From For the Hearts

Last year I did a Scotch Roman inspired typeface. A form from the time of enlightenment around the end of the 18th century, it embodies the hopes of that time: democracy, freedom, civil liberties and the promotion of science over superstition. It draws on several sources for inspiration, mainly the British 'Transitionals' e.g. Baskerville and Bulmer and the later Scotch Roman types inspired by the ‘Moderns’ of Firmin Didot. The high stroke contrast was make possible by Didots use of metal printing plates instead of movable type, and as the printing industry moved to this technology the new ‘Modern’ typefaces moved with it, and the Scotch Roman style was largely abandoned due to it’s un-trendy old-style features.

Along the large influx of immigrants to America came several Scottish printers who brought with them the Scotch Roman typefaces drawn, cut and used in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The ‘English Copperplate’ as they where often referred as, gained a large deal of popularity in America, while it completely disappeared from the British Isles.

In 1920 Monotype did a metal revival of Scotch Roman, which became very popular in North American newspapers. In the digital age the Scotch Roman’s were once again revived e.g. Matthew Carter’s ‘Miller’ and ‘Georgia’, Tobias Frere-Jones’s ‘Benton Modern’, Jonathan Hoefler and Frere-Jones’s ‘Chronicle Display’ and Jean François Porchez’s ‘Mencken’.

Despite the class’s genesis as an industrial product that would survive fast newspaper printing on the cheapest of stock, it remains an stately alternative to the preceding renaissance- and the later modern forms.