---
title: "Caslon (1722) — William Caslon"
description: "Caslon was designed by William Caslon in 1722. What it signals, where you have seen it."
url: https://atoneplace.net/font/caslon/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Caslon

**Caslon: William Caslon, 1722**

Serif · Eighteenth-century English printing. Legal, literary, deliberately traditional.

The old printers' rule was "when in doubt, use Caslon", and it survived two centuries because the typeface is unobtrusive at text sizes in a way that is genuinely hard to achieve. The Dunlap broadside of the Declaration of Independence was set in it. Caslon's letters are slightly irregular by design, which is why digital versions that clean them up look worse.

## The facts

- **Designed by:** William Caslon
- **Released:** 1722
- **Classification:** Serif
- **What it signals now:** Eighteenth-century English printing. Legal, literary, deliberately traditional.

## Where you have seen it

- The first printed Declaration of Independence
- The New Yorker's body text lineage
- Countless British book interiors

> This page describes the typeface rather than showing it. Displaying a specimen requires a licensed font file and almost none of these may be redistributed, so the descriptions name the letters to look at instead.

## Common questions

### Who designed Caslon?

William Caslon, in 1722.

### What is Caslon used for?

Eighteenth-century English printing. Legal, literary, deliberately traditional. You will have seen it on The first printed Declaration of Independence, The New Yorker's body text lineage, Countless British book interiors.

## Related pages

- [Typefaces from the 1720s](https://atoneplace.net/font/decade/1720s/)
- [Garamond](https://atoneplace.net/font/garamond/)
- [Baskerville](https://atoneplace.net/font/baskerville/)
- [Didot](https://atoneplace.net/font/didot/)
- [Bodoni](https://atoneplace.net/font/bodoni/)
- [Times New Roman](https://atoneplace.net/font/times-new-roman/)
- [Trajan](https://atoneplace.net/font/trajan/)
- [Georgia](https://atoneplace.net/font/georgia/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]