A Scottish Spectator

Spectator’s captivating warmth and charm embody the spirit of the faces of Alexander Wilson’s pioneering mid-eighteenth-century Scottish type foundry, whose fonts were extensively used by the renowned Foulis Press at the University of Glasgow. The family takes cues from Wilson’s masterpiece, the celebrated English No. 1, which had an unusually large x-height for its time. At around 14pt, the English No. 1 acts as a bridge between text and display. We’ve long admired it for its unexpected modernity and its unique place in the canon; over the years, we’ve come back to it again and again, waiting for the moment when we felt we could capture its spirit faithfully, while also making something new that would comport well with the modern world’s ever-changing demands.

That moment arrived in the early 2020s, when a design agency approached us for a serif to pair with Marr Sans, a face we first encountered in the pages of the Scottish type founder James Marr. We made a number of proposals that included various designs inspired by the Wilson Foundry, from the beautiful transitional display faces through to the iconic Moderns that were the first so-called Scotch Romans of the early 1800s. A few characters drew on the English No. 1, which had first appeared in 1760 in books produced by Andrew and Robert Foulis at the Foulis Press. Over the years, we had collected several volumes composed in the face, admiring and scrutinising them, yet we remained apprehensive about taking on an interpretation of English No. 1. The job petered out, but we carried on, creating a single roman style. Though different in a thousand small ways from its inspiration, it seemed to encapsulate what we had so long admired.

What drew us to the original? Although the face was made in the eighteenth century, its larger-than-expected x-height and generous width give it a pleasing contemporary texture that makes it a delight to read. As Philip Gaskell wrote, “this elegant fount carries out Baskerville’s ideas better even than did Baskerville himself.” Gaskell added, “Possibly it was felt to be too extreme in its approach for general use.” The face only appears in thirty-three of the Foulis Press editions – fewer than the other English-size Wilson faces. What attracts us to its large x-height today, in our age of scalable type, would have made it more complicated to use then; it simply wasn’t an economical face, so it was used sparingly where this was less of a consideration. Today we can use it at much smaller sizes, where the proportions now work in its favour.

The English No. 1, like most of the faces in Wilson’s first specimen of 1772, clearly shows the influence of Baskerville and the other major adopter of the style, Isaac Moore, but seems also to retain an element of Caslon; certain characters, like the long-tailed Q, remain. The faces have an agreeable warmth and are well made, which, it seems, was admired not just in Scotland but in London and the Americas. Moore is clearly referenced in the italic display sizes, to the point of them being almost indistinguishable from the Fry Foundry’s work; at text sizes, though, the italic’s steep angle and swash Q are closer to Caslon.

Certainly, we are not the first to have noticed Wilson’s types; academics like Gaskell and James Mosley wrote fondly of them, and they have been revived many times. In the 1860s, Wilson’s successor, James Marr, rereleased several sizes (though not the English No. 1, which last appeared in the work of the Foulis Press in 1783). Then, in the twentieth century, George W. Jones designed Georgian, released by English Linotype, based on the faces Marr had remade. In 1936, the Glasgow publisher Collins adopted a design by Giovanni Mardersteig, Fontana, cut by Monotype, which was explicitly based on the English No. 1. In the 1990s, David Quay and Freda Sack of the London-based Foundry drew Wilson (later released by Foundry Types as Foundry Wilson), another design based on the English No. 1. All of these are fine designs, with individual interpretations of the model bringing out different qualities in the original. Contemplating our roman, we thought about how we might expand it into a family that would be both engaging to contemporary designers, yet faithful to Wilson’s intentions.

The first consideration was the italic. The foundry had cut a single example, but we realised that with its much smaller x-height, it did not match the English No. 1. Wilson cut four roman variants of the English size beginning in 1742, and each has a differing x-height, though by 1772 they all shared the same Baskerville-style capitals. The italic Wilson shows fits more closely to Caslon than to Baskerville, and we felt the need to create a new face that was closer to the latter. Our initial design took the transitional style, but gave it a sharper angle closer to the Caslon style. Spirited in character, it was perhaps too dramatic for text. So instead we created a less angled italic, closer to the angleWilson showed in his larger sizes. This quieter style seemed, in text, to be a more harmonious partner, less disturbing to readers.

In general, contemporary taste is closer to that of Baskerville and Moore – namely a single idea of letterform applied through all sizes – so we decided that for the display sizes of Spectator, we would simply follow a more contrasted, more tightly spaced version of the text design, rather than the styles shown in Wilson’s 1772 specimen. As a small nod, though, to the original metal display faces, we drew an alternative a with a soft join to its lower bowl, and a g with an open lower bowl. In the larger sizes of Spectator, the more angled italic may appeal more to designers and will be released as a ‘director’s cut’ of the face. With variable font technology, designers can even select their own angle. Four optical sizes exist: Text for small sizes, Deck for intermediate sizes, Headline for small display use, and Poster for the largest headlines (96pt and up), where maximum contrast is necessary.

The bold styles of Spectator presented the challenge of how bold a design can be before it becomes, in the eye of the designer and user, ‘unbelievable’ or ‘unusable.’ Though this particular style of letter could not reasonably take a weight as bold as a fat face, it could be convincing as a black weight in both text and display. In text, it could be used for emphasis or short paragraphs; in display, for the punchiest of headlines. With such consistency, Spectator, despite its eighteenth-century origins, works seamlessly and convincingly in today’s world.

When we finished Spectator, we were left pondering questions about the original design. Because of its uniqueness, the English No. 1 feels out of place in the canon of the Wilson foundry and the Foulis Press. Why was it made the way it was? And who made it? No trace of its shapes can be found anywhere else at this time. Was it made by an outsider who cut this single design? Possibly. But that only reaffirmed to us just how wonderful it was. It was a product of its time, an Enlightenment design — curious, forward-looking, optimistic. It feels part of, yet apart from, the British tradition. 

We also asked ourselves whether we had made a new face that captured the original spirit of the English No. 1 and then taken it too far, simply to make it useful for today’s needs. But as we looked back over the thirty years that we have been making faces that fit into the British canon, such as Austin, Brunel, Caslon Ionic, Frame, Chiswick, and Darby Serif, we realised that all of these experiences had given us the sort of confident maturity necessary to create a new design that expressed what had been so alluring in the original: the past was the present. 

But more than that, if the other designs were English in origin, this face was undeniably Scottish.