Dover Text is the natural companion to Dover Display : where Display is best used big, Dover Text shines at sizes down to 8 points, or 12 pixels. The six styles work together in ways that William Caslon could never have imagined in the 18th century.
The sans can be used as an emphasis style for the serif, for example, and all the functionality of the fonts is identical. Small caps, tabular numbers and language support are matched completely. But where the reference material is a bit stuffy, Dover cleans up. Historic reference is indispensable for understanding some of the stranger decisions from the past, and with a thousand glyphs per font, it helps that Caslon goes far, far back.
As it is, the many Caslon interpretations that exist may stand on a few centuries of history, but there is no need for a new version to look old. Dover Sans Text is sansified Caslon, using the same the design principles for the proportions, letter skeletons and continuing the functionality of Dover Serif Text.
Notable examples of design updates to these sans serifs are shapes like the lowercase a tail, which is much more in line with the overal alphabet, and the flowier italic, best exemplified by the e. Two other meaningful differences are the increased x-height of the fonts, matching the bookishness of the serif, and the low contrast of the bold weight. Together, these three styles do what most book typefaces need. Dover Text is primarily designed for long runs of text 6ptβ16pt in print, 12pxβ20px on screen , and above these sizes some modest amounts of negative tracking are recommended.
The serif and sans are matched across styles: x-heights, capital proportions, but also OpenType features such as small caps and different styles of numbers are present in every style and weight. It has a selection of useful dingbats and symbols, and very wide language support.
