Different italic-"weights"

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Typofactory
Typofactory Posts: 56
in Type Design Technique & Theory
Hello,

There are (generally) multiple weights of a font (i.e Bold, Heavy, Thin, Medium, Book, &c), but are there multiple "weights" or, I guess, "slants" of italics? In terms of severity of the italic, there would be a slight, a normal (italic), and presumably a very italic style. Are there any fonts that have this?

Comments

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,285
    There are a few that have alternate styles of italic, i.e. true and oblique.
    A classic example is W. A. Dwiggins’ Electra, which he introduced in 1935 with an oblique italic (basically a slanted version of the Roman), perhaps informed by a theory of Stanley Morison. However, it was not well received, and subsequently in 1940 he added a true italic—also known as a cursive italic.

    IIRC Bembo is another old type available with two italic styles, one with a very slight angle, the other more conventional. But that is an even more convoluted story.
  • Jasper de Waard
    Jasper de Waard Posts: 645
    Underware's Auto was one of the first to pull it off succesfully, I think. And still a great example. Now there are many more, although I can't list them. My own Ricardo does something a little like it with a slanted Italic and a 'true' Italic, which I'm sure other people have done as well.

    Usually it's not just the degree of slant, but more so the degree of cursiveness that is varied.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,036
    edited October 2023
    Stephen Nixon’s Recursive (an open source typeface designed in large part for coding) is the best example of this to date! By a large margin, I would argue.

    It has separate variable font axes for slant and cursivity, and another one for casual-ness. https://www.recursive.design/
  • John Butler
    John Butler Posts: 332
    edited October 2023
    I love designs like these.
    Ruzicka’s Fairfield had two different italics, and as I recall they were digitized by Alex Kaczun, who has posted here on TypeDrawers before. It was one of the first Adobe packages I bought in the 90s.
    Martin Majoor’s hyperectomorphic Seria has two italics, one more slanted, called “Cursive,” which there are a few pictures of floating around, but which never seemed to formally go on sale for retail use. It might have evolved into the italic for his later Nexus, which had shorter extenders.
    Re: Nick’s remark about Bembo, see the comments in this thread about mixing Bembo with Fairbank.
  • Matthew Smith
    Matthew Smith Posts: 98
    edited October 2023
    Some additional examples:
    Grilli Type’s Planar slants -45º to 45º in increments of 15º
    Very Cool Studio’s Nudge which has an Italic and a Very Italic
    Phaedra Charle’s Pulpa from their time at Type@Cooper
    Commercial Type’s Ayer has different styles of italics
    Michelangelo Nigra’s Rapida & Rapidissima
  • pereelmagne
    pereelmagne Posts: 13
    And Nara (Typotheque), with Italic and Oblique.
  • c.g.
    c.g. Posts: 54
    Immortel by Clément Le Tulle-Neyret

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