I am thrilled to learn that Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style has now been adapted to online world. I consider myself a Bringhurst disciple, if not a practicing one; this site does much that the great man would likely find objectionable. Given time, I hope to atone for my typographical sins.

Case in point, from the original book:

Baskerville: Roman and italic, designed by John Baskerville in the 1750s and cut for him by John Handy. This is the epitome of neoclassicism and eighteenth-century rationalism in type, and the face was far more popular in Republican France and the American colonies than in eighteenth-century England, where it was made.

Many of the digital faces sold under Baskerville’s name are passably faithful to his designs, but small caps and text figures, often omitted, are essential to the spirit of the original, and to an even flow of text …

 
Regrettably, the digital face supplied with Mac OS X is one of those lacking in text figures—and is the one I use here. I have considered switching to Georgia, which renders quite beautifully on screens and contains a full set of small caps and text figures, but I simply like Baskerville more in the context of this site. Small caps I can avoid, but the lack of text figures may prove more difficult to work around. Perhaps it is time to eschew Arabic numerals altogether and simply write numbers in full.

More from Mr. Baskerville here.

Written on eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year of our Lord two-thousand and ten.