Slabs became fashionable, starting with Figgins in 1815, and shaded versions began to appear by the 1820s, almost exclusively by the Caslon foundry. Nicolete Gray lists an example of the lower case shaded letter from 1809 from Bower, Bacon and Bower in the Columbia University Library collection, which can no longer be located. Almost exclusively in capital-only form, they started a fashion that was followed by the majority of type foundries, from the smallest text sizes through to large display sizes (and beyond, into wood type). The first shaded letters of the nineteenth century were shaded versions of the heavier weights of the modern, and fat faces both in roman and in italic (shaded versions often include the swash forms). The five faces shown here represent how shading could be applied to a variety of letterforms in the first half of the century from the emphatic slab with deep and mighty shading, to a more delicate weight of shadow from a lighter sans, to the powerful condensed serifless form. Today, they can be easily multicoloured at any size. Though multiple-coloured type specimens can be found in the nineteeth century, the faces made by the foundries in metal were monochrome affairs. Making them in digital form is quicker and easier than cutting them in metal (think of making these letters in six point). Made in the age of letterpress, shaded forms now benefit greatly from the possibilities of contemporary production and reproduction. Was it simply copying the effect one would observe when letters are three dimensional in manufacturing, perhaps like a shop front? Or were they created from the imagination of an engraver or draughtsman? And when did they first appear in type? Certainly, the forms can be found before the nineteenth century, though the proliferation during this time makes us most commonly associate them with this era. Simple in effect, they involve a simple black line around a white letter and then a black shadow, which gives the appearance of raising the letter off the page, giving it a faux three-dimensional quality. Where shaded typefaces came from is a matter of conjecture.

Engravers shaded font