Transition To Modern Type: 17th and 18th Century
Baroque and rococo aesthetic trends, use of the pointed-pen for writing, and steel engraving techniques effected a gradual shift in typographic style. Contrast between thick and thin strokes increased. Tilted stressing transformed into vertical stressing; full rounds were compressed. Blunt bracketed serifs grew sharp and delicate until they were fine straight lines. Detail became clean and precise.
Transitional roman types combined the classical features of lettera antiqua with the vertical stressing and higher contrast between thick and thin strokes characteristic of the true modern romans to come.
The roman types used c. 1618 by the Dutch printing firm of Elzevir in Leyden reiterated the 16th century French style with higher contrast, less rigor and a lighter page effect. After 1647 most Elziver faces were cut by the highly regarded Christoffel van Dyck, whose precise renditions were regarded by some experts at the time as finer than Garamond's.
Read more about this topic: History Of Western Typography
Famous quotes containing the words transition, modern and/or century:
“The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from that which is representable to the senses, to that which is not.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“These modern ingenious sciences and arts do not affect me as those more venerable arts of hunting and fishing, and even of husbandry in its primitive and simple form; as ancient and honorable trades as the sun and moon and winds pursue, coeval with the faculties of man, and invented when these were invented. We do not know their John Gutenberg, or Richard Arkwright, though the poets would fain make them to have been gradually learned and taught.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Love, the fairest among the undying gods, who loosens the limbs of all gods and men,
conquers resolve and prudent counsel within the breast.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)