mariusgaaazzh:uwmspeccoll:Typography Tuesday: Baskerville GreekJohn Baskerville is remembered for hi
mariusgaaazzh:uwmspeccoll:Typography Tuesday: Baskerville GreekJohn Baskerville is remembered for his very distinctive Roman font, still in use in many iterations today. He is less well-known for his Greek type which he designed for Oxford University in 1761, yet its influence is seen in many Greek fonts today. Oxford desired a better Greek type than was available at the time, and so contracted with Baskerville for a new design. Baskerville’s relationship to the type ended once it was delivered. The text was printed by Oxford in 1763 without Baskerville ever visiting the University, or even being consulted. The types were met with immediate criticism, being called “execrable,” “stiff and cramped,” and “not good ones.” To a modern eye, the type is very readable, but for Baskerville’s contemporaries it broke with conventions of Greek type design that still followed the highly cursive forms established by such typographers of Francesco Griffo and Claude Garamond in the early 16th century. A comparison of 16th-century Garamond and 18th-century Baskerville is shown above (see also our earlier blog on Garamond types).Baskerville’s Oxford Greek was not used again in his lifetime, but would later serve as a model for Greek type designs into our own day. ʻE Kainè Diathéke Novum Testamentum. Juxta exemplar Millianum. Typis Joannis Baskerville. Oxford University Press, 1763.@elucubrare -- source link