Wide Is Beautiful

Carl Shank • March 15, 2025

Wide Is Beautiful  What makes a typeface beautiful? Aesthetically pleasing fonts or typefaces have differing qualities that make them suitable and beautiful in different contexts and uses. I have chosen six (6) wide or "extended" font faces to highlight the inherent beauty and usability of such type. The samples chosen range from well used Adobe fonts to a specialty antique wide font CARE Typography crafted from an old fashioned type book published by Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc of New York back in 1945.

Blackoak. Blackoak is an Adobe font face designed by Joy Redick from Adobe Originals. Blackoak has been adapted from proofs of wood type from the collection at the Smithsonian Institution, has slab serifs and extremely wide letterforms. Used sparingly, Blackoak makes an arresting display type.


The  Adobe Originals program started in 1989 as an in-house type foundry at Adobe, brought together to create original typefaces of exemplary design quality, technical fidelity, and aesthetic longevity. Today the Type team's mission is to make sophisticated and even experimental typefaces that explore the possibilities of design and technology. Typefaces released as Adobe Originals are the result of years of work and study, regarded as industry standards for the ambition and quality of their development.



Federal. Designed by Erik van Blokland. From LettError. Instantly recognizable as the voice of a nation, Federal Regular is an amalgam of massive triangular serifs and curvaceous counters. An asset to all documentation whether analog or digital, the high-contrast letters are a proclamation of fiduciary responsibility. In type we trust.


HWT Roman Extended. Designed by Jim Lyles, Miranda Roth, and William Hamilton Page. From Hamilton Wood Type Collection. HWT Roman Extended Fatface is credited to Robert Thorne just after 1800 in England, is considered to be the first type style designed specifically for display, rather than for book work.


English punchcutter and typefounder (1754-1820, North London), designer of the first fat typefaces, founder of the Fann Street Foundry in 1794 and active until his death in 1820, when his foundry was sold to William Thorowgood a few months after his death. Designer of one of the first fat didone typefaces, Thorowgood (1809), and of Thorne Shaded (1820; Thorne Shaded was part of the Reed foundry material, had defective matrices, so Stephenson&Blake had it recut by Karl Gomer in 1938-1940). As metal typeface, Thorowgood was featured in 1953 by Stephenson and Blake. 


Quoting from the typophile wiki: In 1794 Robert Thorne purchased the foundry of Thomas Cottrell, a former employee of the original William Caslon, which had been founded in 1757 when Cottrell and Joseph Jackson were fired in a wage dispute. By 1798 Thorne had replaced all of Cottrell's types with his own designs and in 1801 was the first type founder to begin showing the fat typeface types. He went on to design many popular display typefaces. He also moved the foundry to Fann St. renaming it the Fann Street Foundry. Upon Thorne's death in 1820 the foundry was purchased at auction by William Thorowgood using money he had won in a lottery though he was never involved in the type founding business. Subsequently many of the types identified as Thorowgood's are actually the designs of Robert Thorne. Author of Specimen of Printing types (1794, 1803, 1814). (Information from https://luc.devroye.org/fonts-24776.html)



Hamilton Wood Type Collection, established in 2012, is a joint venture between P22 Type Foundry and the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. The founding goal was to safeguard a typographic era and make classic wood type designs available as digital fonts for modern audiences.

This historical collection of serif revivals, sans reinterpretations, decorative embellishments, script reclamations, and original chromatic designs is stunningly relevant and usable for any imaginative design practice.


Maldrone. Designed by Barbara Lind. From Adobe Originals.

Madrone is an Adobe Originals typeface designed by Barbara Lind in 1991. Madrone was digitized from proofs of the wood type collection in the National Museum of American History in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. A fat face roman, Madrone is typical of popular early nineteenth-century styles. Fat face types are characterized by their squatness and extreme letter width; one familiar version of this design is Bodoni Ultra Bold. Madrone is eye-catching for display uses in advertising and packaging.


Postino. Designed by Tim Donaldson. From Adobe Originals.

Tim Donaldson, creator of Banshee and Coriander, brings us Postino - a quirky display type modeled roughly on the typewriter face, Courier. Sturdy yet playful, Postino is aptly named by the Italian word for postman or courier. Skimming through a back issue of Visible Language (a journal about written language), Tim was taken aback by the robust beauty of an emboldened Courier typeface. The book designer had used the face to make "cheeky little headlines and they looked superb." Tim decided the world needed a typeface like this but one that "poked its tongue out" even a bit more, while still wearing its functional clothes. After doodling for some time, Postino and its Italic companion worked their way into being on Tim's computer screen. Not-entirely-serious headlines, CD covers, children's books, and advertising copy are all excellent uses for punchy Postino. U.S. Patent Design 415,518.


Antique Wide. Antique Wide is one of the historic fonts advertised by Frederick Nelson Phillips in his Old Fashioned Type Book (1945). CARE Typography has digitized this face as part of its ongoing mission to bring to light typefaces that have long since been forgotten or unused but played an important role in text and advertising pieces in days past. This is a serif "fat" face with shortened verticals, a full face with numerals and minuscules.


