Former Expert class Type design (Plantin Institute of Typography, Antwerp) student Nicolas Portnoï is currently working on a revival of a late 16th-century type cut by Robert Granjon (1513-ca.1590): the Ascendonica Romaine, which will become DTL Ascendonica. The punches and two sets of matrices of the source model are present in the collection of the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp.
The patterns in Granjon’s typeface were examined, in line with Dr. Frank E. Blokland’s theories of the standardization and systematization of the Renaissance type. For this, detailed pictures were taken of the punches and matrices using a digital microscope. One of the sets of matrices was measured with a digital caliper. The resulting material and data are used to create a digital font whose character widths are not determined optically, but are distilled directly from the matrices. These matrices were clearly justified for casting with fixed mould registers.
27 окт 2024
