Crayonette – 18pt on 24

Description

A favorite antique revival face, originating with the Keystone Type Foundry about 1890. Crayonette is the daughter of an 1886 face named Crayon, which is the same letterforms but shaded, and the capitals also have a hairline shadow. Keystone also produced Crayonette Open, an outline version, which according to the published specimen “Fits exactly over Crayonette, for illuminated work”.

Why the 24 point body? Well, here’s the story. The matrices for this casting were tagged 18 point and I had no reason to question that. When the first proof casting was done on the capital H, we aligned it to the top of the body (antinick side) as is our standard procedure for a face with no other specified alignment standard. But that established a baseline that left very little shoulder below it (nick side)—definitely not enough space to accommodate the lowercase descenders. From that, I hastily concluded that the mats were actually 24 point, and we went into production of the caps on that size. Well into the project it dawned on me that Crayonette is one of those 19th century faces that has two different base lines: the lowercase rests on a higher line than the caps. This being the case, the lowercase base line would be established by aligning the descenders flush to the nick side—on an 18 point body. Okay, no harm done. The casting was completed on 24 point; you get an extra 6 points of space between lines, free. At such time as a second casting is done it will be on 18.