Typeface · Serif
Modernised Old Style
Old Style, later referred to as modernised old style, is a series of serif typefaces cut from the mid-nineteenth century and sold by the type foundry Miller & Richard, of Edinburgh in Scotland.
About Modernised Old Style
Old Style, later referred to as modernised old style, is a series of serif typefaces cut from the mid-nineteenth century and sold by the type foundry Miller & Richard, of Edinburgh in Scotland. It was a standard typeface in Britain for literary and prestigious printing in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, with many derivatives and copies released. The Old Style faces of Miller & Richard, reportedly cut by punchcutter Alexander Phemister, were made in imitation of earlier styles of typeface, particularly the Caslon typeface cut by William Caslon from the 1720s, but with a modernised design. It was immediately very successful: the 1880s Bibliography of Printing describes its popularity as "unsurpassed in the annals of type-founding".
From the Wikipedia article “Old Style (Miller & Richard)”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Using Modernised Old Style in a book
Serif typefaces like this are the traditional choice for book body text: the serifs guide the eye along the line in long passages. Set novels at 10.5–12 pt with 125–140% leading.
Commercial typefaces require a licence that covers embedding in PDFs and ebooks; check the foundry's licence before you publish.
Sources & data
- Structured data from Wikidata Q28843643 (CC0).
- Summary text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).