What are 'true italics'?

People are going to do as they wish and it is beyond your and my capability to stop them. I do not know if there is a "better" term but italic is, to me, not "appropriate."

If it is a "true" writing style then why not classify it as cursive.

Italic, functionally, refers to a class of letter that is used in a particular, conventional and articulatory way in most Latin script typography. I'd say this use, based on textual function rather than specific style characteristics, has to play a rôle in discourse about italics, even if this ends up with convoluted statements such as 'The italic of the Seria family is an upright cursive'.

I am truly not trying to be trying here... it just seems that people are parsing certain segments of "genres" and labeling things without the key ingredient. And yes, English is truly a hazard in this discussion. Slope is the key for me, and it has been historically. But the particular font in question in this thread was lacking in carry through (probably laziness or ignorance) which, had it been carried through, would have lessened my willingness to opine.

And Florian... italic to me, with my historical background, is cursive. Script emanates
from the pointed pen and engraving plates influenced by them.

In his two books of talks and essays The Tree of Meaning and Everywhere Being is Dancing, Robert Bringhurst uses Rialto Piccolo as the text face. The Rialto italic isn't perfectly upright, but the slant can only be 2–3 degrees off vertical and it relies on distinctively cursive forms and horizontal compression for contrast with the roman. It is more than adequately effective.

There are always going to be some outliers. In an English sentence, if you italicise just the personal pronoun I then readers may easily miss the emphasis if the italic type isn't sufficiently slanted. I expect other languages throw up similar situations. But I don't think these outliers present a strong argument against cursiveness and other non-slant aspects of italic types being sufficiently distinct from roman for many purposes.

Cursive you, Red Baron!

One can talk and write about truth in type, but with regards to this thread, it’s an issue that Bree addresses by design. And very nicely, I might say!

Pluto too, with a more cursive approach.

I’m a half-year late to the discussion, alas.

I’d like to make a case that the true difference between roman and italic is more one of contrast and harmony, and perhaps structure, than of slant as such.

Sure, many faces of the last hundred years use a sloped roman as an italic (even some serifed), but in these faces, the italic offers little contrast and is very sparingly used and firmly subsidiary to the roman; many people prefer the terms “upright” and “oblique/slanted” rather than the “italic” and “roman.” The essential counterpunctal interplay between roman and italic (or serif and sans) just doesn’t exist between upright and slanted – it’s more akin to different sizes or colors. Slant alone doesn’t cut it. In fact, many apparent obliques have subtle structural changes and aren’t sloped romans, strictly speaking.

Furthermore, some faces play with slant, further blurring the issue. Trinité has a slant of... where’s my copy of Bringhurst... one degree, just enough to be perceptible. (Well, perceptible to everybody here, at least.) Some of Deepdene italic has a slant of just over two degrees – nearly upright. Many Italian calligraphers wrote letters with italic structure (transitive strokes, lower joins, and so forth), and their letters were certainly italic (or maybe Italic). Or take Euler – it is an upright italic.

Cheers.

Ben Blom said:

So being noticeable slanted, is a necessary condition for an italic font. Because of this, "upright italic" is a misnomer/oxymoron.

Not necessarily (to the second sentence quoted). Since, conventionally, italics are not merely obliques, but are also somewhat cursive, an upright typeface which has the cursive nature associated with italics could be called an "upright italic" to give it a quick, simple name.

But this is despite the fact that, by definition, italics are slanted (at least perceptibly, although perhaps not necessarily noticeably). So calling such a typeface just an "italic" instead of an "upright italic" is a misnomer - and so is "true italic", and anything else that doesn't make it clear that what is being talked about is not actually a real italic at all.

In other words, I think a clear distinction should be made between the use of what is, yes, technically, an oxymoron, where it is still clear what is being referred to, that is used for brevity or even out of laziness - and an actual misnomer which is misleading. Personally, I'm OK with the former, but not the latter, but you are certainly free to be more picky about what you consider acceptable.

Jackson Cavanaugh said:

I have a hard time believing the designer of this typeface is actually Italian.

LOL!

Adrian Frutiger and Hermann Zapf were required to second guess their original italics for Optima (Nova) and Frutiger (Next), under the (marketing?) premise/pretext of the superiority of “truth”, but it was immediately apparent this was a mistake. The truth will out, as they say.

Sounds like Steinert didn't take him seriously when he objected. Apologized later, but too late to change it.

I think it's possible that this cursive sans italic trend will be looked back on as a fad. Particularly cases like this where existing designs are retrofitted with them.

Italics are being used for emphasis, but also for many other purposes. Trying to define a style of letters or fonts based on what they are used for, is interesting—but not very useful. Likewise, one can try to define computers based on what they are used for—but that’s useless, because they are “universal machines” with unlimited uses. Letters and fonts are also “universal machines”. So are italic letters and italic fonts.

Let’s keep things simple, like this: italic = slanted = oblique (and it doesn’t matter whether italics have a shape more related to fluid writing than to mechanical composition, or not—like it doesn’t matter for uprights).