Perpetua was designed by eric gill in 1925 for the monotype Foundry. Gill was an English letter-cutter who collaborated whith Stanley Morison to create Monotype's first original typeface design. Perpetua was designed to resenbke stone-cut lettering, which gives it an engraved quality and dignified appearance. With medium contrast, sharp serif, and a small x-height, it is not perfectly suited for books, and as a result is not considered a mainstream typeface. Morison Himself expressed that Perpetua has "a note of particularity and self-conscious-ness not universally acceptable."
What makes Perpetua unique is that it is sometimes categorized as both an Old Style as well as a transitional typeface. Though it was designed as an Old Style book face, many of its features are closer to Transitional characteris-tics. In this book, several of Perpatua's traits, such as reifs, size, and stress will be compared to typeface of different classifications, including Old Style, Transitionalm and Modern.