Who Was John Baskerville?

John Baskerville was an 18th century printer, typefounder, letter designer, stonecutter, engraver, and master writer from England. He is best known for his font "Baskerville" which is considered a transitional font between the fonts of William Caslon and those of Giambattista Bodoni and Firmin Didot, which were modern in style. John was a perfectionist who sought to improve upon Caslon's work by increasing line-width contrast, making the curved elements rounder, and altering the axis of round characters. One of the distinguishing characteristics of his font face is the somewhat flamboyant tail of the capital 'Q.'

As a traditional typeface, it was doomed to a short run in popularity, being soon replaced by the fonts of Bodoni and Didot, but it was the recipient of a fair amount of notoriety while it was in vogue. Benjamin Franklin was one of it's admirers, and he was responsible for it's exposure in the then-new United States where it was used for government documents. It was not until the 1900's that the font experienced a revival and came to be known for more than its role in typographic history.

John's masterwork is considered to be the Bible he made for Cambridge University, for which he even crated his own paper.


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Wikipedia - John Baskerville
Wikipedia - Baskerville (Font)