This website offers a number of rediscovered and digitized faces from pen and hand written type faces of the past. You are invited to check us out and order any number of these faces for your own use in today's world.

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A Cross Inspired Typeface

By Carl Shank • July 24, 2025
A Cross Inspired Typeface. CARE Typography has been able to craft a typeface of Christian crosses from the history of the Christian Church throughout the world. We named it CrossesTwo to simply distinguish it from other writings. It is a FREE font, available to all who ask. Christian crosses are used widely in churches, on top of church buildings, on bibles, in heraldry, in personal jewelry, on hilltops, and elsewhere as an attestation or other symbol of Christianity. Crosses are a prominent feature of Christian cemeteries , either carved on gravestones or as sculpted stelae . Because of this, planting small crosses is sometimes used in countries of Christian culture to mark the site of fatal accidents. Not far from where we are, there is a huge Christian cross built by a Virginia church marking not merely the site of the church building, but announcing the central message of the Bible there. Christian crosses are powerful symbols that convey theological meaning, cultural identity, and historical legacy. Over centuries, many distinct styles of the cross have developed across Christian traditions, regions, and periods. Some of the most prominent crosses are the traditional Latin Cross (Letter "L" in CrossesTwo typeface), where the vertical beam extends beyond the horizontal cross bar, the Greek Cross , a cross with four arms of equal length (Letter "V" in the typeface), the Orthodox (Eastern) Cross (Letter small "o" in typeface), with three horizontal bars — the top for the inscription (INRI), the middle for the hands, and the slanted bottom bar for the footrest, the Celtic Cross (Letter "1" in the typeface), which is a Latin cross with a circular ring connecting the arms. The traditional Latin cross symbolizes the crucifixion of Jesus, with the empty cross signaling that He rose again from the dead, and is used in Western Christianity, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and many global Christian contexts. The Greek Cross is common in early Christian art and Byzantine Christianity and used in Eastern Orthodox, Byzantine, and early Christian monuments and mosaics. In the Orthodox Eastern Cross the slanted bar represents the two thieves crucified beside Christ — one rose to heaven, the other descended. It is used in Russian, Greek, Serbian, and other Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Celtic Cross had its origins in early medieval Ireland and Britain, associated with Celtic Christianity. It has been used in Irish Christianity, Anglican, some Protestant denominations, and decorative gravestones. The Coptic Cross (Letter "5" in the typeface and note Letter "e" where the Ethiopian Cross is a close match to the new Coptic Cross) is a a variation with intricate, symmetrical designs — sometimes with equal arms or surrounded by circles. It is used by Christians in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Jerusalem Cross (Letter "j" in the typeface) has a large central cross surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses, used by the Crusades in the eleventh century, is the Heraldic symbol of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and used by Franciscans and in modern Jerusalem-related contexts. The Russian Orthodox Cross (Letter "o" in the typeface) Features three horizontal bars — top (INRI), middle (hands), and slanted bottom (feet). The Tau Cross (Letters "T" and "t" in the typeface) is shaped like the Greek letter tau and has been adopted by St. Anthony and Franciscans to symbolize Old Testament sacrifices and God's protection (Ezekiel 9:4). St. Andrew's Cross (Saltire) (Letter "s" in the typeface) is an X-shaped cross from the tradition that Andrew the Apostle was crucified on a diagonal cross. It is the symbol of Scotland and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Papal Cross (Letter "P" in the typeface) is a vertical staff with three horizontal bars, decreasing in length, representing the pope’s triple office: bishop of Rome, patriarch of the West, and successor of Peter. The Cross of Lorraine (Letter "l" in the typeface) is a vertical bar crossed by two horizontal bars — the lower one longer, has been used in Western Europe during the Crusades and was a symbol of French resistance in World War 2. The Patriarchal Cross (Letter "p" in the typeface) is similar to the Cross of Lorraine, but primarily associated with ecclesiastical hierarchy, and used by archbishops and patriarchs in Eastern and Western churches. Each cross reflects regional theological emphases, cultural aesthetics, and historical developments. While the Latin Cross remains the universal Christian emblem, the variety in form reveals Christianity's global and historical richness. Note the CrossesTwo typeface below with the description of these and many other crosses. (Credit for the opening image is given to Matteo Corti - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Muiredach_s_Cross.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1393567)

Slab Serif Font History

By Carl Shank • July 21, 2025
Slab Serifs. Born in Great Britain in the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, slab fonts, or slab serif fonts, provided a beefy and starkly bold contrast to text fonts that were popular. Found on just about every billboard, poster, pamphlet and advertising vehicle of the day, slabs were designed to stand out from the crowd, a type that shouted, "look at me!" Slab serifs, also called Egyptian, antique, mechanistic or square serif, are characterized by usually thick, block like serifs. Slab serifs possess thick serifs, which are squared-off or slightly rounded, and almost the same weight as the main strokes. From a typographical standpoint, they have low contrast, with minimal difference between thick and thin strokes. Slab serifs can have a geometric or humanist structure, and can range from mechanical-looking to more organic. They are sturdy and legible, designed for impact and readability even at large sizes. Early examples were Antique and Clarendon.
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