Besley Shaded

One of Commercial Classics’ releases is Thorowgood Grotesque, a bold condensed sans that first appears in specimens in 1834. In the following year, Thorowgood showed his first shaded Grotesques.

Besley Shaded (which is the shaded variant of Two Lines Small Pica Grotesque) is a condensed form with a relatively shallow shadow; the depth of shadow is about three and a half times the depth of the outline (to compare, Caslon Antique Shaded is nearly eight times the depth). The shadow is to the lower right, but does not have the bevelled angle that Caslon Antique Shaded has, creating a different effect in that it is less pronounced in its three dimensions, a more gentle raise from the surface of the page. The form of the letters, like most of Thorowgood’s early Grotesques, are condensed, characterful, and full of charm; the G lacking the cross bar, or the tail of the R angling with a taper in the stroke and a flat-pointed end. The numerals are unusual: for example, in the six and nine where one would expect a tail that would curve down to create a closed form, they instead taper to a flat horizontal end from a round oval-like form.  This is a form that has not reached its fully mature style. The square flat-sided form allows tighter setting, but it is not excessively condensed, so the counters are relatively large and open.

Thorowgood and his successor, Robert Besley, continued to show this face and several other shaded sans in the following years, but by the 1860s the Two Lines Small Pica Grotesque disappears from specimens.