In typography, a slab serif (also called mechanistic, square serif or Egyptian) typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by thick, block-like serifs. Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular (Rockwell), or rounded (Courier). Slab serif typefaces generally have no bracket (feature connecting the strokes to the serifs). Some consider slab serifs to be a subset of modern serif typefaces.

Because of their bold appearance, they are most commonly used in large headlines and advertisements but are seldom used in body text. The exception is in monospaced text, many fonts for which are modeled on the typefaces used in typewriters, but that is declining in the wake of electronic publishing. Another recent exception is the typeface designed for The Guardian newspaper in the UK which is an Egyptian used through the paper as body text.

History[link]

A sample of the typeface Egyptienne, a slab serif face based on the Clarendon model.

A sample of the typeface Rockwell, a slab serif face based on the neo-grotesque model.

A sample of the typeface Courier, a slab serif face based on strike-on typewriting faces.

As printed material began to branch out from the familiar realm of books, new typefaces were needed for use in advertising, posters, and flyers. Slab serif printing type was first commercially introduced by Vincent Figgins under the name Antique, with copies of specimen dated 1815 and 1817.^[1]

Following Napoleon's Egyptian campaign and dissemination of images and descriptions via publications like Description de l'Égypte (1809) an intense cultural fascination with all things Egyptian followed. Suites of contemporary parlor furniture were produced resembling furniture found in tombs. Multicolored woodblock printed wallpaper could make a dining room in Edinburgh or Chicago feel like Luxor. While there was no relationship between Egyptian writing systems and slab serif types, either shrewd marketing or honest confusion led to slab serifs often being called Egyptians, and many early ones are named for the subject: Cairo, Karnak, and Memphis. The common metonym "Egyptian" is derived from a craze for Egyptian artifacts in Europe and North America in the early nineteenth century, which led typefounders producing Slab Serifs after Figgins' work to call their designs Egyptian.^[2] However, the term Egyptian had previously been used to describe sans-serif types in England, so the term 'Antique' was used by British and American typefounders. The term Egyptian was adopted by French and German foundries, where it became Egyptienne.

Sub-classifications of slab-serif[link]

There are four subgroups of slab serif typefaces:

Clarendon model[link]

Clarendon typefaces, unlike other slab serifs, actually have some bracketing and some contrast in size in the actual serif. Examples include Clarendon and Egyptienne.

Neo-grotesque model[link]

The most common slab serif typefaces, Neo-grotesque have no bracketing and evenly weighted stems and serifs. The letterforms are similar to neo-grotesque or realist sans-serif fonts. Examples include Rockwell and Memphis.

Italienne model[link]

In the Italienne model, the serifs are even heavier than the stems, forging a dramatic, attention-drawing effect. Some Italienne slab serifs, such as Playbill, have a characteristic Western appearance, likely as a result of their frequent use in western-era posters.

Typewriter typefaces[link]

Typewriter slab serif typefaces are named for their use in strike-on typewriting. These faces originated in monospaced format with fixed-width, meaning that every character takes up exactly the same amount of horizontal space. This feature is necessitated by the nature of the typewriter apparatus. Examples include Courier and Courier New (both Neo-grotesque model) and Prestige Elite (Clarendon model).

See also[link]

• Typography
• Typeface
• Serif
• Petit-serif

Notes[link]

v t e Typography terminology Page Column Canons of page construction Margin Page numbering Pagination Pull quote Recto and verso Paragraph Alignment Justification Leading River Sentence spacing Widows and orphans Character Typeface anatomy Counter Diacritics Dingbat Glyph Initial Kerning Letter-spacing Ligature Subscript and superscript Swash Text figures Capitalization Letter case Small caps CamelCase Petite caps All caps Vertical aspects Ascender Descender Baseline Cap height Median Overshoot x-height Classifications Roman type Antiqua (Old Style) Transitional Didone (Modern) Serif Slab serif Sans-serif Script Blackletter type Textualis Rotunda Schwabacher Fraktur Gaelic type Angular Uncial Punctuation Dashes Hanging punctuation Hyphenation Quotation mark Prime mark Typesetting Calligraphy ETAOIN SHRDLU Font Computer font Font catalog Letterpress Lorem ipsum Movable type Pangram Phototypesetting Punchcutting Type design Typeface Type foundry Microtypography Typographic units Point Pica Cicero Em En Figure space Thin space Paren space Agate Measure Digital typography Font formats Typesetting software Character encoding Rasterization Hinting