Blackletter

"Blackletter" indiscriminately, but this use is inexact [128] and confusing.

Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples Frank Chouteau Brown

For clearness and convenience, then, the following discrimination between the terms Gothic and Blackletter will be adopted in this treatise: When a letter is Gothic but not a Blackletter it will be called "Round Gothic"; when it is primarily a Blackletter it will be termed "Blackletter," the latter name being restricted to such compressed, narrow or angular forms as the small letters shown in 144, 147 and 148.

Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples Frank Chouteau Brown

The term "Blackletter" should, strictly, be applied only to letters in which the amount of black in the line overbalances the white; and the proper application of the title should be determined rather by this balance or weight of the letter than by its form.

Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples Frank Chouteau Brown

William Ginser, foiled in his plan to number his paper with Roman numerals, was misspelling his words in some ornate style that bore a striking resemblance to German Blackletter.

Omnibus Lackey, Mercedes 1993

William Ginser, foiled in his plan to number his paper with Roman numerals, was misspelling his words in some ornate style that bore a striking resemblance to German Blackletter.

The Otherworld Lackey, Mercedes 1992

Figure 186 is a Blackletter from an English brass, although the letter forms in this example, as well as those of many other English brasses, may perhaps have been derived from Flanders, as many of the finest early Continental brasses were imported from the Netherlands.

Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples Frank Chouteau Brown

Even in the cases of those capital letters that extend both above and below the guide lines it will be found possible to so adjust the spaces [135] and blacks as not to interrupt the general uniformity of color, and it is sometimes advisable to fill awkward blanks by flourishes; although flourishing, even in Blackletter, is an amusement that should be indulged in cautiously.

Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples Frank Chouteau Brown

A similar Blackletter form, also from a brass, is shown at larger scale in 186.

Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples Frank Chouteau Brown

Asterisks (*) are placed around words that were typeset in a Blackletter typeface in the original book.

The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II 43 BC-18? Ovid

The late Gothic or Blackletter is condensed and narrowed in the extreme.

Letters and Lettering A Treatise With 200 Examples Frank Chouteau Brown