Font Master: Frederick W. Goudy

Carl Shank • July 6, 2024

Font Master — Frederick W. Goudy.  There is perhaps no other more celebrated font creator than Frederick Goudy, certainly not in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy provided the type and printing world with a both legible and beautiful typeface. In his master work, Typologia: Studies in Type Design & Type Making, With Comments on the Invention of Typography • The First Types Legibility and Fine Printing (University of California Press, 1940, 1977 Reprint), Goudy says that more than legibility is important — "but this is not enough, for types should be pleasantly readable too, a quality depending somewhat on the ability of the arranger of the letters, as well as partly inherent in the letters themselves." (129–130) He notes that "the proper standard of beauty in types resides, first of all, in their utility, but I believe also that there are secondary esthetic attributes which may be included in their design with no sacrifice of life and vigor and legibility." (77)


What makes type legible and beautiful? "Legibility depends on there things: first, simplicity, that is, a form having no unnecessary parts [not the bastard simplicity of form which is mere crudity of outline]; second, contrast, as shown by marked differences in the weight of the lines composing the individual letters [stems and hairlines], and also as shown in the varying widths of different letters; and third, proportion, each part of a letter having its proper value and relation to the other parts and to other letters—these three things in connection with the aspects of purpose and use." (130) The University of California at Berkeley hired Goudy to design a typeface for them that radiated legibility and beauty, and Goudy carefully crafted the University of California Old Style Regular and Italic. "He described it as particularly intended to be attractive in mass and said that the italic was intended to be "a refined letter, yet not, I hope, one which may be called prudish…some letters are a bit exuberant. As an italic is [mostly used] to emphasize a word…or sometimes merely to give a lighter touch, I have allowed myself to incorporate here and there in my font some forms more or less fanciful." It was finished just before a fire that destroyed Goudy's workshop, engraving machine and plan drawings, and Goudy noted in his book that it was lucky that he had posted off finished work to Monotype to use as a basis for making punches for their hot metal typesetting system, allowing some letters to be redrawn from patterns." (wikipedia) MyFonts.com notes that "in 1958, Lanston Monotype issued it as Californian. Carol Twombly digitized the roman 30 years later for the University of California; David Berlow revised it for Font Bureau with italic and small caps; Jane Patterson designed the bold."


Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces over the course of fifty years. Initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, Goudy's own individualistic style shows through — the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the I and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. (See Samples Below) Wikipedia notes that the modern typeface Berkeley Old Style is the digital representation of the University of California Old Style of 1938. There are marked differences, however, as seen in the comparisons below. "Tony Stan redrew the family for ITC (International Typeface Corporation) in 1983, naming it ITC Berkeley Old Style, Berkeley being the city where the University of California Press is located." (from Myfonts.com)


Goudy's type designs continue to show up, especially in display and advertising venues. The included examples below display the beauty and functionality of Goudy's work.

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Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase”

By Carl Shank • June 13, 2026
Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase” Carl Shank, CARE Typography Most everyone knows what “uppercase” and “lowercase” letters are. They refer, of course, to our “capital” letters and our “regular” small print. But not many know why or how they came to be known by such terminology. The answer is found in the history and development of typography and printing. “Case” here doesn’t refer to “circumstance” or “condition.” It refers to the wooden trays used to store metal letters, the top case for capital letters (“uppercase”) and the lower case for small letters. Each tray was divided into compartments to hold the type. The lower case also held the punctuation marks and other pieces of type, like “spacers.” The type case was a shallow wooden tray divided into compartments of various sizes. There were about thirty styles of type cases, and some of these were made in different sizes.[1] The most common, or standard, size was 32¼ by 16 inches, outside dimensions, and ⅛ inches deep, inside. One of three traditional plans or schemes for such type cases involved (1) all characters in one case; (2) capitals, small capitals and a few other characters in one case; or (3) the small letters, figures, points, spaces and quads in another case. The two latter cases formed a pair and would nearly always be used together.(See Images) Hand compositors (or “swifts”) would take individual letters, spaces and punctuation marks or other characters from the type case and place them in what was called a composing “stick” in such a manner that when the type characters are properly assembled, they form words, sentences and paragraphs. The work of the press room compositor was divided into two fundamental operations — the “setting” of type and the “unsetting” of type. The former was called composition and the latter, distribution. A visual example of such typesetting can be seen in some of the episodes of The Waltons, an American historical dramatelevision series about a family in rural western Virginia in the Appalachian/Blue Ridge mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemployment of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the subsequent United State home front during World War II in the 1940s. The series aired from 1972 to 1981. John-Boy, a leading character of the series, opened a print shop in a shed by the family home with an old-fashioned mechanical printer that required setting cold metal type from a type case. His brother was the compositor while John-Boy ran the printing machine.

Vanity Type

By Carl Shank • June 6, 2026
Reading through an old volume of Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc, Type Faces:With Which We 'Prove It With Proofs' in Typography for Advertisements (New York, 1924), I came across some type that falls outside of the standard typography models, called "vanity type." The term “vanity typography” is not a formal category in typographic history like Old Style, Transitional, Modern, or Sans Serif. Designers typically use the phrase informally to describe typography that draws attention primarily to itself rather than serving the text or reader. Vanity typography occurs when type is used as a display of the designer's skill, fashion, or personal taste rather than to improve communication. Readability is sometimes sacrificed for self-expression and artistic flair. Such type styles use excessive ornamentation, decorative letterforms, overuse of effects like shadows, outlines, gradients and distortions, unusual spacing, and generally typography used to impress rather than inform. Notice in the sample by Phillips, the different "A's," "F's,", "G's," "H's," "L's," "M's," "S's," T's" and "W's." This is not calligraphy lettering, but rather type that could have been used for verses or opening letters to paragraphs or stories.
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