Date: 1817 Designer:
Vincent Figgins Foundry:
Figgins / Thorowgood / Thorne Location:
London, England Current equivalent:
FB Giza See also:
Adobe Blackoak Technologies:
Wood
Metal (foundry)
Metal (machine)
Photosetting
Postscript
Opentype | | Famous for:
The first slab serif type.
Applications: Advertising and Display
Ubiquity:
Not widely used
Category:
Egyptian/Slab Serif Roman
Stress: Vertical
Serifs: Slab serif | | Design history:
A capital titling face with numerals, wrongly labelled in Figgins specimen book of 1817 as an 'antique' or roman. With a very bold, nearly monoline construction and squared serifs as thick as the main stroke, this type surpassed even the fat face style in blackness, it was popularised by the advent of handbills and early advertising posters, which needed bold type to project commercial messages from a distance. A sign-writer friend of mine theorises that the Egyptian style originated with the North African campaigns (hence Egyptian) of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the type historian Ruari McLean also suggests that the Egyptian style originated with signwriters 'block' letters, just like the contemporary sans serif of Caslon IV. | |  |
