French Clarendon Ornamented is a unique face, even in the world of wood type. Its capitals have a clear relationship to the French Clarendon faces, but with subtle ornamentations that follow the capline and baseline. The lowercase characters, however, are often surprising in their deviation from common forms.
It is a highly condensed face, forceful when set in all capitals, whimsical in its lowercase. The included set of ligatures are particularly eccentric in their construction.
The original design for French Clarendon Ornamented first appeared in print in the catalogs of the type manufacturer Young & Morgans (who was later purchased by Morgans & Wilcox Mfg Co) between 1876–1880. M&W was later purchased by Hamilton Mfg Co in 1897. Hamilton then offered this face under the name No 3026.
The font includes two weights: regular and distressed. The regular weight is a clean, precise redraw which captures the contours of the original wood type. The distressed weight is a rendering of the the textures of the letterpress proof itself, warts and all. WTR French Clarendon Ornamented was drawn from 12-line (144 point) wood type, and is best used at larger sizes.
The characters pictured above are the historically accurate glyphs represented in this font. French Clarendon Ornamented is also available on Typekit for web use.
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