Algerian is a decorative

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...

digital

font family A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

, originally produced in the early 20th century by British foundry Stephenson, Blake and Co. The design for the typeface is owned by Linotype, while the name 'Algerian' is a trademark of the

International Typeface Corporation The International Typeface Corporation (ITC) was a type manufacturer founded in New York in 1970 by Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin and Edward Rondthaler. The company was one of the world's first type foundries to have no history in the production of me ...

. Algerian appears in the Stephenson, Blake & Co. 1907 type specimen book on page 142, with the Algerian font as used today as the small caps lowercase to a more decorative uppercase set of initials. The solid black version of Algerian appears on the same page under the name of Gloria, with a separate shadow layer face available. Algerian (regular) was created for

Scangraphic Scangraphic is a division of Dr. Böger Duplomat Apparate GmbH & Co.KG, based in Wedel near Hamburg, Germany. It was founded by Bernd Holthusen and Knut Schmiedl. Mannesmann AG acquired Scangraphic in 1989, and the company was renamed Mannesmann ...

Letraset Letraset was a company known mainly for manufacturing sheets of typefaces and other artwork elements using the dry transfer method. Letraset has been acquired by the Colart group and become part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton. Corporate histor ...

. Algerian Condensed was created by the Linotype library designer Alan Meeks. URW's 1993 version of the Algerian font was one of the default fonts supplied with

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...

from 1993 onwards, and has been characterised as an overused font. Originally, the Algerian font only had

capital letters Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

, but in 2005 Michael Hagemann of FontMesa added

lowercase Letter case is the distinction between the Letter (alphabet), letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain lang ...

letters to produce Algerian Mesa (as seen in the image). In 2017 Hagemann expanded the Algerian font family to 144 styles, introducing new bold, light, outline and open faced weights including italics. This new version was released by Fontmesa under the name of Tavern. In March 2020 FontMesa releases two more weights in the Algerian font design under the name of Tavern, extra bold and black weights have been created making this a five weight font family with 192 styles. Also in March 2020 FontMesa released a weathered rough edged version of Algerian under the name Bay Tavern with an alternate version called Bayside Tavern, together they add another 144 font styles to the family. Algerian has been most notably used as the typeface in the logo of Patrón tequila since 1989. In September 2020 FontMesa released a Mexican style version of Algerian under the name Taco which is a multi layered font family including 20 styles.

References

{{Typography terms Display typefaces Linotype typefaces Serif typefaces Digital typefaces Stephenson Blake typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1908 Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1988