Caledonia (typeface)

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Caledonia
Typeface Caledonia
Category Serif
Classifications Transitional serif
Designer(s) William Addison Dwiggins
Foundry Mergenthaler Linotype Company
Date released 1938

Caledonia is a transitional serif typeface designed by William Addison Dwiggins in 1938 for the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.

Dwiggins chose the name Caledonia, the Roman name for Scotland, to express the face's basis on the early nineteenth century Scotch Roman typeface. The face has a more vertical stress than an old style garalde faces, with mostly unbracketed horizontal serifs. The G is open and the R has a curved tail. the t is unbracketed. Italic characters p and q have no foot serif. The character set, as drawn by Dwiggins was wide, including ranging (old style) figures, lining figures, and small capitals in the text and bold weights. A Greek version of the face is available. Caledonia ranks with Times New Roman as one of the most used book text faces. A digital version, called New Caledonia, available in four weights: text, semibold, bold, and black, each with small capitals, was released in 1982.

[edit] References

  • Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
  • Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. Hartley & Marks: 1992. ISBN 0-88179-033-8.
  • Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
  • Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopædia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Ltd.: 1953, 1983. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X.
  • Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.

[edit] External links