The Letters

While the h and the n are quite
similar in design, it should be
noted that the m is not a dou¬
ble n. The n is traditionally one
of the key letters in the devel¬
opment of an alphabet design.
It sets the lowercase stroke
width, the serif structure (in a
roman design), and the spacing
relationships for characters with
straight vertical sides.

The baseline serifs on these
letters nearly always point both
left and right on all strokes.
ITC Century is a notable excep¬
tion to this rule: The center
stroke of its m has only a one¬
sided serif in an attempt to keep
the “color” of the face even. The

mBaskerville

ITC Century Д I i

weight of the vertical stroke in
old style designs is carried fur¬
ther into the shoulder than it is
in transitional and modern
typeface designs.

ITC Fenice Light

Americana Extra Bold

Corvmus Skyline

ITC Avant Garde
Gothic Book

A brief note on the m: When
the Greeks adopted the Phoeni¬
cian mem, they converted its
soft round shapes into angular
ones and renamed it mu. The
Greek mu was acquired first by
the Etruscans, then by the
Romans, both of whom essen¬
tially left it alone. Sometime
around the third or fourth cen¬
tury A.D., the rounded form of
the m reappeared on the scene
once again, though it was
almost lost in succeeding:years.
Probably because the m is one
of the more complicated and
time-consuming letters XüÁ *
write, it became common prac¬
tice among medieval scribes to
place a stroke over the preced¬
ing letter instead of actually
writing the letter m. Thus, for
example, the word exemplum
would be written as exeplii.
This practice survived well into
the seventeenth century.

Ri 1

■

Arcadia

Albertus

ITC Tiffany

Fette Fraktur

Rubylith

Poetica Chancery

Supplement

Letraset

Heliotype

Century Old Style Bold

ITC Garamond
Bold Italic

m

Insignia

Bodega Sans Black

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