I’m wondering, is there a difference between Old English and Blackletter? Is the former a way of not appearing to be a neo-fascist? Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch — puhleeze.

(BTW, Dan, although I don’t think your enthusiasm is contrived, it would be useful to note that you work for Linotype!  :-)

hhp

Well, I try to hold myself back from working in “I work for Linotype” into every posting. They certainly do not pay me to post things on the net, nor to do below-the-line advertising such as this. And I’m not typing this up at work either.

Plus, I will only be a Linotype employee for three more days! After that, I be in limbo for a few weeks, while the German government decides whether to renew my work permit or not . I’ve already exceeded the amount that I’m “supposed” to work in one year.

–
That being said, let’s talk about “Old English Type.” (one last disclosure, I did do some writing about the old englishness of old english types that will be released in later marketing materials from LL. But this is not a marketing ploy). Until last week, I thought that Old English was a total misnomer, something that ignorant font-buyers used when searching on the internet. Well, I was wrong!

Old English referes primarially to historized texturas design in England during the victorian era. Texturas were introduced into England during the 1400s. And, as everyone here probably knows, I LOVE TEXTURAS! The victorians loved them too, but thought them out of date and illegibile, it seems. So they “modernized” them. This is classicism. Mariage (in the Old English Pack) is a revival of Morris Fuller Benton’s Wedding, originally from 1901 and thoroughly Old English.

So almost anything “historicized” and “textura-inspired” can be vaguely Old English, whether it was designed by an Englishman in England or not. Blackmoor is from Quay, and supposedly based on something old and english. Notre Dame and WK Gotisch are not english at all but are texturas, and WKG is very historicized, just in a beautiful germanic manner by Koch instead of Benton’s or the Victorian-style.

Notre Dame is not as historicized, but it is an interesting revival of pre-printing texturas. So I think that it is vaguely appropriate, too.

Monotype’s packet has more pure old englishes in it, maybe, but it also has a Fraktur, which I can’t see as being Old English at all. Way farther off than ND or WKG (oh heavenly diety, please lighten the typophile’s hearts so that they don’t think that I am trying to dis AGFA Monotype

oh man, that last post was way too long. sorry!

Interesting elaboration — thanks.

And good luck with the job keeping/finding!

hhp

That link you gave is dead, so i can not see what typefaces are included....as long as "Linotext" is one of them, it would be a good deal.