November 4th, 2005
Typeface of the month: Mrs Eaves
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now. Every month, from now on, there will be a typeface of the month. They’ll be chosen by me because either I like them, they’re new, they’re classics or I hate them. Should be fun. So, first up is quite possibly my favourite serif typeface: Mrs Eaves, designed by Zuzana Licko for the Emigr? Type Foundry.
Mrs Eaves is a revival typeface, a recreation of a classic, in this case Baskerville. Baskerville is a great typeface, although criticised, like a lot of serif faces designed at that time, for being too sterile — too hard. this, I feel, was a reaction to the poor printing processes and paper of the time. Times Roman (not ‘New Roman’) for example has hard serifs to allow for bleed onto poor qulity paper, therefore softening the serifs. Baskerville is no different in this respect. So, when Zuzana Licko set out to create a typeface inspired by Baskerville her main objective was to create a softer, more open typeface.
An aspect of Baskerville’s type that I intended to retain is that of overall openness and lightness. To achieve this while reducing contrast, I have given the lower case characters a wider proportion. In order to avoid increasing the set-width, I reduced the x-height, relative to the cap-height. Consequently, Mrs Eaves has the appearance of setting about one point size smaller than the average typeface in lower case text sizes.
I think she achieved this and to my eye, a more feminine looking typeface (maybe I’m being influenced by the name there?). Mrs Eaves, when set in a large amount of body copy, is incredibly legible but, when compared to similar typefaces such as Caslon or Garamond, there is a feeling of lightness to the page, rather than the heavy appearance of the aforementioned typefaces.
Ligatures? Oh yes!
What makes Mrs Eaves stand head and shoulders above the rest is the Ligature Set available.
Mrs Eaves ligatures look superb when set at small or large sizes, either as body copy or headlines. they really add something very distinctive. Unfortunately, Mrs Eaves suffered the same fate in the late 1990’s as Template Gothic did in the early 1990’s — chronic, and often inappropriate, overuse. Shame really. I never stopped using it though — I even used it for my wedding invitations!
So, there we have it. A classic revival with some lovely ligatures. 8 out of 10.
Mrs. Eaves was an instant favorite from the first moment I saw it. It never leaves my font folder. It has become one of those trusted fonts that I use to set many things, even if just for mocking purposes.
Nice review; I’ll be looking forward to more of these. And did you forget about Blur? ;)
Mrs. Eaves, ooo. Mark, I concur with all you have said. Those ligatures, the overuse and indeed using it on my wedding invite (yep, me too).
In regards to the “feminine” look, isn’t the name allowed to provoke that thought? Thus influencing, or re-inforcing feminine use of the font and establishing it as a more feminine looking font by it’s use and context?
Interesting thoughts though.
Yeah, Mrs. Eaves did become very ubiquitous very quickly, and with good reason. It is simply at the top of the heap of modern serif text faces. I still get the Pixies’ “Mr. Grieves” stuck in my head when I see the name Mrs. Eaves. :)
Beautiful typeface and great narrative. Looking forward to next months already :)
I’ve been a fan of Mrs. Eaves for quite some time now. I’ve used it on websites and concert posters, and you’re not the only one who used it on their wedding pieces.
Ever since it was released I’ve had a hard time getting away from using it and have bought it for every office that I have worked for. I’m curious, though… and maybe for a bit of fun… what’s the strangest context you have seen it used in?
I’m a big fan of Mrs. Eaves. I tried today in a weblog template (in the header image). It works better on text than Zuzana’s another revival (Filosofia).
The origin of its name is interesting.
Veyr nice, Mark. Thanks for showing this type.
I, too, used it for my wedding invitations, specifically because of the wonderful ligatures. Definitely a classic.
Great item Mark. I’m already looking forward to the next one.
One thing though, I guess it would be nice to see some examples of the type used in real life by (famous) designers. Would be nice in my opinion. Just my 2 cents.
That’s a thought Bertje…
About time ! I teach in Further Education, and find that when the students come to me there is an obvious lack in understanding of the formal elements, I will be including in future lesson plans the underpinning knowledge, starting with divine proportion, which is the key to good design.
I have been looking for a site like this for a long time, friendly, useful, insiteful. Thanks for making my redesign process so much easier!
Apple.