Cloister (typeface)

To ensure its versatility, Cloister was released in a wide selection of sizes and weights. This included an italic (ATF's design, as italics did not exist in Jenson's time) with swash capitals, an inline style and Cloister Initials, a set of initial capitals by Frederic Goudy to match.{{cite web|title=Cloister Open Face|url=https://www.linotype.com/266/cloister-open-face-family.html|website=Linotype|accessdate=29 June 2016}} The practice of creating a wide range of variants of a successful face was a standard ATF practice in order to capitalise on a successful typeface's popularity and allow coherent layout and graphic design; its 1923 specimen book described its approach of creating families which could allow types to "talk at command with varying emphasis and orchestral power...the client [has] perceived that a catalogue or advertisement set in one type family had more influence...than if its message to the public were confused by a medley of display types."

Unlike many other American Type Founders typefaces, Cloister was cast on the "art line" rather than the standardised "common line" of American metal type used in the period. This meant that it was cast with the area of the typeface above the baseline smaller than normal, so the descenders could be at a long, historically accurate length.{{cite web|title=Founders Type Alignments|url=http://www.happydragonspress.co.uk/tips/articles/founders_type_alignments.shtml|website=Happy Dragons Press|accessdate=29 June 2016}}{{efn|The "Art line" was also sometimes known as "script line".{{cite book|title=American Specimen Book of Type Styles|date=1912|publisher=American Type Founders|pages=[https://archive.org/details/americanspecimen00amerrich/page/38 38], 810–11, 1038|url=https://archive.org/details/americanspecimen00amerrich}}}}{{cite book|title=Specimen Book & Catalogue|date=1923|publisher=American Type Founders|pages=[https://archive.org/details/1923AmericanTypeFoundersSpecimenBookCatalogue/page/n88 66]–81|url=https://archive.org/details/1923AmericanTypeFoundersSpecimenBookCatalogue|accessdate=30 August 2015}} ATF released a blackletter design under the name of "Cloister Black"; this and a set of Cloister Borders were the first ATF typefaces to use the name, before Cloister Old Style was released.{{cite web|title=Cloister Black|url=http://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/7875/cloister-black|website=Fonts in Use|accessdate=29 June 2016}}{{cite web|title=Cloister Black CT|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/castletype/cloister-black-ct/|website=MyFonts|publisher=CastleType|accessdate=29 June 2016}}{{efn|ATF's 1912 specimen booklet shows this period, with Cloister Black and Cloister Borders on sale but not the later Cloister family.}} Later Cloister was released on hot metal typesetting machines such as that of Linotype, Intertype and Monotype, and additional weights were created for these.

Cloister was somewhat variably named by printers in the metal type period, with "Cloister Old Style", "Cloister Oldstyle", "Cloister Old Face" and "Cloister Oldface" all used to refer to it.{{cite book|first=James|last=Dearden|title=Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Volume 20 - Nigeria: Libraries in to Oregon State University Library|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5D_TCESmm5AC&pg=PA91|date=1 February 1977|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-0-8247-2020-9|pages=91–100}}

Cloister's release in metal type included the following:

• Cloister Old Style roman
• Cloister Italic
• Cloister Cursive (swash alternates for the italic)
• Cloister Bold
• Cloister Bold Italic
• Cloister Title (titling capitals, talking up the whole surface area of the metal type with no space for descenders)
• Cloister Bold Title
• Cloister Bold Condensed
• Cloister Lightface (a lighter style)
• Cloister Lightface Italic
• Cloister Cursive Handtooled

File:LTC Goudy Initials.gif's Cloister Initials.]]

A digitisation has been released by P22 and another by URW.{{cite web|title=LTC Cloister|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/lanston/ltc-cloister/|website=MyFonts|publisher=P22|accessdate=29 June 2016}}{{cite web|title=Cloister|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/urw/cloister/|website=MyFonts|publisher=URW++|accessdate=29 June 2016}}{{cite web|title=Cloister Old Style B EF|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ef/cloister-old-style-b/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Elsner + Flake|accessdate=29 June 2016}} Goudy's Cloister Initials, much esteemed in their own right, have also been digitised by P22 and by Dieter Steffmann.{{cite web|last1=Steffmann|first1=Dieter|title=Goudy Initialen|url=http://www.1001fonts.com/goudy-initialen-font.html|website=1001 Fonts|publisher=Typographer Mediengestaltung|accessdate=27 August 2015}}{{cite web|title=LTC Goudy Initials (more complex Cloister Initials digitisation with negative/positive elements)|url=http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/lanston/ltc-goudy-initials/|website=MyFonts|publisher=LTC|accessdate=27 August 2015}} Cloister Black has also been digitised separately.{{cite web|title=Cloister Black|url=http://castletype.com/html/tipoteca/cloister-black.html|website=CastleType|accessdate=29 June 2016}}{{cite web|title=Cloister Black BT|url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/cloister-black/|website=MyFonts|publisher=Bitstream|accessdate=29 June 2016}}

• Centaur
• Golden Type
• Hightower Text

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• [https://archive.org/details/1923AmericanTypeFoundersSpecimenBookCatalogue ATF's 1923 specimen book] (their legendary last major specimen before the Depression), showing Cloister on pp. 66–81 (original page numbers).
• [https://www.urbancottageindustries.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Cloister-typeface.pdf Specimen sheet] (Intertype specimen)
• [https://archive.org/details/americanspecimen00amerrich ATF 1912 specimen book] - shows Cloister Black (pages 810-811) and Cloister Borders (page 1038)

Category:Letterpress typefaces

Category:Old style serif typefaces

Category:Typefaces designed by Morris Fuller Benton

Category:American Type Founders typefaces