Gothic
True Gothic style alphabets
were the first style of letterforms adapted as moveable type fonts in Western
Europe. Primarily beginning in Germany in the 15th century, the stylistic
origins of Gothic movable types date back to 12th century
ecclesiastic writing. Gothic typestyles can be described as block style
calligraphic letterforms fashioned as the direct translation of German
manuscript style. Johannes Gutenberg is credited with fashioned the first
western movable type font, which contained over 300 characters, far more than are
in the fonts of today. From Gutenberg, Gothic types developed regionally. In
England, Gothic types were employed later when a alteration of the regional penmanship
of the 16th and 17th centuries was adopted for printing.
Gothic letters also referred
to as Blackletters have thick and thin strokes with an attempt at optically
even proportioning. There is also a crude form of serif created by additional
marks at the ends of vertical strokes. A parallel between Gothic letter styles
and Gothic architecture can be seen in the heavy, decidedly dark, tone of
letterform structures and the thick stone construction used in buildings of the
same period, which influenced them. Gothic types are still in use today, but mainly as ornamental display faces.
Antiqua
Appearing between the last
quarter of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries,
Antiqua types comprise a group of types that mimic the hand style calligraphy of
miniscule and later styles, but are also structurally modeled after Roman style
capital letters. Also referred to as Venetian types, Antiqua types are less
ornate than other forms of Gothic styles. Antiqua was the predominant Gothic style
in the 15th and 16th centuries in European countries with
the exception of Germany, where both Antiqua and Fraktur (see below) were used
concurrently.
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| Format courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
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| Format courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
Fraktur
The term Fraktur, which has
the same origin as the English term Fracture, means broken. This is a both a
structural and a stylistic distinction of Fraktur types, which sometimes
display a physical separation between the strokes within a letterform. An
example of this trait can be seen in the capital F where the top cross stroke
can be separated from the downward vertical stroke. Another characteristic of
Fraktur types is their sharp angles and severe directional changes within letter
strokes. Fraktur is a regional black letter style first popularized in Germany.
To dramatize how localized the development of Gothic style types was, an even
more localized interpretation of Fraktur called Schwabacher originated in the town
of Schwabach.
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| Format courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
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| Format courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
Old English
There is some debate as to
whether Old English types are descended from the written form of Old English or
Anglo-Saxon language. One school of thought maintains that the Blackletter
style of Old English wasn’t penned until several centuries later. The other asserts
that Old English displays traits in lowercase letters that can be seen in
Miniscule script writing. Old English types were England’s regional adaptation
of earlier Blackletter styles, which became most prominently used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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| Format courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
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| Format courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
