#type archive

Typography Tuesday

STEPHENSON BLAKE

Today we're showing a new acquisition from one of the giants of British type founding, Specimens of Printing Types from Stephenson, Blake, the Caslon Letter Foundry, Sheffield, published in Sheffield, England by Stephenson Blake & Co. in 1959. Stephenson Blake claims a lineage directly back to William Caxton, the founder of English type and printing in 1476. We think they stand on firmer ground, however, in also claiming descent from William Caslon, the founder of the first truly British typefaces beginning in 1734.

Silversmith and mechanic William Garnett and toolmaker John Stephenson began foundry operations in 1818 with financial support from James Blake. A year later, they acquired the firm of William Caslon III and IV, an offshoot of the Caslon family business. Garnett left the firm in 1829 and the company was renamed Blake & Stephenson in 1830, but Blake died soon after. Stephenson himself died in 1864 and passed the business onto his son Henry. The company was purchased in 1905 Sir Charles Reed and Sons, but the Stephenson name was retained. In 1937, the company purchased H.W. Caslon & Sons, the other branch of the storied Caslon dynasty, securing its right to claim full Caslon heritage.

Stephenson Blake continued to make some type until 2001, but it finally closed its foundry in 2005, with much of its historical stock going to the Type Archive in London. Because of financial issues, the Type Archive also had to close its doors in 2022, and the Stephenson Blake collection was transferred to the Victoria & Albert Museum as the interim custodian.

Shown here are some shaded typefaces and ornaments from the 1959 catalog.

Typography Tuesday

This week we present a few samples of ITC Founder’s Caslon digitized by Justin Howes, and released by the International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in 1998. These images are reproduced from Howe’s article “The Complete Caslon” published in Matrix 17, Winter 1997, published in England by John and Rosalind Randle’s Whittington Press, and a revised version of the same article in Type & Typography: Highlights from Matrix, the review for printers and bibliophiles, published in West New York, N.J., by Mark Batty Publisher in 2003.

In 1998, ITC released the first four sizes in what was eventually to become a series of thirteen digital types based directly on 19th-century designs by William Caslon. To establish these fonts, British typographer, type designer and historian, and former curator of the Type Archive in London, Justin Howes digitized printed specimens directly from resources at the St. Bride Library in London to create individual-sized types as a family of digital fonts. Originally called Ligature Caslon, ITC Founder’s Caslon comprises twelve sizes of Caslon Old Face from 8 to 72 pt, with an additional Poster size and an assortment of flowers.

You may try to click on the images for captions, but as we have noticed recently that captions have not been appearing regularly in the Tumblr dashboard, we repeat them here from top to bottom:

Mark van Bronkhorst’s design to ITC’s U&lc (Upper and lower case) magazine launching ITC Founder's Caslon in 1998.

Specimens of Founder’s Caslon, 8 pt through 30 pt.

Quousque: Optical differences from one size to the next from a design for a Caslon commemorative T-shirt produced in 2002.

Sample from Matrix 17 showing “Ligature Caslon,” Caslon’s English Roman, Fry’s ‘imitation’ Caslon, and 14 pt. Stephenson Blake Caslon.

Sample from Matrix 17 showing 30 to 72 pt Caslon, with 14 pt. Caslon and Pica English Old Black.

Sample from Matrix 17 of a page from The Diary of Lady Willoughby (1844), reset in “Ligature Caslon” (i.e., ITC Founder’s Caslon). 

Our copies of Matrix and Type & Typography: Highlights from Matrix are donations from our friend and benefactor Jerry Buff.

Typography Tuesday

We love all the absurd poetic statements and accusatory finger-pointing found in our most recent acquisition, Specimens of Types & Borders and Illustrated Catalogue of Printers' Joinery and Materials, published in London by H.W. Caslon & Co. in 1915. The great English type designer William Caslon established the Caslon Foundry in 1739, based on what previously had been the Godfrey Head Foundry (1685–1700), and remained a family-owned business run by both male and female descendants until the death of H. W. Caslon in 1873, when the Foundry was acquired by T. W. Smith and partners. The company name remained H. W. Caslon and Co. Ltd., however, and continued running until 1937, when it was acquired by Stephenson, Blake & Co., which finally closed in 2005, with its equipment and matrices incorporated into the Type Archive in London. Look out for more typographic displays from this specimen book in the future.

This amazing resource is derived from an exhaustive research on the Typographische Monatsblätter (TM) focussing on the issues from 1960 till 1990.

The Typographische Monatsblätter was one of the most important journals to successfully disseminate the phenomenon of ‘Swiss typography’ to an international audience. With more than 70 years in existence, the journal witnessed significant moments in the history of typography and graphic design. Its contributors include some of the most influential designers. http://www.tm-research-archive.ch/