Term for upward slant of horizontals in a typeface

Question

I've noticed that in a lot of typefaces simulating upright hand lettering, the horizontal strokes slant upward. In Comic Sans and Comic Neue, this slant is especially visible on the crossbars of lowercase e and uppercase A and H. So does the H in the logo of the Holiday Inn hotel chain. Apple Casual shows the effect in more horizontals, as do Dom Casual, Wastrel, Blambot Casual, Segoe Print, and Tekton. In the Apache/August family (trade names include Apache URW, Cochise, Disney Print, Jester, Stanley, and Toledo), nearly everything horizontal has a 10% grade or 6 degree skew, including glyph baselines. The upward slope tendency also appears in ''kaishuu'', or Japanese "regular" script.

Is there a typographic term for this phenomenon in general?

Answer 1

This is an interesting question and I can't say that I know a simple black and white term for this phenomenon. However, in this thread (a discussion on the fall of the crossbar on the lowercase 'e' from a slanted to horizontal position in the transition of Humanist to Old Style) it is referred to as an oblique crossbar. A term that I think fits.

(Read more about Humanist and Old Style here)

As a characteristic it is simply referred to as a slanted (or less often sloping or angled) crossbar in the texts that I have found, texts that are generally discussing the differences between more organic Humanist inspired fonts VS the later Old Style in which the crossbar is horizontal. (e.g 1, 2, 3, 4)

As you mentioned though, it is a characteristic that is inherent in fonts that are more organic in style and sometimes mimic traits of calligraphy or hand writing. A characteristic that unfortunately can no longer be defined as simply a Humanist or Venetian trait as there are plenty of fonts inspired by both of these that have no angled in their crossbar.

I hope I've helped you get closer to a solid term on this, I would be really interested to know!