[thelist] Font Sizes: Online Picture Examples of Points, Pixels, Picas.. ?
deke
web at master.gen.in.us
Wed Apr 25 05:28:17 CDT 2001
On 25 Apr 2001, at 0:45, Freda Lockert posted a message which said:
> Picas are a measure of length (line lengths, indents, stuff like
> that, not type size, 6 picas=1"). Font foundries display their faces
> as images in sizes large enough to show the differences in the
> details that a typographer (like me!) wants to see, not in a variety
> of sizes.
<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
------------------------
"The church is near but the road is icy;
the bar is far away but I will walk carefully."
-- Russian Proverb
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