OLD STYLE TYPEFACE HOW TO
OLD STYLE TYPEFACE FULL
OLD STYLE TYPEFACE SERIES

The very first italic letters were produced with Old Style fonts in the early 1500s. The serifs on Old Styles are always angled and if you draw a line though the thinnest parts of the letters, you’ll see that the stress is diagonal. Unlike Modern typefaces, the thick/thin transition is moderate and not so obvious. Their relation to calligraphy can be seen in the curved strokes and letters with thick to thin transitions, looking somewhat like letters drawn with a pen and ink. Old Style (occasionally referred to as Humanist) typefaces are based on hand lettering of scribes and they first appeared in the late 15th century, before Modern typefaces. I think for all of us, our design work can only improve when we become more aware of the different categories of fonts, their characteristics and similarities, and for what purpose they are most suited, whether we work in web or print design.

OLD STYLE TYPEFACE SERIES

We lost half of our typographic tools in the typewriter revolution and we still have limited access to only a few characters on modern keyboards (even if most font files have hundreds of glyphs).Last week, we had a look at the Modern typeface and to continue this series of posts on font categories, today we’ll take a look at the beautiful Old Style typeface. But since personal preferences are based on familiarity and long-term exposure to stimuli (among other things), this is not surprising in this post-typewriter world we live in.

That's it.Ī lot of people nowadays don't like them. They were brought around in the golden age of the printing press and are made to conserve optical leading in lower-case text. It has nothing to do with esthetics or any kind of fad. They are 'lining' numerals (or figures) and they are even older than what is now called 'old-style' numerals. Yes, I am aware this post is quite old but I answer for posterity! I can't help notice how people are calling 'non-old-style' numerals 'modern' or 'new-style' but this makes everything even more confusing. If you have an advertising piece or it's a headline or the numbers stand alone separated from a paragraph, then typography rules for reading don't apply and it's a typographical style decision you can base on whatever creative or messaging impression you want to create.

OLD STYLE TYPEFACE FULL

The rule and the old style numbers are intended to apply mostly to large written blocks such as in a newspaper column or a book full of text. If you want to use the capital letters in a paragraph, typography rules say you should decrease the font size slightly (about 10-20%) so that when you look at the entire paragraph and blur your eyes it should not stand out as different. The process of skipping ahead visually and then re-reading the entire sentence is quite common. Anytime SOMETHING is larger or darker in a paragraph it encourages the eye to skip ahead to the bolder darker, taller letters or words and then after interpreting the capitalized numbers the reader has to visually scan backwards to the beginning to get the whole meaning. The generalized typography rule being applied is to avoid attracting visual attention to specific words or letters in a sentence because that slows down reading and comprehension by distracting the readers limited attention from the entire piece of writing. I like the lowercase numbers, especially in a well design typeface, but in some cases they don't fit.

OLD STYLE TYPEFACE HOW TO

The larger question of 'appeal' I don't know how to answer. Generally good type families include these lowercase letters as they round out the options for good typography, and in content often provide the more legible flow/differentiation I mentioned earlier. It could be that the square block-shape of 24/7 vs the lowercase style shown is more familiar and a faster read for your audience.

It's hard to fully understand the impact of lowercase numbers (or old style) on legibility of this particular typeface and the message as-shown are really hard to differentiate as we're mixing so many variables. The string of text you've shared looks especially awkward as it includes a mix of symbols '/', codes 'FM' '23.64' '24/7' and difficult to interpret wording (what does 'coverage' mean? oh I see, it's a radio station so they mean.). And is also true when applied to numbers. The same is true when applied to groups of letters as they form words and blocks of text. Ascenders and descenders of lowercase letters make them easier to differentiate than the blocky shapes of uppercase letters.

Old style typeface