
"The first sans serif font to appear in a type sample book was by William Caslon IV in 1816.

it suggested that this letter was the origin of all the san serifs of the 19th and 20th centuries, from the Caslon Egyptian of (about) 1816 to Futura, Univers and their descendents." 1įrom the Linotype essay by Adrian Frutiger. It is the earliest known example of the monoline sans serif inscriptional letter of Republican Rome that was revived at this date and became widely used for signs and typography.) "In 1779 John Soane used san serif capitals on a drawing for a British Senate House that he was submitting to the Royal Academy in London in the hope of a prize. Mosley observes that architects used sans serif on building facades before the style emanated from the type foundry. On his blog, Typefoundry, James Mosley publishes an extensive article on the earliest usage of the sans serif (or san serif) in the late 18th century. Some other names used for early sans serif included Egyptian, Grotesque, Gothic and Antique. At first the letters followed the Classical Roman Capitals proportions but later sans serifs were influenced by geometric and modernist trends.

Type designers balanced the letters by using variable stroke weights (much as serif letters are balanced). But in reality it was the late 19th century when type designers deliberately decided to design faces that were without (sans) serifs. One could argue that the sans serif typeface existed as far back as ancient times-by their means of execution early chiseled faces were constructed from strokes with unadorned endings.
