About Transitional
Welcome to The Enlightenment. With the resistance toward tradition in art, literature, and religion in full swing, it’s no surprise that this time in history would also mark the descent from traditional letterforms in typography. Transitional differs from Old Style in that the style was less influenced by handwritten letterforms. In fact, the pen’s influence began to disappear altogether.
Let’s go to the last years of 17th century France, where the first Transitional (otherwise known as Neoclassical) typeface was being designed by Jacques Jaugeon in 1692. The typeface was to be called the Romain du Roi, or the King’s Roman,commissioned by King, Louis XIV. However, the first book to use Jaugeon’s typeface wasn’t produced until almost a decade later in 1702 and the first full set of 82 fonts wasn’t completed until 1745.