfortable and inviting". Modern Caslon revivals also often add features such as a matching boldface and "lining" numbers at the height of capital letters, neither of which were used in Caslon's time. Many revivals exist, with varying faithfulness to Caslon's original design. Caslon's larger-size roman fonts have two serifs on the "C", while his smaller-size versions have one half-arrow serif only at top right.Ĭaslon's typefaces were popular in his lifetime and beyond, and after a brief period of eclipse in the early nineteenth century returned to popularity, particularly for setting printed body text and books. However, Caslon created different designs of letters at different sizes: his larger sizes follow the lead of a type he sold cut in the previous century by Joseph Moxon, with more fine detail and sharper contrast in stroke weight, in the " Dutch taste" style. The italic "J" has a crossbar, and a rotated casting was used by Caslon in many sizes on his specimens to form the pound sign. The "Q", "T", "v", "w" and "z" all have flourishes or swashes in the original design, something not all revivals follow. In italic, Caslon's "h" folds inwards and the "A" is sharply slanted. Ascenders and descenders are relatively short and the level of stroke contrast is modest in body text sizes. The "W" has three terminals at the top and the "b" has a small tapered stroke ending at bottom left. The letterforms of Caslon's roman, or upright type include an "A" with a concave hollow at top left and a "G" without a downwards-pointing spur at bottom right. His typefaces established a strong reputation for their quality and their attractive appearance, suitable for extended passages of text. Caslon established a tradition of engraving type in London, which previously had not been common, and was influenced by the imported Dutch Baroque typefaces that were popular in England at the time. He worked in the tradition of what is now called old-style serif letter design, that produced letters with a relatively organic structure resembling handwriting with a pen. CaslonĬaslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work.Ĭaslon worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or matrices used to cast metal type. For other uses, see Caslon (disambiguation).
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