The Franklin Caslon font set was created in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art to coincide with the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary. This font set includes faithfully reproduced letterforms digitized directly from images of impressions made by Benjamin Franklin and his printing office circa 1750. The printing conditions of the time involved handmade paper with textured surfaces and handmade inks which were hand-applied for each impression. By digitizing the printed type in its real-life state, an authentic look of Franklin's actual work is achieved and, ultimately, has a timeless appeal.
Benjamin Franklin's place in American printing history is well established. Franklin corresponded with then contemporary type designers: Baskerville, Caslon, Fournier, Didot, & Bodoni who are legendary and still revered today. While he championed Baskerville and his types, Franklin used Caslon fonts on many of his printed works. It is from these works that this digital font set was derived.
This font set includes faithfully reproduced letterforms digitized directly from images of impressions made by Benjamin Franklin and his printing office circa 1750. The printing conditions of the time involved handmade paper with textured surfaces and handmade inks which were hand-applied for each impression. The handcrafted printing of each page was not slick by today’s standards, but the beautiful page composition and the refined Roman letterforms yielded handsome work that is difficult to reproduce today. By digitizing the printed type in its real-life state, an authentic look of Franklin’s actual work is achieved and, ultimately, has a timeless appeal.
"P22 Franklin Caslon Ornaments" is a font of typographic ornaments as found in many of Benjamin Franklin's printed pieces including title pages, bookplates, lottery tickets and of course Poor Richard's Almanack. Additional ornaments from the Caslon foundry of the mid 1700s are also included. The ornaments have the same irregular edges as the lettering fonts in this set.
