In fact, it was so popular that even into the 20th century the adage in print shops was “When in doubt, use Caslon.” If you can imagine a piece of printing from revolutionary America (with the funny-to-our-eyes use of an f in the place of an s), you’re most likely looking at Caslon. Back home in America, Caslon was used by most printers. That work is one of the reasons for the prejudice of which Franklin spoke.įranklin was certainly well versed in both Caslon’s typeface, which stocked his own printshop, and Baskerville’s, which he regarded with some admiration. Baskerville designed his primary roman typeface to be a refinement of the reigning champion of British typography, Caslon. It’s a thing of beauty to hold, dense, weighty and satisfying.) A case of letters complete enough to print a pamphlet or broadside would likely take many fonts.
(I have a font of Futura made in the 1960s, wrapped in paper and cardboard. Once ordered, they probably came on a wood base wrapped in stiff paper. Ligatures, or certain letter combinations cast as one piece, were also included because with metal letters the tang on an f when next to another f or an i would overhang and the metal types would not sit next to each other.
One font consisted of upper and lowercase letters (with multiples of the more common letters), numbers, and punctuation. You could buy one “fount”, or font, of type from him which at a particular size (say, 14 point). Just an anecdote to his friend, which opened with the line “Let me give you a pleasant Instance of the Prejudice some have entertained against your Work.”īaskerville was a printer, typographer and typefounder, which means he designed, cast and sold type. Not terribly swift information distribution by today’s standards.īut then the letter wasn’t all that important.
#Caslon typeface plus
So a half-hour plus at least two days travel to the power of one copy. He placed it in an envelope, sealed it with wax and sent it by British Post from London, where Franklin kept a house on Craven Street and was living at the time, to Baskerville who lived in Birmingham. He probably used a quill pen at a writing desk, writing over the course of a half-hour or so.
He wrote a funny letter to his friend John Baskerville in 1760. We can use Benjamin Franklin as an example. If there was a formula for how fast information spreads it might read as: the speed of travel plus the speed of reproduction to the power of the number of copies.
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