Typeface: Century Schoolbook

After featuring typefaces included with Microsoft Windows in my first three posts, I'm now turning to typefaces whose fonts were released by Bitstream Inc. Bitstream no longer exists as a company, because it was bought by its rival Monotype Inc in 2012, but its fonts have a lasting legacy due to their free distribution with Corel Draw and Word Perfect Office in the 1990's and 2000's. During their existence Bitstream created 1070 fonts, of which 818 were included with Word Perfect Office 2000. The Bitstream fonts are now being sold by Monotype for horrendous prices. For instance, if you bought the four fonts that I feature in this post, they would cost more than $150. If you are interested in legally acquiring Bitstream fonts, I advise that you look for an old copy of Word Perfect Office 2000 on Ebay, which should cost less than $30.

Century is the name of a typeface that was first developed in 1894. It rapidly gained in popularity, and many variant versions were created over the following years. Century Schoolbook was developed in 1919 for use in school textbooks. Logically. Despite not being well known online, it's still a typeface widely used by printers. I personally use it as my standard typeface when writing letters to friends. (I use Charter when writing letters to companies). It's a friendly, legible typeface, which is why it's so popular for early readers. It's not as economic as Times New Roman, which was developed for the tight constraints of newspaper print.

Compare the difference between Century Schoolbook (above) and Times New Roman (below). Century Schoolbook is made larger by longer horizontal strokes, larger serifs and thicker strokes in both axes.

The font that I use for my blog's title is Century Schoolbook Bold Italic. I've been using it since 2010, and I see no reason to change it now. A few years ago I considered Korinna Bold as an alternative, but after experimenting I couldn't produce pleasing results. I accidentally chipped off a piece of the bottom left serif of the first F, but I've grown so used to it that I wouldn't change it.

I consider the regular Century Schoolbook font to be an object of great beauty. Look at the large, almost triangular serifs on the capital letters E, F, L, T and Z. Especially the T. These serifs form a beautiful contrast with the horizontal, almost rectangular serifs used on most of the capital letters. The letters Q and R have a beautiful flourish, which seems almost playful in the case of the R. The capital J is extravagantly stretched, making it much wider than its equivalent in other fonts.

Look at the bulbs at the end of the small letters A, C and R, as well as the ascenders and descenders of the small letters F, J and Y. They're connected by strokes that form a loop, emphasising the bulbs.

The capital letters of the italic font are tilted versions of the regular font, but the small letters are beautifully redesigned, many with added flourishes. The small F has a surprisingly modest descender. The small Z is whimsical in nature.

The regular font of Century Schoolbook has a relatively small difference between the light and the bold strokes. In the bold font the difference is emphasised. This gives the bold font a more aggressive character than the regular font, which I'm sure was intended.

The bold italic font of Century Schoolbook is a perfect headline font, especially the capital letters. The aggressiveness of the bold font is tempered by being made italic.

I like Times New Roman, but Century Schoolbook is far more beautiful. Place the character tables side by side and you'll see what I mean. It's true that its full beauty is subliminal when used at small sizes, but that's true of all typefaces; a good typeface excels if it positively influences the reader without him noticing.