[thelist] Font Sizes: Online Picture Examples of Points, Pixels, Picas.. ?

[Freda Lockert]

Deke

Thank you for your dissertation! Picas are indeed a measure of 
height, but of the text block not the type face itself, which I think 
is what the original question referred to. Of course, I may have 
misunderstood that. I did try to answer the question relevant to what 
appeared to me actually to have been asked.

The person largely responsible for the Bodoni faces is Giambattista 
Bodoni, a contemporary of Francois-Ambrose Didot. F-A Didot was the 
father of Firmin Didot who did cut several Romantic faces which were 
thought to be Bodoni's work but are now known to have been cut later.

Regards.

Freda

><quibble>
>Picas are a measure of height. Always have been. If you are
>measuring length, one actually is using the cicero, not the pica.
>And it's true that "6 pica ~= 1 inch", but "6 pica = 1 inch" is
>only true if you use premetric French feet. If you check any line
>gage, you will see that 10" is about 723 points....
>
>Hand-set type was originally produced in *named* sizes, instead of
>numbered (just as golf clubs used to be given names like mashie
>and niblick). There were different names in different countries. For
>instance, Testino used by Italian typefounders for 8-point type,
>Brevier was the English name, and Petit Texte was the French
>name.  Pica was 12 point type, and Small Pica was 11 point type.
>
>When Marder, Luse & Co. burned down in the great Chicago fire
>of 1871, they lost all their matrices. They decided to adopt the
>point system developed by Francois Ambrose Didot in rebuilding.
>(This is the same Didot who is largely responsible for Bodoni.)
>In 1892, a trust bought up all the big type houses in the US, and
>merged them into American Type Founders, the new company
>standardizing on Marder, Luse's new system.
>
>Computer programs use premetric french feet, but that error is
>less than the error introduced by output on laser printers - they
>shink images slightly to "tighten up" the output.
>
>Some of the old type names (English system)
>    Minikin - 3 points
>    Brilliant - 3.5 points
>    Gem - 4 points
>    Diamond - 4.5 points
>    Pearl - 5 points
>    Nonpareil - 6 points
>    Emerald - 6.5 points
>    Minion - 7 points
>    Brevier - 8 points
>    Bourgeois - 9 points
>    Longprimer - 10 points
>    Small Pica - 11 points
>    Pica - 12 points
>    English - 14 point
>    Great Primer - 18 point 
>
>The definition of "professional" is *not* that you get paid. That's
>the definition of "commercial".  A professional is one who
>professes a body of knowledge and an ethical basis, in the
>service of others by giving advice.
>
>Without a knowledge of the history of graphic communications,
>we can be possibly be skilled craftsmen, but we cannot be
>professionals.
><quibble>
>
>deke
>------------------------
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>   the bar is far away but I will walk carefully."
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