Antiqua variants
The Antiqua variants are a font class according to DIN 16518 .
Thanks to the digital creation and use of fonts, which is common today, countless variants have emerged in recent years that cannot be classified. These often decorative fonts are less useful for reading texts than for display purposes. The only thing they have in common is that they are basically based on the letter forms of the Antiqua .
According to the DIN classification, Hermann Zapf's Optima and Otl Aichers Rotis Semiserif also fall into this class for lack of better sortability.
history
The Antiqua variants are not a product of today. Even in the early days of printing there was evidence in the initials of decorated and light types. In the second half of the 17th century a Baroque alphabet was created in capital letters, kept a little light and slightly shaded; and that's not the only similar type known at the time. In the 18th century these fonts were used very often, but they were almost all capitals . It was not until the end of the 19th century that common people were offered in ornate, shaded and ornamented styles. At the end of the 20th century, the heavily ornamented fonts took a back seat, instead the light and contoured types now dominate.
Well-known representatives
- Pierre Simon Fournier , the title page of "Manuale Typographique" is characterized by ornate capital letters
- Johann Thomas von Trattner
- In a stone carving, John Baskerville , 1730, used a shaded style next to capital letters
- Vincent Figgins , designed an ornate type of classicist antiqua in London in 1801
- Stephenson & Blake , an 1840 English type foundry, offers a shaded sans serif antiqua
features
Due to the diverse forms that are subsumed under this group, there are no common characteristics.