For a long time italics were used to emphasise more important parts of the text (one of the earliest attempts to combine italic with roman can be seen from Robert Estienne in his Dictionnaire François-Latin from 1539). However, second half of the nineteenth century had seen an increasing amount of various printed material.

The growth of education, new ways of communication and higher mobility of people could be just a few of the reasons why society needed more structured texts. The need to use a bold typeface that could step out of the main text seemed a logical solution. Michael Twyman suggests that the need for a bold type may be related to the growth of what he calls “non linearity in graphic design”. [1] In this new approach of seeing the text hierarchy a reader could easier choose between normal, “linear” reading or just pick out the more important pieces of information.

By the middle of the nineteenth century slab serifs started to be used as a “bold type” in order to emphasise parts of the text. But somehow slab serifs stood out too much and looked awkward in the company of regular, roman text. A solution to this problem was found in the clarendon/ionic model. In fact, some of the Fann Street Foudry “Clarendon’s” specimens from the 1850s suggested this kind of the text structure.

A showing of the original “Clarendon” with a roman type, from Fann Street Foundry, c. 1852.

“Clarendon” related better to the "plain", roman type and proved to be much better choice over slab serifs. This kind of clarendon/ionic usage soon became very common especially among very structured texts, such as didactic publications or railway timetables.

The whole idea of using a bold face in order to put out parts of the text became established with clarendon/ionic typefaces. When Linotype introduced the two-letter (“duplexed”) matrix at the end of the nineteenth century the second letter (after roman) was clarendon/ionic typeface and not the corresponding italic.

Similarly, “Clarendon” was also cut by Monotype (1903-5) in order to use it as a generic bold face (one could even choose the “jobbing layout” option in a Monotype matrix case in which “ ...Clarendon capitals and small letters were substituted in place of italic”). [2] Naturally, type-composing manufacturers later introduced complementary bold versions of the regular face that stayed in use till today.

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[1] M. Twyman, ‘The Use of Bold-looking Types in the Nineteenth Century’, p. 112. in: Journal of the Printing Historical Society, No. 22, London: The Printing Historical Society, 1993 (p. 107-143).
[2] C. Burke, ‘The Early Years 1900–1922’, p. 6. in: Boag, A. and Wallis, L.W. (eds). ‘One hundred years of type making 1897–1997’ Monotype Recorder (centenary issue). New series 10, 1997 (p. 4-13).