Slab serif

The slab serif, slab serif also, is a derived from the roman font, in which the line width of the letters ( nearly) uniformly and the serifs are significantly enhanced.

In the English -speaking world the name Slab Serif or Serif Square is common in France Mécanes, in Holland and in Italy Mekanen Egiziani.

Classification

Willenberg / Kupferschmidstraße

Hans Peter Willenberg and Indra Kupferschmidstraße distinguish the following types of slab serif:

• Dynamic slab serif: PMN Caecilia, TheSerif, Officina Serif, Nexus Mix

• Static slab serif (straight serifs ): Glypha, Corporate E, Serifa, Aachen

• Static slab serif ( serifs fullers ): Clarendon, Egiziano, Volta

• Geometric slab serif: Rockwell, Cairo, Lubalin Graph, Memphis

An unusual form of slab serif is the so-called Italienne, in which the serifs of the letters are greatly enlarged:

History

The slab serif emerged in the early 19th century in England as a response to the increased demand for eye-catching promotional literature. The first slab serif was published in 1815 by Vincent Figgins. Was mentioned for the first time the slab serif font in individual printing types in 1820, in an auction directory typefoundry Thorne. They were called " slab serif " even though they had nothing to do with the Egyptian writing. The name recalls the name of the captured by the British ship that brought to London in 1802 Rosetta stone at a time in which people showed much interest in Egyptian art. Even in the 20th century there were writings that were provided with an Egyptian name ( such as Memphis, Ramses, etc.).

Features

The most important feature of the slab serif are the uniform stroke widths of up and down strokes and serifs. These changes are in contrast to the exaggerated refinements of hairlines in the classical period ( Classicist Antiqua ). Almost all sections are refined through curves, to avoid that the font is clumsy. In addition to new sections of this first today even offered yet in the photo set.

Were derived from the Neoclassical Antiqua the first slab serif, they were constructed later from Sans. Today serif fonts often occur as a component of a larger system of writing, such as TheSerif or Siemens Slab.

Typewriter fonts the same step size are often slab serif because the serifs help the space around narrow letters like "i" and "l" to fill out and create a visual connection to the adjacent letters.