I know that I have seen serif italic faces with a lc 'w' that looks like across between an 'n' and a 'v'.
But what faces have this w? Other than a few blackletters, I don't know of a single one. Where does this style come from?
what I remember it looking like
Anyone know?
Thanks!
Comments
(Of course, no-one uses cursive anymore in their daily life, and where it does appear, it's usually to the detriment of legibility.)
Also in Rudolf Koch’s Offenbacher Schrift (1928):
As for typefaces, Kleuken’s Ratio had this form. Kursivschrift’s ‘w’ does as well, even in its roman, but it’s an odd duck:
I’m sure @Florian%20Hardwig – who has tagged various examples of this form on Flickr – could add more insight.
Especially in the German-speaking world, the asymmetrical ‘w’ survived for a while. Until the 1950s or 1960s, it can be found in non-Blackletter context, too, mainly script (also with extra crossbar) and related informal signpainting styles, occasionally in sans-serif. The uppercase ‘W’ can have this form as well (here again with crossbar). Here is a beautiful specimen by Willi Baus.
Canada Type’s digital version of Kleukens’ Ratio Kursiv has that w as stylistic alternate.
The italic w in TypeTogether's Marco is also asymmetrical, though the first part is not so n-like as in some of the above examples.
https://www.fontfont.com/fonts/hertz/book-italic#tab-features
I included it as a nod to Zapf's hot metal version of Melior Italic, which had this form of w, but apparently changed it later to the internationally more common form.
Unfortunately FF Hertz is not yet available on Myfonts, so it couldn't make @Florian Hardwig's list.
David, as Christian has mentioned, this form is present in several of the traditional “Schnüerlischrift” handwriting models taught in Swiss primary schools, see schulschriften.ch. It was also present in Austria’s school script as defined in 1969. This model has been replaced in 1991.
Somehow this reminds me of the startling difference in construction pattern between the roman and the italic lower-case yat (U+0463).
"Wer wenn nicht wir?" Who else if not us?
The last word uses this "W." The first 2 have their roots in the style that we are speaking of.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/albert-jan_pool/albums/72157658505681406
Concerning the origin of this form of w: In Ein nutzlich und wolgegrundt Formular Manncherley schöner Schriefften by Wolfgang Fugger, Nürnberg 1553, this form is the standard form in his Current, Kanzlei, Fraktur and Textur. Note that his Rotund shows a rather conventional w, but that in his Latin alphabet the minuscule form of w is absent. In Neudörffers Eine gute Ordnung und kurzer Unterricht, Nürnberg 1538 this form of w is also standard. It is also shown in a Textura in Unterweysung der Messung mit den Zirkel und Richtscheit, Nürnberg 1525.
http://luc.devroye.org/reske/reske3.jpg
It was used for the Schedelschen Weltchronik from 1493
http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-41607.html
The Weltchronik itself can be viewed here:
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00034024/images/
I wonder how old this form of w really is and wether it is really connected with the German Current, Kanzlei, Fraktur or Textura. Any suggestions?
The display Fraktur looks like Koch’s Schmale Deutsche Anzeigenschrift (1923).
Sure, let’s use w=nv as a tag on Flickr. I’ve tagged all kinds of interesting or unusual forms of w – including but not limited to this form – with the Unicode, U+0077.
(Its /w/ has some of that, though its middle apex is angular.)
Maxim and Craig, yes, I’d say they follow the same logic. Besides Walbaum-Fraktur, Maxim’s example shows the Italic from Kapr’s Leipziger Antiqua. Both Kapr and Trump went through the Schneidler school of writing in Stuttgart. Schneidler’s own Legende features this ‘w’ and ‘y’ as well.
(If anything, I'd consider it r+v rather than n+v; the first arch is often significantly narrower than an /n.)
Florian, I just searched in Flickr with w=nv. https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=w=nv works (almost) perfect. We also have the machine tag type:face=xxxx which includes =. Am I missing something here?
I also still write the 7 with a horizontal stroke going through the stem, nearly 25 years later. I haven’t seen the weird w in a long, long time though.
Ooh, how about "shouldered /w", then? Since it has a shoulder at the top of a vertical stem like /n and /r.
Thierry: I'd say I'm a CH4; we certainly had those lowercase-style /M/N. I abandoned script writing as soon as I could, though. Semiconnected scrawling for the win!