Welcome to part three of our Type Terms series. In part one we travelled all the way back to the 15th century to take a closer look at the Humanist or Venetian style types with their distinctive lowercase ‘e’ (remember that sloping crossbar?). In part two we considered the Old Style or Garalde types and also discovered how this era gave birth to the first italic type in 1501.
Today we’ve moved along the time-line to the cusp of the 18th century, the start of a period in history that we now refer to as the The Enlightenment, a time that was to sow the seeds of revolution in France, North America and beyond. But today we stand in the cobbled streets of 17th century France; Louis XIV is on the throne and Jacques Jaugeon is working on what is now considered to be the first Transitional (or Neoclassical) style typeface, the Romain du Roi or King’s Roman, commissioned by Louis XIV for the Imprimerie Royale in 1692.