What's your favorite version of Caslon (or similar antiqua) for body text?

Adobe Caslon Pro is quite versatile. Indigo, Monotype Janson and Agmena (thanks @R::bert) are also interesting. And there are many more. The Adobe versions are almost always too clean. Extremely well balanced, but lacking quirks and sometimes a bit boring. But Adobe might win in the long run, when the reader gets tired of the oddities. Easy on the eyes.

 

Yeah, this is a slight rephrase of an earlier post.

Hands down GGL’s version for Berthold.

download at MyFonts

 

Oh boy, there certainly is a lot to tell when it comes to digitally available Caslon typefaces – just an overview here. I agree that the Adobe Caslon Pro is a bit too slick. It’s very nice to have the optical sizes, but the smooth regularity takes a bit of the life out of it. At the other end of the scale there was a version made by Gerald Giampa back in the 1980s (not sure if it’s still available). Apparently, he digitised the face directly from original Caslon matrices. When you try to imagine how that might have been done, you can understand why he worked from large size matrices. These were cut quite thin to accommodate the spread of letterpress on soft paper; hence the spidery look. But Giampa also digitised a “Small” version which works quite well for text, if you want that slightly funky look and can live without oldstyle figures.

P22.com has released LTC (Lanston Type Company) Caslon, an extensive family with pretty much everything you need. This is my favourite for general use. You can get it here: <https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/lanston/ltc-caslon/>. What’s cool with this font is that it has a “long” version with deeper descenders, for use with healthier line spacing (which is at any rate de rigeur). 

Here are a few images of the Giampa Caslon. 

My friend and partner, the late Justin Howes, did Founder’s Caslon for ITC based on the original Matrices in a huge range of weight variants. It was a considerable undertaking and was well-regarded on its release.

See https://www.fonts.com/font/itc/itc-founders-caslon

You can also see a short description here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caslon under ITC Founder's Caslon (1998)

I'll risk any backlash and say that for its evocative and even provocative look, my favorite display face is House Industries Benguiat Caslon.

Of course the swashes must be used judiciously. It's sexy without being slutty.

 

There is also William's Caslon from FB

Genath by François Rappo.

 

On 2/21/2017 at 10:09 AM, jayar said:

Here are a few images of the Giampa Caslon. 

Hello Jayar;

Thank you for the information about Giampa's version of Caslon.

Which foundry released Giampa's version as shown in the above screenshots ? Is it P22 ?

 

 

Yes, P22 has the rights now to the Lanston faces, including Gerald Giampa’s Caslons.  <https://p22.com/lanston/giampa/NewCaslon.html>

The showings at the above site are not great, but the fonts are very good quality. They’ve fattened them up somewhat from Giampa’s original spidery cuts which were intended for letterpress on softer papers. The “New Caslon” has shorter ascenders, “American Caslon” has longer ones (better, in my opinion, since it works much better with healthy line spacing). 

Thanks a lot Jayar !

I've been looking for Giampa's Caslons for a long time but it seems that they are not available anymore on P22.com nor anywhere else (myfonts, etc.).

Is LTC Caslon Pro (https://p22.com/family-Caslon) the same as or dervied  from Giampa's Caslon ?

Any advice on where to find them ?

I’m pretty sure p22 is selling the Giampa version here. Writing on my phone just now — will try to make a tighter comparison later.