[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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