Job Clarendon is a typeface that pays homage to job printing â display-heavy designs made for posters and flyers in the heyday of letterpress printing. This page features twenty-six posters that demonstrate that the visual language of job printing is just as vital today as it was then. This month adds a Narrow width to the display family, unlocking the door for rounder, wider widths to come.
Job Clarendon Narrow is a series that should have been a very straightforward interpolation because itâs situated smack in the middle of things that were already complete. But because it sits awkwardly on the fault line between straight sides and round sides, it ended up requiring a bit more TLC than either Bethany or I expected.
Clarendons look good when theyâre confidently straight-sided, and they look good when theyâre confidently roundâthereâs plenty of historical precedent for both. But the midpoint, between straight and round, feels a bit indecisive, and I donât know of many Clarendons that have attempted to bridge the gap. Craw Clarendon Condensed is great, but itâs essentially a squished-down version of the normal width with completely round sides, and no hint of straight-sidedness.
For Job Clarendon, we could have done what most Clarendon families do and simply avoided this width altogether. Or we could have engineered the font with a tipping point where straight forms would magically snap into round forms, bypassing the awkward moment of transition between the two.