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A fleuron (;), also known as printers' flower, is a
typographic Typography is the art and technique of typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...
element, or
glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
, used either as a punctuation mark or as an ornament for typographic compositions. Fleurons are stylized forms of flowers or leaves; the term derives from the fro, floron ("flower").
Robert Bringhurst Robert Bringhurst Appointments to the Order of Canada (2013). (born 16 October 1946) is a Canadian poet, typographer and author. He has translated substantial works from Haida and Navajo and from classical Greek and Arabic. He wrote ''The Eleme ...
in ''
The Elements of Typographic Style ''The Elements of Typographic Style'' is a book on typography and style by Canadian typographer, poet and translator Robert Bringhurst. Originally published in 1992 by Hartley & Marks Publishers, it was revised in 1996, 2001 (v2.4), 2002 (v2.5 ...
'' calls the forms "
horticultural Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...
dingbat In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, specifically, a glyph used in typesetting, often employed to create box frames, (similar to box-drawing characters) or as ...
s". A commonly-encountered fleuron is the , the floral heart or (ivy leaf). It is also known as an aldus leaf (after Italian Renaissance printer
Aldus Manutius Aldus Pius Manutius (; it, Aldo Pio Manuzio; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preser ...
).


History

Flower decorations are among the oldest typographic ornaments. A fleuron can also be used to fill the white space that results from the indentation of the first line of a paragraph, on a line by itself to divide paragraphs in a highly stylized way, to divide lists, or for pure ornamentation. The fleuron (as a formal
glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
) is an sixteenth century introduction. Fleurons were crafted the same way as other typographic elements were: as individual metal sorts that could be fit into the printer's compositions alongside letters and numbers. This saved the printer time and effort in producing ornamentation. Because the sorts could be produced in multiples, printers could build up borders with repeating patterns of fleurons.


Fleurons in Unicode

Thirty forms of fleuron have
code point In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
. The Dingbats and
Miscellaneous Symbols Miscellaneous Symbols is a Unicode block (U+2600–U+26FF) containing glyphs representing concepts from a variety of categories: astrological, astronomical, chess, dice, musical notation, political symbols, recycling, religious symbols, trigr ...
blocks have three fleurons that the standard calls "floral hearts" (also called "aldus leaf", "ivy leaf", "hedera" and "vine leaf"); twenty-four fleurons (from the pre-Unicode
Wingdings Wingdings is a series of dingbat fonts that render letters as a variety of symbols. They were originally developed in 1990 by Microsoft by combining glyphs from Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars licensed from Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. Ce ...
and Wingdings 2 fonts) in the Ornamental Dingbats block; and three more fleurons used in archaic languages are also supported. * (Miscellaneous Symbols) * (Dingbats) * (Dingbats) * * * * (Ornamental Dingbats) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Gallery


See also

* * , a printers' ornament * , mostly used as a sub-chapter section break. Although a group of asterisks is the most common style, fleurons are also seen fulfilling this role. * '' The Fleuron'', a British typography magazine from the early 20th century.


References


External links


Book cover printed using fleuron designs
{{navbox punctuation Typographical symbols Flowers in culture