Emerson is a typeface designed by Joseph Blumenthal. In 1930, the type was cut by Louis Hoell at the

Bauer Type Foundry Bauer is a German surname meaning "peasant" or "farmer". For notable people sharing the surname, see Bauer (surname). Bauer may also refer to: Education and literature * Bauer's Lexicon, a dictionary of Biblical Greek * Bauer College of Bus ...

in Frankfurt and named Spiral. Then in 1935, Stanley Morison recut the type, along with its italic, for the

Monotype Corporation Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use with ...

in England. The typeface's first appearance was in a special, private-press edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay ''Nature'', and so the Monotype version became known as Emerson. Emerson can be recognised for its distinctive foot serifs on the

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

a, d and u, and its wide capitals (especially the M). The typeface shares characteristics with the classic renaissance types, and its soft, blunt appearance was designed to suit photogravure reproduction.

Emerson in use

Emerson was used to set the 1946 ''Golden Encyclopedia'', an illustrated children's encyclopedia published by

Golden Press Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company, was a Racine, Wisconsin, firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Its Golden Books Family Entertainment division also produced children's books and ...

, New York. Emersontext

Availability

A version of Emerson recently became available as a typeface for use on computers from Nonpareil Type.

References

{{Monotype typefaces Old style serif typefaces Monotype typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1935