Clarendon (typeface)

Clarendon is the name of a slab-serif typeface that was released in 1845 by Thorowgood and Co. (or Thorowgood and Besley) of London, a letter foundry often known as the Fann Street Foundry. The original Clarendon design is credited to Robert Besley, a partner in the foundry, and was originally engraved by punchcutter Benjamin Fox, who may also have contributed to its design. Many copies, adaptations and revivals have been released, becoming almost an entire genre of type design.

Clarendons have a bold, solid structure, similar in letter structure to the "modern" serif typefaces popular in the nineteenth century for body text (for instance showing an 'R' with a curled leg and ball terminals on the 'a' and 'c'), but bolder and with less contrast in stroke weight. Clarendon designs generally have a structure with bracketed serifs, which become larger as they reach the main stroke of the letter. Mitja Miklavčič describes the basic features of Clarendon designs (and ones labelled Ionic, often quite similar) as: "plain and sturdy nature, strong bracketed serifs, vertical stress, large x-height, short ascenders and descenders, typeface with little contrast" and supports Nicolete Gray's description of them as a "cross between the roman eneral-purpose body text typeand slab serif model". Gray notes that nineteenth-century Ionic and Clarendon faces have "a definite differentiation between the thick and the thin strokes", unlike some other more geometric slab-serifs.

Slab serif typefaces had become popular in British lettering and printing over the previous thirty-five years before the original Clarendon's release, both for display use on signage, architectural lettering and posters and for emphasis within a block of text. The Clarendon design was immediately very popular and was rapidly copied by other foundries to become in effect an entire genre of type design. Clarendon fonts proved extremely popular in many parts of the world, in particular for display applications such as posters printed with wood type. They are therefore commonly associated with wanted posters and the American Old West. A revival of interest took place in the post-war period: Jonathan Hoefler comments that "some of the best and most significant Clarendons are twentieth century designs" and highlights the Haas and Stempel foundry's bold, wide Clarendon display face as "a classic that for many people is the epitome of the Clarendon style."

Background

Slab serif lettering and typefaces originated in Britain in the early nineteenth century, at a time of rapid development of new, bolder typefaces for posters and commercial printing. Probably the first slab-serif to appear in print was created by the foundry of Vincent Figgins, and given the name “antique”. Others rapidly appeared, using names such as “Ionic” and “Egyptian”, which had also been used as a name for sans-serifs. (At the time typeface names were often adjectives, often with little purpose to their name, although they may have been in this case reference to the “blocky”, geometric structure of ancient architecture. There was limited separation between the name of typefaces and genres; if a font proved popular it would often be pirated and reissued by other foundries under the same name.)

Compared to Figgins' "antique", the Clarendon design uses somewhat less emphatic serifs, which are bracketed rather than solid blocks, that widen as they reach the main stroke of the letter. Besley's design was not the first font with this style by at least three years, as typefaces labelled "Ionic" had already appeared in this style (other typefaces would copy this name), but the Clarendon design was particularly popular and its name rapidly copied. Historian James Mosley suggests that an inspiration for these designs may have been the style of handlettered capitals used by copper-plate engravers.

Besley's original Clarendon design was quite compressed, unlike most later 'Clarendons' intended for display setting, which are often quite wide. One of the original target markets for Besley's Clarendon design was to act as a bold face within body text, providing a stronger emphasis than the italic type that had been used for centuries for this purpose, and in this it matches the quite condensed body text faces of the period. (The modern system of issuing typefaces in families with a companion bold of matched design did not develop until the twentieth century.) Slab serifs had already begun to be used for bold type by the 1840s, but they were often quite lumpy in design and quite poorly matched to the body text face they were intended to complement. Mosley has written that "the Clarendon type of the Besley foundry is indeed the first type actually designed as a ‘related bold’ – that is, made to harmonize in design and align with the roman types egular weight typefacesit was set with...Before the launch of Clarendon type printers picked out words in slab-serifs or any other heavy type." However, because of the Clarendon design's strong reputation for quality, it was rapidly copied. Historian Nicolete Gray considered the earlier "Ionic" face from the Caslon Foundry in the same style more effective than Besley's: " esley'sbecame the normal, but it was certainly not the first…in 1842 Caslon have an upper and in 1843 a lower case with the characteristics fully developed, but of a normal width…Besley's ore compressedClarendon is much less pleasing, it has lost emphasis and confidence, and gains only in plausibility."

Besley registered the typeface in 1845 under Britain's Ornamental Designs Act of 1842.
The patent expired three years later, and other foundries quickly copied it. Besley was nonetheless successful in business, and became the Lord Mayor of London in 1869. Theodore De Vinne, a printer who wrote several influential textbooks on typography in the late nineteenth century, wrote that its name was a reference to the Clarendon Press in Oxford (now part of Oxford University Press), who he claimed immediately used it for dictionaries, although later authors have expressed doubt about this.

With its growing popularity for display use, new versions often changed these proportions. By around 1874, the Fann Street Foundry (now Reed and Fox) could offer in its specimen book Clarendon designs that were condensed, "thin-faced" (light weight), extended, "distended" (extra-wide) and shaded. Revivals continued in the twentieth century, particularly in the 1950s.

The label "Ionic", originally also used for display faces, has become associated with typefaces with some Clarendon/slab-serif features but intended for body text, following the success of several faces with this name from first Miller & Richard (intended to be slightly bolder than contemporary expectations for body text proportions) and then Linotype (its 1922 release Ionic No. 5, extremely successful in newspaper printing). Millington notes that "Ionic became a distinct design in its own right" while Hoefler comments that it is now "chiefly associated with bracketed faces of the Century model". A decline of interest in Clarendons for display use did, however, take place in the early twentieth century: by 1923, American Type Founders, which specialised in creating demand for new designs of display face, could argue "Who remembers the Clarendons in its specimen book, and did not show them (aside from some numerals) in its 1,148 pages. In addition, the market of slab serifs was disrupted by the arrival of new "geometric" slab-serifs inspired by the sans-serifs of the period, such as Beton and Memphis. However, a revival of interest did appear after the war both in America and Europe: Vivian Ridler commented that "What seemed pestiferous thirty years ago is now regarded as rugged, virile and essential for an advertising agency's self-respect."

Revivals

A variety of Clarendon revivals have been made since the original design, often adapting the design to different widths and weights. The original Clarendon design, a quite condensed design, did not feature an italic, and many early Clarendon designs, such as wood type headline faces, have capitals only with no lower-case letters, leaving many options for individual adaptation.

The original Clarendon became the property of Stephenson Blake in 1906, who marketed a release named Consort, cutting some additional weights (a bold and italics) in the 1950s. The original materials were transferred to the Type Museum collection when Stephenson Blake left the printing business in 1996. Designs for wood type copying Clarendon were made from the mid-1840s onwards.

Most hot metal typesetting companies offered some kind of slab serif; Linotype offered it duplexed to a Roman type so that it could be easily switched in for emphasis. The typeface was reworked by Monotype, with a redesigned release as "New Clarendon" in 1960. Hermann Eidenbenz cut a version, in the early 1950s, issued by Haas and Stempel, and later, Linotype. Freeman Craw drew the ''Craw Clarendon'' family, a once popular American version, released by American Type Founders, in 1955, with light, bold and condensed variants.

Aldo Novarese dr