About
9
Publications
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Introduction
Jon Melton founder of emfoundry.com, explores the empty spaces of typographic evolution within the production of new letterforms and fonts to further our understanding of type and typography. His practice-based research is particularly concerned with the commercial typography of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. He is a senior lecturer at the Cambridge School of Art, at ARU in the UK. His research, typefaces and type specimens have been published by industry magazines, books and journals.
Skills and Expertise
Current institution
Additional affiliations
December 2001 - present
Position
- Lecturer
Description
- Historical and practice-based researcher, academic and educator.
Publications
Publications (9)
This historical research documents Soane’s early-career use of serif-less (Sans serif) letterforms within his architectural drawings following his return from his RA scholarship grand tour of 1778-79, in order to establish a time-line of both hand titling on drawings and proposals for serif-less inscriptions on his distinctively purist neoclassical...
Date stamps on posted letters were introduced in April 1661 by Britain’s first 'Postmaster- General' Henry Bishop, in order to counteract accusations of unscrupulous behaviour by employees of the Crown’s postal service. ‘Bishop Marks’, as they became known, served a similar function to Roman ceramic seals, legionnaires’ signet rings, and lead bulla...
ETRVSCA Sans - The Primal 18th Century Sans.
This practice-based historical research identifies the architect John Soane’s inspiration and model for his serif-less letterforms deployed as titling on drawings and as proposed inscriptions throughout the last quarter of the eighteen century. This typography revived the primitive letterforms of Republ...
ETRVSCA Sans - The Primal 18th Century Sans.
This practice-based historical research identifies the architect John Soane’s inspiration and model for his serif-less letterforms deployed both as titling on drawings and for a number of his proposed inscriptions, throughout the last quarter of the eighteen-century. This typography revived the primitiv...
Research Presentation: The True source of the Sans.
Abstract: The search for the origin of today’s commercial sans serif typography has become something of a 'holy grail' for type historians. The earliest known example of a deliberately geometrical ‘serif-less’ letterform was confirmed back in the late 1990s, on a plan-drawing title block for a ne...
To revive the late seventeenth-century map-engraver's vernacular letterforms from primary source engravings, from John Ogilby's Britannia (Road) Atlas First Edition of 1675 and Second Editions of 1676-9.
This chapter examines the evidence for the architect John Soane as an early pioneer of serif-less lettering in Britain and the progenitor of the sans serif typefaces of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It considers the events that led to Soane’s application of serif-less typography and the reasons he became the principal executor of this rad...
Pen, print and communication in the eighteenth century is a volume of fourteen essays each of which explores the production, distribution and consumption of both private and public texts during the Enlightenment from a variety of historical, theoretical and critical perspectives. During the eighteenth century there was a growing interest in recordi...
Research Presentation: Sans serif Bishop Marks from 1673.
Historical research is utilized within the production of an alphabet of letterforms which explore the context for the sans serif Bishop Marks from 1673. The limited published history, along with original (primary source) examples on post, were studied within the production of an experimenta...
