Script (typefaces)
Encyclopedia
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
s are based upon the varied and often fluid stroke created by handwriting. They are organized into highly regular formal types similar to cursive writing and looser, more casual scripts.
Formal scripts
A majority of formal scripts are based upon the letterforms of seventeenth and eighteenth century writing-masters like George BickhamGeorge Bickham the Elder
George Bickham the Elder was an English writing master and engraver. He is best known for his engraving work in The Universal Penman, a collection of writing exemplars which helped to popularise the English Round Hand script in the 18th century....
, George Shelley and George Snell. The letters in their original form are generated by a quill or metal nib of a pen. Both are able to create fine and thick strokes. Typefaces based upon their style of writing appear late in the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. Contemporary revivals of formal script faces can be seen in Kuenstler Script
Kuenstler Script
Kuenstler Script is a formal script typeface. The primary weight was designed in 1902 by the in-house studio at the D Stempel AG foundry. Originally titled Künstlerschreibschrift which translates from German to English as handwriting of artists. The face is based on late nineteenth century English...
and Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter is a type designer. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Carter's career in type design has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital type...
's typeface Snell Roundhand. These typefaces are frequently used for invitations and diplomas to effect an elevated and elegant feeling.
Casual scripts
Casual scripts show a less formal, more active hand. The strokes may vary in width but often appear to have been created by wet brush rather than a pen nib. They appear in the early twentieth century and with the advent of photocomposition in the early-1950s their number rapidly increased. They were popularly used in advertising in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
into the 1970s. Examples of casual script types include Brush Script
Brush Script
Brush Script is a casual connecting script typeface designed in 1942 by Robert E. Smith for the American Type Founders . The face exhibits an exuberant graphic stroke emulating the look of handwritten written letters with an ink brush. Lowercase letters are deliberately irregular to further effect...
, Kaufmann and Mistral
Mistral (typeface)
Mistral is a casual script typeface designed by Roger Excoffon for the Fonderie Olive type foundry, and released in 1953. The Amsterdam Type foundry released a version in 1955....
.