Type Anatomy

Type anatomy and some diacriticals and punctuation

Our type anatomy chart, which was inspired by a similar diagram in U&lc magazine in the early 1980s. Access a high resolution pdf here. Besides typographic parts, we’ve included some diacritical marks, punctuation and common sorts.

St. Patrick’s leprechaun, shamrock, green beer typeface

green beer insular typeface

Every year we trundle out the “Gaelic fonts,” for St. Patrick’s Day. Insular (Irish) scripts, or uncials started out as a Byzantine script which enjoyed widespread use, but they are now often associated with the Book of Kells and are viewed as Celtic, or perhaps even less accurately as Gaelic. Uncials are a script form which was developed from Roman cursive during the early Byzantine era (third century) along with the new, smooth media of parchment and vellum. Ascenders and descenders were developed in uncials, contributing to the later development of upper and lower case in early printed Gothic typefaces. read more…

Lovely, short letterpress documentary

Firefly Press, Sommerville, Massachusetts

“If I were to be sat down at a computer and told, ‘here, you can do whatever you want,’ I wouldn’t know what to do. There would be too many choices,” says John Kristensen, of Firefly Press in this gorgeous short film. Take a moment to enjoy the rich artistry and craftsmanship in the everyday work of the Firelfy Press in Sommerville Massachusetts.

Virgule versus solidus

virgule vs. solidus

The slash on our keyboards is a virgule. The name comes down to us from Latin through French (virgula “twig”). It served medieval European literature as a comma and still does this in English language poetry. It also separates things (2015/2016), and it stands in for “or” (as in and/or) and “per” (as in feet/second). We also use it to build level fractions (1/3). read more…