Baskerville Original Pro was released by Storm. Baskerville Original Pro contains 12 designs and family plan options. p > Till just recently the story of this typeface ended with mediocre digital variations, which did not get at the root of its motivation. Our pursuit of this vital body typeface of the 20th century began in Nové Hrady Castle, the place where a part of the depository of old prints of the National Museum Library is kept, in the summer of 1999. Thanks to the understanding of the librarian Petr Mašek we were enabled to study and picture 4 rare volumes from Baskerville's printing office, dating from about 1760. We chose as the most effective models for the digitization of this typeface its Roman and italics in the size of about today's 14 points, which Baskerville used for the printing, to name a few things, of his folio Bible in 1763 and Vergil's works in Latin in 1757. These were large-size, majestic prints on paper smoothed out by hot copper calender rollers. When making up the pages, Baskerville highlighted the value of the blank space, simply as the impact of the stunning austerity of the setting, which became a motivation for Neo-classical typographers. He makes every effort to get rid of everything which obstructs legibility, working without accessories and guidelines, neatly, and with big margins. He proceeded along these lines likewise when creating his new typeface. His punchcutter John Handy was given the job to make the typeface different from the then stylish Caslon, which was a surprise for a specific part of typophiles of the period. Baskerville maybe anticipated certain aspects understood from Bodoni and Didot, which is why nowadays everybody calls it a "temporal" phenomenon. An in-depth evaluation of Baskerville's heritage, nevertheless, stays a task for historians. Our analytical transcription improves rather the artistic and visual qualities of his typeface.

When digitizing the typeface, we did not have at our disposal a total alphabet-- partly because Baskerville did not solve a few of the characters (some of them did not even exist at the time), partially since we were loath to go to Cambridge where the higher part of the original punches is deposited. But there was no requirement to do this. For inherent in every fragment of any typeface is the principle, according to which it is possible, with a little bit of natural feeling, to finish the set of characters. An analytical transcription is likewise to eliminate any possible shortcomings of the source of inspiration and should not take control of mechanically all information of the design. Even creators of genius, however, make errors in some cases and, for that reason, in spite of the reality that we officially speak about "a transcription", what was included in the case of all complementary styles was a fairly fundamental reworking. Our objective was not a lot to be reverently faithful to the original, as to protect the spirit of the typeface and to revive it. Baskerville is a typeface with the character of a gentleman, a typeface of sober beauty and clear design. Its nature is remote from significant contrasts, as we know them from the Continental typography of the Late Baroque period. A task of a typeface family that includes twenty styles can not rely on a single set of tired eyes; that is why we are once again grateful to Otakar Karlas for his valuable guidance, especially when putting the completing touches to the typeface. It was upon his suggestion that, to name a few things, the anatomy of the basic (original) design was reinforced, the rhythm of the italics in text sizes was made more tranquil, the balance of the "&&" indication kind and the colour of the little caps were enhanced. The result is an absolutely common and inconspicuous typeface-- an employee in the service of literature. The softness of its design predetermines it for every single type of fiction and poetry, while its logical building and construction makes it helpful also for clinical publications. Having worked on Baskerville's typeface for more than a year, when we see it now, it seems like fulfilling an old friend.

Font Family:
· Baskerville 10 Pro
· Baskerville 10 Pro Italic
· Baskerville 10 Pro Medium
· Baskerville 10 Pro Medium Italic
· Baskerville 10 Pro Bold
· Baskerville 10 Pro Bold Italic
· Baskerville 120 Pro
· Baskerville 120 Pro Italic
· Baskerville 120 Pro Medium
· Baskerville 120 Pro Medium Italic
· Baskerville 120 Pro Bold
· Baskerville 120 Pro Bold Italic

Tags: 1700s, classic, cyrillic, optical sizes, ornaments, realist, serif, text, transitional, workhorse