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 ...
.
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. Along with blackletter and roman type, it served as one of the major typefaces in the history of Western typography.
Owing to the influence f ...
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, including
Adobe Garamond Pro and
EB Garamond
EB Garamond is a Free and open-source software, free and open source implementation of Claude Garamont, Claude Garamond’s typeface, Garamond, and the matching Italic, Greek and Cyrillic characters designed by Robert Granjon. Its name is a short ...
, 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.
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 and
ITC Bodoni.
Sans-serif fonts with swashes are rarer, but some were released in the
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
and
Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by Aerodynamics, aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In indu ...
style of the 1930s, including for
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...
and
Semplicità
Semplicità is a sans-serif typeface of the Sans-serif#Geometric, geometric style. It was published by the Nebiolo Printech, Nebiolo type foundry of Turin, Italy from around 1928.
Semplicità, named for the Italian for "simplicity", is an exampl ...
.
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
Zuzana Licko (born Zuzana Ličko, 1961) is a Slovak-born American Type design, type designer and visual artist known for co-founding Emigre (type foundry), Emigre Fonts, a digital type foundry in Berkeley, California, Berkeley, CA. She has design ...
, a sans-serif derivative of her serif family
Mrs Eaves. Helvetica Flair, a redesign of
Helvetica 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 typeface
Script typefaces are based on the varied and often fluid stroke created by handwriting. They are generally used for display or trade printing, rather than for extended body text in the Latin alphabet. Some Greek alphabet typefaces, especially ...
s with swashes are common, and include
Zapf Chancery and
Zapfino, both by
Hermann Zapf.
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.
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
References
; Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swash (Typography)
Typography