Baskerville Booklet

BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE BASKERVILLE

THE MAN George William Jones was a British printer and type designer born in Worcestershire. Jones was hired by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company and was tasked with developing new typefaces to build the company’s reputation. One of the projects Jones took on was reviving the Baskerville font in the 1920s.

John Baskerville was born on January 28th, 1706 in Wolverley, Worcestershire.

Baskerville was a self taught man who started his career as a handwriting teacher who also cut gravestones. Despite the current popularity of the Baskerville font, it was not well perceived while Baskerville was alive.

Instead, he made his fortune in the japanning business. Japanning is the manufacture of lacquer work items. Baskerville discovered the secret of how James Taylor produced lacquered objects at a cheaper cost by allegedly following him into shops to learn

what secret ingredients he used. Baskerville then continued to prosper off this trade which allowed him to move to a small estate to build his own home and workshop.

It was in this workshop where Baskerville became obsessed with the idea of creating books of the finest quality.

So Baskerville would experiment with how different types of paper, typefaces, and high quality inks all reacted together.

Baskerville was also a printer for the University of Cambridge and while he was employed there, he completed his largest work. The Baskerville Bible was one of the biggest projects of his career, which was rather ironic due to the fact that he was an atheist. Baskerville was responsible for every stage of the book’s production, however, it caused him to lose an abundance of money on the bible because it took him so long to complete. He was extremely focused on his innovations and new ways of doing things that the Baskerville Bible ended up being too expensive for people to actually buy upon its completion.

Baskerville lived out his life at his estate in Birmingham with unwed lifelong partner Sarah Eaves until his death on January 8th, 1775.

“ Having been an early admirer of the beauty of letters, I became insensibly desirous of contributing to the perfection of them. I formed to myself ideas of greater accuracy than had yet appeared, and had endeavoured to produce a set of types according to what I conceived to be their true proportion.�

- John Baskerville

THE TYPE

serif

The Baskerville font was designed in the 1750s and was made to be a transitional typeface. Baskerville was created to bridge the gap between old style and modern style typefaces. At the time, Baskerville was being created, many designers were using low standard conservative typefaces to keep book prices low, Baskerville wanted to combat that and made books in the highest of qualities.

stem

This particular typeface did not gain favor until after Baskerville died. It was almost obsolete by 1917, but George William Jones revived in in the mid 1920s while Bruce Rodgers brought it back through the Harvard University Press which skyrocketed its popularity. Overall, the Baskerville typeface delivers a clean look with old style attributes.

cross bar

counter

bowl

A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Regular

A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Italic

A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog SemiBold

A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog SemiBold Italic

A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Bold

A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog Bold Italic

a bc def ghijk lmnop qrstuvw xyz<>+=

ABCDEFG HIJKLMNO PQRSTUVW XYZ?!@#$%*

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Geometry can produce legible letters, but art alone makes them beautiful.

Art begins where geometry ends, and imparts to letters a character transcending mere measurement.â&#x20AC;?

-Paul Standard

THE GRAVE There was plenty of drama when it came to burying John Baskerville.

Being a vocal atheist, he was extremely adamant about not being buried in consecrated ground, so he was buried on his property. However, when the estate burned down, his body was moved to a warehouse, where his coffin was used as a plumberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workbench. The plumber was rightfully disturbed that his workbench was a coffin, so he found a churchyard where a bookseller agreed to put him in a family crypt. However, this was also consecrated ground, so his body was moved for the final time to Warstone Lane Catacombs, despite the fact it was still a consecrated area.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The good, old legible types formerly used in print are being scorned in these days. And yet, however many new faces may be cut, when they have been forgotten and no more new ones can be imagined, the old ones will once more be produced under the pretence that they are new, as is the case with other things. â&#x20AC;?

- Wolfgang Fugger

LEGACY Mrs Eaves is another typeface that is a variant of the Baskerville typeface. It was released by the type foundry Emigre and was named after John Baskervilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife Sarah Eaves. Sarah Eaves was the live in housekeeper turned wife of John Baskerville.

When John Baskerville passed away, a french foundry acquired the typeface. The typeface would almost be forgotten if not for the work of both George William Jones who created a faithful revival and Bruce Rodgers who brought the type to the Harvard University Press. When Baskerville was alive, the typeface could be found within the Baskerville Bible, as well as John Baskervilleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edition of Virgil. Benjamin Franklin was also an avid fan of the typeface and had it used in US federal government papers.

Today, the Baskerville typeface can still be seen all over the world. It has been used as the logo for the Metropolitan Opera in New York and can also be found on all covers of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Canada also decided to use Baskerville to create their wordmark logo.

This famous font can also be found on movie posters like the American Gangster and is also used in the logo for the popular Kate Spade brand.

BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO BOOK DESIGN: RACHEL ANTHONY TYPOGRAPHY, FALL 2019 MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD OHIO