Algerian is a decorative

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...

font family originally produced in the early 20th century by British foundry Stephenson, Blake & Co. The design for the typeface is owned by Linotype, while the name is a trademark of the International Typeface Corporation. Algerian appears in the Stephenson, Blake & Co. 1907 type specimen book on page 142, with the Algerian font as used today as the small caps lowercase to a more decorative uppercase set of initials. The solid black version of Algerian appears on the same page under the name of Gloria, with a separate shadow layer face available. Algerian (regular) was created for Scangraphic at

Letraset Letraset was a company known mainly for manufacturing sheets of typefaces and other artwork elements using the dry-transfer lettering method. Letraset was acquired by the Colart group and became part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton. C ...

. Algerian Condensed was created by the Linotype library designer Alan Meeks. URW's version of the Algerian font was one of the default fonts supplied with Microsoft Office from 1993 onwards, and has been characterised as an overused font. Originally, the Algerian font only had

capital letters Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''#Majuscule, majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally ''#Minuscule, minuscule'') in the written representation of certain langua ...

, but in 2005, Michael Hagemann of FontMesa added

lowercase Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...

letters to produce Algerian Mesa. In 2017, Hagemann expanded the Algerian font family to 144 styles, introducing new bold, light, outline and open faced weights including italics. This new version was released by FontMesa under the name of Tavern. In March 2020, FontMesa released two more weights of the Algerian font, under the name of Tavern; extra bold and black weights were also created, making Algerian a five-weight font family with 192 styles. Also in March 2020, FontMesa released a weathered, rough-edged version of Algerian under the name Bay Tavern, with an alternate version called Bayside Tavern; together they added another 144 font styles to the Algerian family. Algerian has been most notably used as the typeface in the logo of Patrón tequila since 1989. In September 2020, FontMesa released a Mexican-style version of Algerian under the name Taco, which is a multi-layered font family including 20 styles. In December 2023, Hagemann created a rounded edge version of Algerian, released under the name Algerian Rnd; this greatly expanded the usability of the original design.

Usage

*The logotype for the final season of ''

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''.

References

{{Typography terms Display typefaces Stephenson Blake typefaces Linotype typefaces Serif typefaces Digital typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1902