Баскервиль қаріптері: 1750 жылдарғы өрнекті әріп стилі

Transitional serif typeface designed in the 1750s
the font

Baskerville is a serif typeface designed in the 1750s by John Baskerville (1706–1775) in Birmingham, England, and cut into metal by punchcutter John Handy. Baskerville is classified as a transitional typeface, intended as a refinement of what are now called old style typefaces of the period, especially those of his most eminent contemporary, William Caslon. Compared to earlier designs popular in Britain, Baskerville increased the contrast between thick and thin strokes, making the serifs sharper and more tapered, and shifted the axis of rounded letters to a more vertical position. The curved strokes are more circular in shape, and the characters became more regular. These changes created a greater consistency in size and form, influenced by the calligraphy Baskerville had learned and taught as a young man. Baskerville's typefaces remain very popular in book design and there are many modern revivals, which often add features such as bold type which did not exist in Baskerville's time. As Baskerville's typefaces were proprietary to him and sold to a French publisher after his death, some designs influenced by him were made by British punchcutters. Marketed in the twentieth century as "Fry's Baskerville" or "Baskerville Old Face", a digitisation based on the more delicate larger sizes is included with some Microsoft software.

The crispness of Baskerville's work seems to have unsettled (or perhaps provoked jealousy in) his contemporaries, and some claimed the stark contrasts in his printing damaged the eyes. Baskerville was never particularly successful as a printer, being a printer of specialist and elite editions, something not helped by the erratic standard of editing in his books. Abroad, however, he was much admired (if not directly imitated, at least not his style of type design), notably by Pierre Simon Fournier, Giambattista Bodoni and Benjamin Franklin (who had started his career as a printer), who wrote him a letter praising his work. His work was later admired in England by Thomas Frognall Dibdin, who wrote that "in his Italic letter he stands unrivalled; such elegance, freedom and perfect symmetry being in vain to be looked for among the specimens of Aldus and Colinaeus Baskerville was a truly original artist, he struck out a new method of printing in this country and may be considered as the founder of that luxuriant style of typography at present so generally prevails; and which seems to have attained perfection in the neatness of Whittingham, the elegance of Bulmer and the splendour of Bensley." Thomas Curson Hansard in 1825 seems to have had misgivings about his work, praising his achievement in some ways but also suggesting that he was a better printer than a type designer. Philip Gaskell particularly highlights as a successful typeface of this period the Wilson foundry of Glasgow's 'startling' English sized (14 pt) roman of 1760, following soon from Baskerville's first editions of 1757 and cut extremely large for its point size: "Baskerville's influence is obvious, but Wilson has outdone the master in the width, weight and even the size of the face. I think myself that with its large x height, generous width and clean execution, this elegant fount carries out Baskerville's ideas better than did Baskerville himself." The Scotch Roman genre which proved popular in Britain and America is something of an intermediate between Didone typefaces and Baskerville's influence. The succession of more extreme "Didone" typefaces quickly replacing Baskerville's style has led to Baskerville being called "transitional" on the road to the Didone style which dominated printing for a long period, although of course Baskerville would not have considered his design "transitional" but as a successful end in itself. The original Baskerville type (with some replaced letters) was revived in 1917 by Bruce Rogers, for the Harvard University Press, and also released by G. Peignot et Fils in Paris (France). A modified version of Baskerville is also prominently used in the Canadian government's corporate identity program—namely, in the 'Canada' wordmark. Another modified version of Baskerville is used by Northeastern University (USA), and the ABRSM.

Key features of Baskerville are its E where the bottom arm projects further than the upper, a W with no centre serif, and in the lower case g where the bottom loop is open. Some fonts cut for Baskerville have an 'R' with a straight leg; in others it is curved. Many characters have obvious ball terminals, in contrast to the more wedge shaped serifs of earlier fonts. Most distinctive is the italic, in which the J has a centre bar and many other italic capitals have flourishes, the 'p' has a tail pointing downwards and to the left (similar to the entrance stroke that would be made with a pen) and the w has a clear centre loop and swash on the left. In general, Baskerville's type has been described as 'rounder, more sharply cut' than its predecessors. (Some of these distinctive features are discarded in many revivals, as seen below.) Baskerville's type featured text figures or lower case numbers, the only form of Arabic numerals in use at the time (Roman numerals would be used to align with the capitals). It has sometimes been criticised as unidiomatic, and has not been particularly popular. He also had cut ornaments, many apparently copied or influenced from those offered by the Enschedé type foundry of Haarlem.

[[File:Type Charts 6 Baskerville front (7630278980). jpg|thumb|An American adaptation of Isaac Moore's type following Baskerville's style, from the late metal type period. Note the 'Q' and 'a', unlike Baskerville's. The lining figures are not original and the descenders have likely been shortened to fit the American "common line" standard. Since Baskerville's equipment was in France and therefore unavailable to them, the Fry type foundry of Bristol produced its own version in the late eighteenth century, presumably cut by typefounder Isaac Moore who also showcased them on his own specimen. These designs feature a slightly different 'a' at large sizes, which has been followed in many Baskerville revivals. Mosley comments that "In its larger sizes it is one of the most elegant types which have ever been cut, and it is by no means a simple derivative. The curves of the lower case letters are flatter than Baskerville's and the serifs are slightly more tapered." Printer's Grammar, in which it was frankly admitted that "The plan on which they first sat out was an improvement of the Types of the late Mr. Baskerville of Birmingham" but, presumably failing to achieve sufficient popularity, they additionally created copies of Caslon's types. The British Monotype Corporation cut a copy of Baskerville in 1923 for its hot metal typesetting system, showcased in Penrose's Annual of 1924; it was extremely popular for printing in Britain during the twentieth century. As with other Monotype revivals, the design is now sometimes called Baskerville MT. It is bundled with OS X in a somewhat slender digitisation. Schriftgießerei D. Stempel issued a revival in 1926 under the name "Original Baskerville". Linotype AG, the German arm of Mergenthaler Linotype, adapted the Stempel cutting of the face for linecasting in 1927. Linotype's Baskerville was cut in 1923 by George W. Jones, and was re cut in 1936. A bold version was cut by Chauncey H. Griffith in 1939. It may sometimes be called Baskerville LT.

More loosely, the Scotch Roman genre of transitional types reflects the influence of Baskerville's work, with increasing influence of Didone type from the continent around the beginning of the nineteenth century; the font Georgia is influenced by this genre. Due to the cachet of the name, some completely unrelated designs were named 'Baskerville' in the hot metal period.

thumb|Two Baskerville revivals. The top design (Baskerville Old Style in the common Microsoft release) is more suitable for headings and that below (Berthold's) with its thicker strokes for body text. Baskerville Old Style is based on Fry and Moore's recreation, distinguishable by the slightly different curve of its 'a'. As it had been a standard type for many years, Baskerville was widely available in cold type. Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Compugraphic, Dymo, Star/Photon, Harris, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, Varityper, Hell AG and Monotype, all sold the face under the name Baskerville, while Graphic Systems Inc. offered the face as Beaumont.

Some examples of volumes published by Baskerville.