This month we are pleased to present the fruit of labors begun here back in the late spring. The University of California is doing a project involving hand-press reproductions of 17th-century English ballad broadsides, and contacted Skyline in search of type. Â We were fortunate to have Cloister Black in the matrix vault, which very closely matched the face originally used, and doubly fortunate to have matrices for special characters, including German accents and the archaic long-s and its ligatures. Â A commission ensued and we did full-font castings in both 14 and 24 point. Here’s the 14:
In the larger size there are two different variants of the archaic specials: lining and descending.
Altogether the font contains 102 characters. Â The casting of 70 fonts took 10 full days and amounted to 42,656 individual types with a total weight of 574 lbs. Â We now have plenty of both sizes on the shelf, should you have an urge to do up Shakespeare or other material from that era. Â Here’s the 24.
