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Optical Sizes

Noah Nazir
O
Last edited November 04, 2017

We’re not calling for a return to “the good old days”, but there are some things the early type founders got just right. In the era of metal and wood type, fonts were designed specifically for the size at which they were to be used, with subtle variations in weight, contrast, and proportion to make them as legible at 6pt as they were beautiful at 72pt.

With the dawn of scalable digital type, any font could be used at any size, and the time honored mastering process was abandoned. As a result, many designs suffer in this new age of convenience: display fonts are often too ornate or fragile at small sizes; text fonts are clunky and dull when set large.

Fortunately, recent type design has learned from the past, and we are now seeing a return to the practice of optical size mastering. A few type families offer sturdy, readable cuts for text, and showy titling styles for the big stuff – modern technology infused with the wisdom of the originals.
Learn more about Optical Sizes in FontBooklet No. 2 »

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ITC 2010
Erik Spiekermann, Christian Schwartz and Joshua Darden
FontFont 2005
Victor Lardent, Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent Stanley Morison
Monotype 1932
Robin Nicholas
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Robert Hunter Middleton
Elsner+Flake 1940
Giambattista Bodoni and Sumner Stone
ITC 1790
Christopher Burke
FontFont 1994
Christopher Burke
FontFont 2004

Elsner+Flake
Chauncey H. Griffith and Alexander Phemister
Bitstream 1936

ParaType
Alejandro Lo Celso
PampaType 2004
Neville Brody
FontFont 1993
Alejandro Lo Celso
PampaType
Gert Wiescher
Wiescher Design 2005
Erik Spiekermann and Ole Schäfer
ITC 1990
Akira Kobayashi
FontFont 1998
Xavier Dupré
FontFont 2004
Gustav F. Schroeder
Bitstream 1890
Janice Fishman and Giambattista Bodoni
ITC 1790
Sumner Stone
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LucasFonts
Robert Slimbach, Ludovico degli Arrighi and Nicolas Jenson
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Erik Spiekermann, Christian Schwartz, Kris Sowersby, Ralph du Carrois and Botio Nikoltchev
FontFont 2007
Xavier Dupré
FontFont 2001
Claude Garamond and Robert Slimbach
Adobe 1499
Robert Slimbach
Adobe 1992
Nick Shinn
Shinntype

Adobe
Holly Goldsmith, Janice Fishman, Jim Parkinson, Giambattista Bodoni and Sumner Stone
ITC 1790
Robert Slimbach
Adobe 1989
Robert Slimbach
Adobe 1989
Robert Slimbach
Adobe 1989
Carol Twombly
Adobe 2000
Robert Slimbach
Adobe 2004

Adobe

Adobe
Christopher Burke
FontFont 1999
Erik Spiekermann and Ole Schäfer
FontFont 1996
Robert Slimbach
Adobe 1996
Erik Spiekermann and Ole Schäfer
FontFont 1997
Erik Spiekermann, Oded Ezer and Akaki Razmadze
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ParaType