Caslon is mainly a book typeface, and there are still many books set in Caslon, Adobe Caslon is the one mostly used todya but there are many digital incarnations.

Some spots to identify Caslon coud be lower case a and g (which are very distinctive glyphs in most fonts. Also uppercase A has a distinctive curve on the apex and uppercase W is formed by two touching (not interlacing) V.

Héctor

I don’t know what publications use it in Australia, where I see you are, but here in the US both The New Yorker and Archictural Digest—both very respected, high profile magazines—use Caslon, I believe Adobe Caslon.

Thank you very much for the replies!

The first “modern” use of Caslon was by the Chiswick Press, who in the late nineteenth century competed with William Morris’ Kelmscott Press to produce books of more humane character than had been the norm for at least half a century. They inked heavily to reduce contrast and bring rich colour to the page, perhaps in imitation of Morris’ (much inferior) Golden type. Thus were established two schools of the then-new typography, according very roughly to whether they preferred to imitate the 15th or the 18th centuries. Caslon was the major type of the latter school, most importantly represented by the very popular and influential type historian and printer Updike. A synthesis was effected by Bruce Rogers with Riverside Caslon, darker and more closely fitted than the original from which it was produced. A similar remodelling is Carol Twombly’s for Adobe, which shows increased contrast and, once again, darker colour than was normal in 18th C Caslon printing, thus reversing one of Caslon’s major departures from his own Dutch sources. Founder’s Caslon is a pretty authentic revival, though it includes the random splodges of ink appearing in the specimen sheet that was its source; LTC Caslon is good, though too widely spaced for perfect digital printing; and I’m told that the best of all is Abrams Caslon, which I’ve never seen.

Don’t forget Matthew Carter’s Big Caslon.

Foreign Affairs pairs it with Adobe Caslon, and for a complete change of pace, check out its use in Wallpaper, where they use the lush swashes that Carter designed.

>once again, darker colour than was normal in 18th C Caslon printing, thus reversing one of Caslon’s major departures from his own Dutch sources

What is your source for this? 18th century printing generally had more ink spread, I believe, as it was done with coarser grained inks. It was also, I have read, done with dampened paper and a great deal of ’sock’ into the paper to even out the impression, as ’height to paper’ of the type was not so even.

Baskerville was, I have read, instrumental in getting finer grained inks and better press techniques, removing the need for dampened paper. The overall result was a lighter or ’kiss’ impression that had less ink spread and more consistent impressions for each letter.

Hi William, pre-Baskerville printing could be light too: it’s a myth, encouraged by the low quality of most English (and American) baroque printing, that it was all dark. Furthermore, some punchcutters, including Caslon, made their smaller sizes optically lighter than their larger, the opposite of what we might expect. Aldines in the ~13 pt roman of 1497(?) are very light compared to the much more familiar ~15 point of 1495-9 - indeed they’re no darker than metal Monotype Bembo on undampened paper often is.

George, if most English and American printing was dark, then it is fair to say that most Caslon is dark by comparison to Baskerville.

Also your statement about Adobe Caslon vs 18th century printing of Caslon does not seem to me accurate. When I compare Adobe Caslon to the famous 1734 broad sheet of Caslon, Adobe Caslon does not look darker at text sizes.

Also eg. the Long Primer 1 of Caslon (10 point size), normalized for size, has thicker stems than the Pica II of Caslon (12 point size), contradicting your claim that the smaller sizes are lighter.

I would be glad to be corrected if I am wrong, but it does seem to me that your views on Caslon here are not accurate. Can you post a scan of 18th century Caslon printing that is noticeably lighter than Abobe Caslon? Or give a reference about the lightness of 18th Century Caslon?

It is fair to say that most printed Caslon is dark by comparison to Baskerville, but it is also true that Caslon cut text type with notably thin stems, much thinner than most of his Dutch predecessors. In Richard Southall’s ’Printer’s Type in the Twentieth Century’, figure 28 shows 10, 11, 12, 14 and 16 pt Caslon, cast from his matrices and printed by G W Jones in 1924, scaled to a uniform width. 10 to 12, the normal text sizes for octavos and quartos, are light, 14 and 16 rather darker. Curves, as on e, o and p, are actually somewhat lighter at 10 than at 12 point, and the wider spacing reduces the perceived colour, though stems are a little darker. I’m afraid I don’t have a scanner, but perhaps you might look at Founder’s Caslon, also from a specimen sheet, which is overall lighter than Adobe Caslon despite the ink-press it includes.

EDIT: I think Bill knows rather more about this than I do: trust him, not me.