Typeface Review: "Bickham Script Pro"

What It Looks Like:

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Its History: "Bickham Script Pro is a script typeface based on English round hand writing common in the 18th century, and specifically on the engravings of George Bickham. It’s an ornate, romantic typeface, available in regular, bold, and semibold weights. Bickham Script Pro was created by Richard Lipton in 1997, and is available as part of the Adobe Type Library." (Source #1)

"Richard Lipton grew up in New York City and studied art and design upstate at Harpur College where he was introduced to the magic of calligraphy. He continued his lettering journey in 1974 as a freelance calligrapher, signpainter, and graphic designer and eventually established a calligraphy studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1983, Lipton began working for Bitstream, a digital type foundry and helped to make Bitstream’s type library one of the most respected in the industry. In his tenure as senior designer, Lipton developed two original type families: Arrus, and Cataneo (with Jacqueline Sakwa). In 1991, Lipton created an independent type and calligraphy studio and designed many original typefaces including BickhamPro for Adobe and Sloop for Font Bureau. Currently he is a full time type designer at Font Bureau where he develops custom fonts for international clients." (Source #2)

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What Type of Font It Is: Script, Italic, and Chancery - "The function of Script typefaces is primarily as a contrast to roman type and few are suitable for the setting of extended passages of running text. The more formal Chancery, or roundhand, faces can be used for introductory paragraphs, while the more expressive and gestural calligraphic Scripts should normally be used for display purposes only." (Source #3)

How You Can Design With It: "Bickham Script Pro is excellent for formal, elegant designs, especially those reminiscent of its origin in the 18th century. It also includes a number of OpenType features, including discretionary ligatures, swashes, superscripts, stylistic alternates, and cast-sensitive glyph connectors. The contextual changes that occur to the characters as one types make it an especially versatile typeface, and improves your designs effortlessly.

"Bickham Script Pro is purely a display typeface, perfect for headings and subheads. It’s commonly seen in logos, menus, invitations, annual reports, and packaging, in primarily formal, elegant designs." (Source #1)

"As one types, substitutions are made dynamically as the context changes. Not only do varied ligatures appear, but subtle changes to glyph exit and entry strokes ensure an attractive, flowing text both between letters and at word beginnings and endings." (Source #4)

Where You Can Get It: Bickham Script Pro is available for purchase here: http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFontPackage&code=1736.

Descriptive Terms For It: classical, display, elegant, formal, headings, logo, script, serif, and sub-headings.

Sources:
-#1 - http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/08/the-most-popular-fonts-used-by-designers/,
-#2 - http://www.fontbureau.com/people/RichardLipton/,
-#3 - "The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 150,
-#4 - http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/landing/bickham.html.

Examples:

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