๐Ÿ™ค

Fleuron (typography)

Fleuron (typography)

Typographical ornament (โฆ โง etc)


A fleuron (/หˆflสŠษ™rษ’n, -ษ™n, หˆflษœหrษ’n, -ษ™n/[1]), also known as printers' flower, is a typographic element, or glyph, used either as a punctuation mark or as an ornament for typographic compositions. Fleurons are stylized forms of flowers or leaves; the term derives from the Old French: floron ("flower").[2] Robert Bringhurst in The Elements of Typographic Style calls the forms "horticultural dingbats".[3] A commonly encountered fleuron is the โฆ, the floral heart or hedera (ivy leaf). It is also known as an aldus leaf (after Italian Renaissance printer Aldus Manutius).

A complex fleuron with thistle from a 1870 edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect

History

ฮคypographic ornament in ancient city of Kamiros in Rhodes island, Greece

Flower decorations are among the oldest typographic ornaments. A fleuron can also be used to fill the white space that results from the indentation of the first line of a paragraph,[4] on a line by itself to divide paragraphs in a highly stylized way, to divide lists, or for pure ornamentation.[5] The fleuron (as a formal glyph) is a sixteenth century introduction.[6]

Fleurons were crafted the same way as other typographic elements were: as individual metal sorts that could be fit into the printer's compositions alongside letters and numbers. This saved the printer time and effort in producing ornamentation. Because the sorts could be produced in multiples, printers could build up borders with repeating patterns of fleurons.

Fleurons in Unicode

Thirty forms of fleuron have code points in Unicode. The Dingbats and Miscellaneous Symbols blocks have three fleurons that the standard calls "floral hearts" (also called "aldus leaf", "ivy leaf", "hedera" and "vine leaf");[7] twenty-four fleurons (from the pre-Unicode Wingdings and Wingdings 2 fonts) in the Ornamental Dingbats block; and three more fleurons used in archaic languages are also supported.

  • U+2619 โ˜™ REVERSED ROTATED FLORAL HEART BULLET (Miscellaneous Symbols)
  • U+2766 โฆ FLORAL HEART (Dingbats)
  • U+2767 โง ROTATED FLORAL HEART BULLET (Dingbats)
  • U+10877 ๐กท PALMYRENE LEFT-POINTING FLEURON
  • U+10878 ๐กธ PALMYRENE RIGHT-POINTING FLEURON
  • U+10AF1 ๐ซฑ MANICHAEAN PUNCTUATION FLEURON
  • U+1F650 ๐Ÿ™ NORTH WEST POINTING LEAF (Ornamental Dingbats)
  • U+1F651 ๐Ÿ™‘ SOUTH WEST POINTING LEAF
  • U+1F652 ๐Ÿ™’ NORTH EAST POINTING LEAF
  • U+1F653 ๐Ÿ™“ SOUTH EAST POINTING LEAF
  • U+1F654 ๐Ÿ™” TURNED NORTH WEST POINTING LEAF
  • U+1F655 ๐Ÿ™• TURNED SOUTH WEST POINTING LEAF
  • U+1F656 ๐Ÿ™– TURNED NORTH EAST POINTING LEAF
  • U+1F657 ๐Ÿ™— TURNED SOUTH EAST POINTING LEAF
  • U+1F658 ๐Ÿ™˜ NORTH WEST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F659 ๐Ÿ™™ SOUTH WEST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F65A ๐Ÿ™š NORTH EAST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F65B ๐Ÿ™› SOUTH EAST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F65C ๐Ÿ™œ HEAVY NORTH WEST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F65D ๐Ÿ™ HEAVY SOUTH WEST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F65E ๐Ÿ™ž HEAVY NORTH EAST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F65F ๐Ÿ™Ÿ HEAVY SOUTH EAST POINTING VINE LEAF
  • U+1F660 ๐Ÿ™  NORTH WEST POINTING BUD
  • U+1F661 ๐Ÿ™ก SOUTH WEST POINTING BUD
  • U+1F662 ๐Ÿ™ข NORTH EAST POINTING BUD
  • U+1F663 ๐Ÿ™ฃ SOUTH EAST POINTING BUD
  • U+1F664 ๐Ÿ™ค HEAVY NORTH WEST POINTING BUD
  • U+1F665 ๐Ÿ™ฅ HEAVY SOUTH WEST POINTING BUD
  • U+1F666 ๐Ÿ™ฆ HEAVY NORTH EAST POINTING BUD
  • U+1F667 ๐Ÿ™ง HEAVY SOUTH EAST POINTING BUD

See also

  • Asterism (typography) โ€“ Typographic symbol (โ‚)
  • Dingbat โ€“ Typographic symbol class, a printers' ornament
  • Dinkus โ€“ Typographic symbol ( * * * ), mostly used as a sub-chapter section break. Although a group of asterisks is the most common style, fleurons are also seen fulfilling this role.
  • The Fleuron, a British typography magazine from the early 20th century.

References

  1. "fleuron". Collins English Dictionary.
  2. "Fleuron". Dictionary.com. Dictionary.reference.com. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
  3. Bringhurst, Robert, The Elements of Typographic Style, Second edition: Hartley and Marks Publishers, 1996. ISBN 0-88179-132-6
  4. "Typographic Marks Unknown โ€“ @retinart". Retinart.net. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
  5. Lisa Ferlazzo (May 10, 2013). "Punctuation graveyard: The Hedera". theworddict.com. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013.
  6. Vervliet, Hendrik D.L. (2012). Vine Leaf Ornaments in Renaissance Typography: A Survey. Brill | Hes & De Graaf. ISBN 978-9061945611. OCLC 802183100. cited in Danilova, Anya (December 23, 2021). "Manual: *@ยฉโ„ขยฎโ€ โ€กยงยถโฆโ˜œ". Type Today. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  7. "Dingbats". Unicode Consortium.

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