Swash (typography)

A swash is a typographical flourish, such as an exaggerated serif, terminal, tail, entry stroke, etc., on a glyph.

[8][9] Among transitional typefaces, Baskerville's original design has swashes on J, N, Q and T. Some revivals remove these, while others may add more.

[11][12] Sans-serif fonts with swashes are rarer, but some were released in the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne style of the 1930s, including for Tempo[13] and Semplicità.

[14] Classiq by Yamaoka Yasuhiro, based on Garamond, contains swash italic designs, as do Goudy's Sans Serif Light Italic and Mr Eaves by Zuzana Licko, a sans-serif derivative of her serif family Mrs Eaves.

[18] The original Caslon italic had swashes only on the letters JQTY; others have been added since by revivals of his designs.