Claymore

2. Lombardic letters from Liber regimenti acutorum, late-13th century. Detail of a picture shown in The Smithsonian Book of Books

The Romanesque period saw huge changes in the design of letters; eventually culminating in a new style – the Gothic capital.

In A History of Lettering Nicolette Gray describes this period (roughly eleventh to twelfth centuries) as one of great experimentation for the capital letter. Where specific attention was given to varying the elements of letter design; questioning stroke thickness, which, if any of the diagonals should be thick or thin, and mixing square and round forms of the same letter. Pretty much anything goes. [fig 1]

This free-for-all approach to the letter’s classical heritage developed to become the round Gothic capital, often referred to as Lombardic. The principal shape being circular and preserving much of the feeling of uncials. They’re often heavily decorated and became the prominent form for initial letters and versals in manuscripts. Its medieval characteristics also made it a favourite choice of letter style for the Gothic Revival and Arts & Crafts movements. [figs 2, 3, 4]

The additional stroke
The experimentation of the Romanesque capital together with the wild extravagances of the Lombardic hold some of the ideas found in Claymore. One detail that can’t fail to be noticed is the stretching of the vertical serifs. These conspire to fill the space and close the letter; which in extreme cases render it abstract and difficult to decipher. This idea is reinterpreted in Claymore as an additional sabre-like stroke rather than a serif. [fig 4]

4. Top shows Missal Capitals, Stephenson Blake, 1880
Bottom shows Lombardic Capitals, Frederic Goudy, 1929

We’re incredibly adept at recognising the shapes of the alphabet and readily accept slight modifications to them. Adding details like a serif or a bulb terminal doesn’t generally worry us. We accept the different shapes of certain letters, such as a two-bowled or single-bowled g. Some typefaces make use of added details for legibility reasons; a curved foot to the lowercase l or a capital I with top and bottom slab serifs added. (As a reader you could probably benefit from that in the previous sentence). So, is there potential to incorporate additional strokes across a wider range of characters, without digressing into the realms of a semi-sans or semi-serif typeface style?

The early sketches looked toward a more medieval style to see if there was any value in developing their idiosyncratic shapes further. Although interesting individually, they were too far from the intended vision for Claymore. But, they did raise questions as to which letters visually accepted an additional stroke, and that a horizontal stroke appeared to reinforce an overly medieval appearance. [figs 5–10]

A few 19th century typefaces make use of this feature. In Old Style Grotesque from Stephenson Blake, the vertical serifs have been extended and thickened to visually become more like a stroke. [fig 11] Some of the typefaces produced by the Boston Type Foundry in the 1880s display this feature too. Both Facade and Epitaph apply a sabre-like stroke to the curved letters of their character sets. [fig 12] It could be argued that in all these designs this element is treated as a stroke rather than a serif.

This additional stroke was added to Claymore’s capital straight letters E F L T, the rounded ones of C G, and to the diagonal Z. Elsewhere in the typeface the stroke appears where it sits naturally and space allows; the lowercase a c r, figures 2 and 7, and the ? Its shape can also be seen in the ear and link of the g, and the tail of Q. [figs 13, 14, 15]

13. Early sketch showing various letter sets and angular curves

The branching arch
In the roman, the bowls of B D P R maintain a strong horizontal feel which then sweep round. The italic however, expresses a very different structure. It’s often the case that the italic capital letters of a typeface are treated as sloped versions of the roman ones. With Claymore I was keen to even up the balance of an italic impression between the upper and lower cases; developing a specific identity for the capitals helped to achieve this. Several of the them adopt a very different construction, with a top curve that branches out from the stem. This branching idea is also applied to the top arms of E and F. [fig 21]

The Lombardic letters visually hint at this through the deep dip where the bowl joins the back stem – which gives the impression of a more fluid curve leaping up and forward, as seen in the D of Frederic Goudy’s Lombardic Capitals. [fig 16] In a similar way, the swash capital B of University of Californian Old Style Italic, also by Goudy, hints at a fluid high bowl branching away from the lower flat stroke and stem. [fig 17]

Developing this idea further the curve of the bowl could be treated like the branching arch of a lowercase n or r. An idea which is seen in several italic capitals of Série 18 from Deberny & Peignot. In his research for a revival of Linotype Transit, type designer Ryan Bugden traced the origins of Série 18 to a specimen dated 1906. Bugden suggests that this type was the result of Deberny & Peignot’s then Director, George Peignot, ‘who made it his primary goal to design typefaces that celebrated and represented the turn of the century.’ Seen here, this detail does indeed express the joie de vivre of the Belle Époche. [fig 18]

20. Design for lettering and numbers, C.F.A. Voysey, 1895

Washington, a typeface from the Central Type Foundry of St. Louis, extends its stems up to terminate in a ‘thorn’ allowing the heads of D R B to be round and branch out. This design also incorporates the added stroke to its capital L. [fig 19] Designer C.F.A. Voysey shows a branching arch in his roman capitals for the design of an alphabet in 1895. An alphabet which he used on his architectural plans and one that seems to heavily reflect the revivalist style of the period. [fig 20] Parallels can be made to the bifurcated style of the Tuscan letter, and to a degree this can be seen in some of the more ornate Lombardic letters, such as those used on the monument to Henry 3rd in Westminster Abbey. [fig 3]

21. Sketch showing different construction of roman and italic capitals

The energy and direction seen in the branching arch is reflected in the full curves Claymore’s roman and italic C c e which swing down and round in a forward direction. To complete this dynamic feeling, the lower left corners of both italic E and L adopt a curve and echo this movement too. [figs 21, 22]

23. Roman figure sketches

The figures are designed to express similar ideas to those found in the letters and includes the sabre-like stroke added to the 2 and 7. The 3 has a flat unadorned top to complement the 5, the 4 is open which allows for a modelled stroke to reflect the sabre idea – it also avoids a problematic tight junction. [figs 23, 24, 25]