Roman Extended Fatface

HWT Roman Extended Fatface has a history going back to the early 1800s. This new version has been scaled to match our HWT Roman Extended Lightface.

The design of the first "Fat Face" is credited to Robert Thorne just after 1800 in England. It is considered to be the first type style designed specifically for display or jobbing, rather than for book work. The first instance of Fat Face in wood type is found in the first wood type specimen book ever produced: Darius Wells, Letter Cutter 1828. This style was produced by all early wood type manufacturers. This Extended Fat Face was first shown as wood type by Edwin Allen in George Nesbitt’s 1838 First Premium Wood Types Cut by Machinery.

The style is derived from the high contrast, thick and thin Modern style of Bodoni and Didot developed only decades previously. The extended variation makes the face even more of a display type and not at all suitable for text. This particular kind of display type was used to compete with the new Lithographic process that allowed for the development of the poster as an artform unto itself.

This new digitization is meticulously drawn for HWT by Jim Lyles, an independent type designer and consultant formerly with Bitstream. This version does not adhere strictly to any one of the variations made by various manufacturers throughout the 19th century, but most closely follows the Wm Page cut. The crisp outlines hold up at the largest point sizes you can imagine. This font contains a full CE character set.

Variations of this design can be found, including:

Heber & Wells- Roman Expanded (No. 5150) (Later Hamilton 5150)
and an even wider Heber & Wells- Roman Extended (No. 5151) (Later Hamilton 5151)
Wm. H. Page- Roman Extended (No 239)
Cooley- Roman Extended No.1
Allen- Roman Extended
Bill Stark & Co.- Roman Extended
Knox- Extended Roman
Morgans & Wilcox- Roman Extended
Tubbs- Roman Extended (No 2028)