Type specimens are defined as typographic design that showcases a typeface design and its use. Information graphics can both present and explain the context for a new type design. These Initial forms were revived into an information graphic diagram to explain the content of Piranes’s letterform ‘beliefs’ within the Graeco-Roman debate. This graphic explains Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s plate 41 Fig. II and III of Le Antichità Romane. Where single capital ‘E’ is highlighted with the addition of component serifs as the source of the Roman. This insight provides the potential to extend the ETRVSCA font into a larger family of both serif-less and partial vestigial serif fonts within future practice-based research.
The research and development of Pirenesi’s Initials were explained at TypeThursday London (Cambridge) symposium on 09 May 2019.
Research Question(s):
How will engaging in practice-based research inform the development of a new primal sans typeface, leading to new insights into the context of the serif-less letterforms of the eighteenth-century?