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Romain du Roi
In 1695, Louis Simonneau created large engraved copperplate prints of the master alphabets for France’s Imprimerie Royale, the royal printing office. These copperplate engravings were intended to establish graphic standards for the new typeface, which was called Romain du Roi. -
Transitional Roman type
The Romain du Roi types began a new category of types called transitional roman. The new typeface had increased contrast between thick and thin strokes, sharp horizontal serifs, and an even balance to each letterform. -
Caslon Old Style
In 1722, William Caslon, an engraver of gunlocks and barrels, designed Caslon Old Style and its italic version. Benjamin Franklin introduced the typeface Caslon into the American colonies, where it was used extensively, including for the official printing of the Declaration of Independence. -
John Pine's Opera Horatii
Englishman John Pine printed independent books such as Opera Horatii (Works of Horace), in which he printed both the illustrations and text from one copper plate for each page, resulting in the serifs and thin strokes of letterforms being reduced to delicate lines. The contrast in the text was dazzling and inspired imitation by typographic designers. -
George Bickham
The renowned English writing master and engraver George Bickham was the most celebrated penman of his time. In 1743, he published The Universal Penman. -
Baskerville’s type design
John Baskerville’s type design represents the zenith of the transitional style. His types are wider, the contrast between the weight of the thick and thin strokes greater, and the serifs flow smoothly out of the major strokes and terminate in fine points. -
Shakespeare Press
British national pride led to the establishment of the Shakespeare Press in 1786, which printed editions of equal quality to the folio volumes of Paris and Parma. -
Giambattista Bodoni
The revolt against the French monarchy led to the rejection of the lush designs that were popular during the reigns of Louis XV and XVI. All areas of design required a new approach to replace the outmoded rococo style. Giambattista Bodoni led the way in evolving new typefaces and page layouts. -
Thomas Bewick's “white line” Technique
Thomas Bewick in England developed a “white line” technique of engraving, which came to be used as an illustration method in letterpress printing until it was replaced by the halftone printing method. -
Pied de Roi System
The Didot family type foundry revised Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune’s system of type measurement and created the pied de roi system, which divided a French inch into seventy-two points. Type size was identified by the measure of the metal type body in points. In 1886, the Didot system was revised to suit the English inch and adopted as a standard point measure by American-type foundries. -
Giambattista Bodoni Modern Style typeface
Bodoni redefined roman letterforms, giving them a more mathematical, geometric, and mechanical look. He reinvented the serifs by making them hairlines that formed sharp right angles to the upright strokes; the thin strokes of his letterforms were the same weight as the hairline serifs. His typeface design exemplifies the modern style. -
Virgil’s Opera
Late works printed by Giambattista Bodoni, such as Virgil’s Opera (Works) reflect the contemporary late eighteenth-century neoclassical style, which demonstrated a return to “antique virtue.” -
Firmin Didot’s stereotyping
The process of stereotyping involves casting a duplicate of a relief printing surface by pressing a molding material (such as damp paper pulp, plaster, or clay) against it to make a matrix, then pouring molten metal into the matrix to form a duplicate printing plate. This achievement of Firmin Didot’s made longer press runs possible. -
Romanticism style
William Blake’s illustrations for his poetry are in the style known as
romanticism, which contrasted with the styles of layout and typography of Bodoni and Didot -
William Playfair's Information Graphics.
William Playfair, the Scottish author, and scientist who converted statistical data into symbolic graphics introduced the first “divided circle” diagram (called a pie chart today) in his 1805 English translation of The Statistical Account of the United States of America. He created a new category of graphic design, now called information graphics. -
Manuale Tipografico
Giambattista Bodoni had planned a monumental type specimen book presenting three hundred type fonts that he had designed. After his death, his widow and foreman published the two-volume Manuale Tipografico in 1818. This massive work celebrated Bodoni’s genius and is a milestone in the history of graphic design.