What does blackletter font mean?
What does blackletter font mean?
Blackletter typeface (also known as Gothic or Old English typefaces) is a family of fonts that are inspired by the dark, saturated calligraphic letters of the Middle Ages. Both the uppercase and lowercase letters are defined by dramatic strokes and elaborate serif swirls.
What is blackletter calligraphy?
Blackletter is simply a reference to a variety, or school, of gothic calligraphy styles. But to distill things down for the sake of simplicity, you accurately categorize the main classic varieties of blackletter into to the following four styles: Textura (also known as Textualis) Rotunda.
When was blackletter used?
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish language until 1875, and for the German language until the 1940s.
What does blackletter font look like?
Blackletter typefaces, sometimes referred to as Gothic or Old English, are characterized by a dense black texture and highly decorated caps. The lowercase consists of narrow, angular forms with dramatic thick-to-thin strokes and serifs. They are highly stylized, yet legible.
Where is blackletter used?
How do you describe a blackletter?
Why was Blackletter created?
Blackletter developed from Carolingian as an increasingly literate 12th-century Europe required new books in many different subjects. New universities were founded, each producing books for business, law, grammar, history and other pursuits, not solely religious works, for which earlier scripts typically had been used.
Who invented Blackletter?
In 1474, Flavio Biondo wrote that the script was invented by the Germanic Lombards after their Italy evasion back in the 6th century. The blackletter forms were not only called Gothic script, but there were also other barbarian scripts like the Beneventan, Visigothic, and Merovingian at large.
How do you identify a Blackletter?
The Blackletter typeface (also sometimes referred to as Gothic, Fraktur or Old English) was used in the Guthenburg Bible, one of the first books printed in Europe. This style of typeface is recognizable by its dramatic thin and thick strokes, and in some fonts, the elaborate swirls on the serifs.
Where is Blackletter used?
Blackletter was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century. It continued to be used for the Danish language until 1875, and was used for the German language until the 20th century. Fraktur is a notable script of this type.
What type of font is blackletter?
Blackletter typeface (also known as Gothic or Old English typefaces) is a family of fonts that are inspired by the dark, saturated calligraphic letters of the Middle Ages. Both the uppercase and lowercase letters are defined by dramatic strokes and elaborate serif swirls.
What is the difference between Old English and blackletter?
Blackletter is sometimes referred to as Old English, but it is not to be confused with the Old English language (or Anglo-Saxon), which predates blackletter by many centuries and was written in the insular script or in Futhorc .
What is blackletter calligraphy and how is it used?
In western culture, we communicate with words formed with the letters of the Latin (also referred to as “Roman”) alphabet, which is the most commonly used alphabet in the world. It is this specific style of calligraphy that we’ll be focusing on in depth, as Blackletter calligraphy is written using characters exclusively from the Latin alphabet.