---
title: "Clarendon (1845) — Robert Besley"
description: "Clarendon was designed by Robert Besley in 1845. What it signals, where you have seen it."
url: https://atoneplace.net/font/clarendon/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Clarendon

**Clarendon: Robert Besley, 1845**

Slab serif · The American West, national parks, wanted posters, sturdy officialdom.

Clarendon was the first typeface ever registered under Britain's new design-protection law, in 1845, and the protection lasted three years, after which everybody copied it immediately. The bracketed slab serifs make it read as solid and official without being cold, which is exactly why the National Park Service standardised on it.

## The facts

- **Designed by:** Robert Besley
- **Released:** 1845
- **Classification:** Slab serif
- **What it signals now:** The American West, national parks, wanted posters, sturdy officialdom.

## Where you have seen it

- US National Park Service signage
- Sony's wordmark lineage
- Wells Fargo

> 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 Clarendon?

Robert Besley, in 1845.

### What is Clarendon used for?

The American West, national parks, wanted posters, sturdy officialdom. You will have seen it on US National Park Service signage, Sony's wordmark lineage, Wells Fargo.

## Related pages

- [Typefaces from the 1840s](https://atoneplace.net/font/decade/1840s/)
- [Rockwell](https://atoneplace.net/font/rockwell/)

## Sources

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