A swash is a typographical flourish, such as an exaggerated

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 ( ...

, terminal, tail, entry stroke, etc., on a

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 ...

. The use of swash characters dates back to at least the 16th century, as they can be seen in Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi's ''La Operina,'' which is dated 1522. As with

italic type In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed tex ...

in general, they were inspired by the conventions of period handwriting. Arrighi's designs influenced designers in Italy and particularly in France.

Typefaces with swashes

Most typefaces with swashes are serif fonts, among which (if present) they are often found solely in italics. Advanced digital fonts often supply two italic designs: one with swashes and a more restrained standard italic. Among old-style typefaces, some releases of Caslon, such as Adobe Caslon, and

Garamond Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular and particularly often used for book printing and ...

, including Adobe Garamond Pro and EB Garamond, have swash designs. Old-style typefaces which include swashes but do not follow a specific historical model include Minion by Robert Slimbach and Nexus by

Martin Majoor Martin Majoor (born 14 October 1960) is a Dutch type designer and graphic designer. As of 2006, he had worked since 1997 in both Arnhem, Netherlands, and Warsaw, Poland. Biography Early life Majoor was born in 1960 in the town of Baarn, in th ...

. Among transitional typefaces, Baskerville's original design has swashes on ''J, N, Q'' and ''T.'' Some revivals remove these, while others may add more. Mrs. Eaves has a particularly large number. Didone fonts with swashes include

Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

and ITC Bodoni. Sans-serif fonts with swashes are rarer, but some were released in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

and

Streamline Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

style of the 1930s, including for Tempo and Semplicità. Classiq by Yamaoka Yasuhiro, based on Garamond, contains swash italic designs, as do Goudy's Sans Serif Light Italic and Mr Eaves by Zuzana Licko, a sans-serif derivative of her serif family Mrs Eaves. Helvetica Flair, a redesign of

Helvetica Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (189 ...

with swashes by Phil Martin, is considered a hallmark of 1970s design, and has never been issued digitally. It is considered to be a highly conflicted design, as Helvetica is seen as a spare and rational typeface and swashes are ostentatious: font designer Mark Simonson described it as "almost sacrilegious". Martin would later recall being accused of "typographic incest" by one German writer for creating it. As swashes are based on period handwriting, script typefaces with swashes are common, and include Zapf Chancery and Zapfino, both by

Hermann Zapf Hermann Zapf (; 8 November 1918 – 4 June 2015) was a German type designer and calligrapher who lived in Darmstadt, Germany. He was married to the calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Typefaces he designed include Pa ...

. Some historical revivals add optional swashes to designs that did not originally have them to produce a more varied design. For example, Adobe Garamond Pro's swash design is based not on the printing of Claude Garamond himself but on designs by his younger contemporary Robert Granjon. The original Caslon italic had swashes only on the letters ''JQTY;'' others have been added since by revivals of his designs. File:P16-531 titre (6206969365).jpg, Extensive use of swashes in a 1560 edition of

Calvin Calvin may refer to: Names * Calvin (given name) ** Particularly Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States * Calvin (surname) ** Particularly John Calvin, theologian Places In the United States * Calvin, Arkansas, a hamlet * Calvin T ...

. Swashes are used on capitals throughout and on many letters at the end of words too. This use would probably now be considered excessive. File:Helvetica Flair.jpg, Helvetica Flair, a redesign of the sans-serif font

with swashes File:Zapfino.svg, Flamboyant swashes in the Zapfino

typeface 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 ...

References

; Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:Swash (Typography) Typography