The use of sans serif letterforms exploded in the late 1820s & 30s. By this time, sans had gone from being a rarified choice evocative of classicism to being one of the key styles of letters, as bold as the popular slab, but with a stripped down simplicity for eye catching headlines in print and around town. Chiswick Grotesque is the letter we see in street scenes of the nineteenth century: powerful and often cruder in style than printing types, with its round, geometric bowls exhibiting an industrial aesthethic. This is the letter an engineer would use on a machine, or with which a signpainter would adorn a factory. It is a letter for casting in a metal foundry rather than a typefoundry. Its novel apperance makes it well suited to a variety of graphic design and editorial design applications.
