Jethro Tull – Life Is A Long Song EP
It was in 1890 that Gustave F. Schroeder got this TypeCooker assignment:
Construction: roman capitals
Width: extended
Weight: extra bold
Contrast type: translation
Contrast amount: a lot
Stems: flaring
Stroke endings: unbracketed serifs
Descender: shorter than normal
Special: rough contours
Also: as reversed contrast
“I can do that”, thought the young immigrant, who already had several published typeface designs under his belt, and started drawing. The result looked a little quaint, but the folks at the Central Type Foundry were delighted, and starting casting the new design shortly after. “We’ll name it Quaint Roman”, they rejoiced, “it’ll be a hit!” And right they were: the new face “met with much favor by the trade”, wrote the Inland Printer. In fact, it was so popular that the foundry sent Gustave back to the drawing board – the recipe hadn’t specified a lowercase, but that’s what the customers longed for. By 1894, Quaint Roman No. 2 followed, now amended with minuscule letters.
And that’s how some seventy-seven years later, London-based design studio CCS could specify all-lowercase Quaint Roman for the sleeve of an EP by folk/prog rock group Jethro Tull. About a year before, local company Face Photosetting had revived the rugged face with the unconventional weight distribution for new use. Life’s a long song!
