The History of Linear, Sans Serif Typefaces

The first sans serif font appeared in 1816 in a type sample book by William Caslon (see Fig. 7). This new typeface caught on quickly and began to appear all over Europe and the U.S. under the names "Grotesque" and "Sans Serif". Soon, bold and slender weights of this type could be found everywhere in newspaper headlines, on posters and brochures. The "Grotesque" became the instrument of a new found factuality in search of a more poignant form of expression. In their basic forms, the sans serif lowercase letters remained quite similar to those in roman type, the vertical strokes retaining a greater thickness compared to the oblique transitions and joins. The capital letters, on the other hand, were significantly altered: now all letters from A to Z had a similar width – previously narrow characters such as B, E, P and S were widened while letters like T, M and W were kept narrower (see Fig. 8).

The use of these new typefaces was limited almost exclusively to typesetting for titles and headlines. The body text remained intact, true to the classic form of roman type. This situation would endure for over 100 years. It wasn’t until after World War II that sans serif fonts were to experience a true renaissance and revolutionize the world of text publishing.