THE TYPE ERA. HUMANIST (late 15th century) also called Humanistic, Antiqua or Venetian OLDSTYLE SERIF TYPEFACES, PART ONE:

Transcription

1 THE TYPE ERA OLDSTYLE SERIF TYPEFACES, PART ONE: HUMANIST (late 15th century) also called Humanistic, Antiqua or Venetian If you ll recall, when we last left calligraphy, there were two major styles in Europe: Gothic script (also called Blackletter, Fraktur, Textura, Old English...) and Humanist script, which was a rounder form favored in Italy. Thick Blackletter scripts (left) were superceded by lighter, rounder scripts (right) which were much easier to read. Scholars of the name considered these scripts much more refined than the previous lettering, so they began calling the older style Gothic (a derisive term referring to the Goths, races of Barbarians) and the newer style the more enlightened style of the Renaissance Humanist. While the first movable type to make it into print was based on Gothic calligraphy in Germany, Italy followed with printed type only a decade or two later, and it s those Italianate typefaces that are the real ancestors of the type we use today. Old Style Humanist typefaces were created by Venetian printers in the 1460s and 1470s, and so they sprang not from the Gothic tradition of Gutenberg s original press, but from Humanist and Italianate calligraphy of the Renaissance, most notably Carolingian minuscule, a calligraphic form named after the Emperor Charlemagne, who had made it the dominant handwriting of the Holy Roman Empire from about 800ad onward. Carolingian minuscule script (left) becomes Humanist script (center), which in turn becomes OldStyle Humanist type (right). in this case, the design of Nicolas Jenson. More than any other classification of type, Humanist Oldstyle typefaces represent the missing link between handwriting and printing, the dominant means of producing public documents before and after Gutenberg. Humanist type firmly established what we consider to be the modern Roman alphabet. From this point onward, the influence of the handwritten letterform will diminish, and type will come into its own... PAGE 2 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

2 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMANIST OLDSTYLE TYPE: Slanted crossbar on the lowercase e, mimicking handwriting. Small x-height in most instances. Very little variation in the stroke width (between thick and thin strokes). Diagonal vertical stress. NOTABLES EXAMPLES OF HUMANIST OLDSTYLE TYPE IN USE TODAY: Jenson by Robert Slimbach, 1987 (based on designs by Nicolas Jenson and Ludovico degli Arrighi) Centaur by Bruce Rogers, 1914 (Based on designs by Nicolas Jenson) Berkeley by Frederic Goudy, 1936 Brioso by Robert Slimbach, 2007 (Based upon his own Roman calligraphy) NICOLAS JENSON By far the most influential printer of his day in terms of design, Nicolas Jenson essentially popularized the Roman alphabet. Born around 1420 in France. Jenson studied printing with Gutenberg for three years. He was one of the first to design Roman type, and his designs surpassed in quality the few Roman typefaces that appeared before his. In 1470, he started his own press in Venice with his own type (which he was learned enough to create, no doubt, not only because of his time with Gutenberg, but because of his time spent as Master of the French Royal Mint under Charles VII.) By his death in 1480, his work had made a lasting impression. It would inspire the typographers of the coming era, as well as several revivals of Humanist type throughout history, most notably in the Art Nouveau period. DC SCARPELLI PAGE 3

3 NOTABLES OLDSTYLE SERIF TYPEFACES, PART TWO: GARALDE (16th early 18th c.) also called Aldine If Humanist type represents an effort to reproduce the handwritten letter in typographic form, then Garalde Oldstyle type represents the first effort to let type stand as its own form separate from calligraphy. This era of type was amazingly long-lived, spreading across Europe and holding sway for over 200 years. ALDUS MANUTIUS Manutius was an Italian printer whose Venetian press was the site of some of the greatest innovations in his field. In addition to creating the first modern pocket-sized book, Manutius s typefounder, Francesco Griffo, invented the italic typeface (for which Manutius held an exclusive patent for many years imagine owning a patent on italics!). MANUTIUS THE SPREAD OF GARALDE TYPE GARAMOND Late 15th Century ITALY: Aldus Manutius, Francesco Griffo Early 16th Century FRANCE: Claude Garamond, Robert Granjon Early 17th Century THE NETHERLANDS: Christofell van Dijck, Dirck Voskens, Miklós Kis Early 18th Century ENGLAND: William Caslon VAN DIJCK CASLON As the craft of physically creating type is refined, so are the physical letterforms: the contrast between thick and thin strokes is greater and the letters are sharper and more defined. You ll also notice that the diagonal stress of the Humanist letterforms (created by the angle of the arm during handwriting) begins to become more vertical. It is during this period that ascenders begin to be created slightly taller than cap height, for optical balance. Of note: Garaldes are named for their two most illustrious innovators: Claude Garamond and Aldus Manutius. CLAUDE GARAMOND One of the most influentiual typographers in history, Garamond s type designs echo through the work of countless others over several centuries. Commissioned by King François I in 1540, Garamond s Paris-based press directly influenced typefaces (and their creators) including Bembo, Granjon, Sabon, Plaintin, Jannon and a host of others. THE FIRST ITALIC TYPE: in 1501, the first Italic type was created. Originally designed by Franciesco Griffo, italic type was meant to be used on its own as a condensed face for smaller bodies of copy. Italics quickly came to be designed as part of suites with Roman typefaces, as complementary designs to be used for emphasis. The design above is by Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi, who helped launch the form. Arrighi s standalone italics are sometimes coupled with a Humanist or Garalde face. For example, Centaur s italic is based on an Arrighi design. PAGE 4 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

4 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF GARALDE OLDSTYLE TYPE: Wedge-shaped serifs. Horizontal crossbars. Greater contrast between Thicks and Thins. More upright vertical stress. NOTABLES EXAMPLES OF GARALDE OLDSTYLE TYPE IN USE TODAY: Garamond by Robert Slimbach, 2005 (Based upon the designs of Claude Garamond) Janson by Chauncey H. Griffith, 1937 (Based upon Miklós Kis s design) Caslon by Carol Twombly, 1990 (Based on designs by William Caslon) Palatino by Hermann Zapf, 1948 JOHN FELL, ET AL. In the 1600s, England s laws made it very difficult for type foundries. Type had to be imported. One of the most notable acquisitions was for Oxford University Press by Dr. John Fell, who bought the work of Dirck Voskens and Miklós Kis from Holland. These Dutch Garalde faces used commonly in England became known as Fell Type. WILLIAM CASLON Caslon began as a gunsmith, engraving and metalworking which was not so different from typecutting. He moved into the making of bookbinders tools, and from there into printing. Caslon s type, one of the first homegrown English varieties (based on Dutch style), became iconic of the era for both England and her colonies: our Declaration of Independence and Consitution were set in Caslon type. DC SCARPELLI PAGE 5

5 NOTABLES SERIF TYPEFACES, CONTINUED: TRANSITIONAL (18th c.) also called Neoclassical and Réalist LOUIS XIV, ET AL. Though he was not, of course, a typographer, it is really to Louis XIV, the Sun King of France s Age of Reason, that we owe the breakaway from handwritten forms into the designed structures of Transitional type. It was he who convened a committee of the French Academy of Sciences to produce the Roman du Roi, the first Transitional typeface. The design was executed by Jacques Jaugeon, a maker of games, engraved by Louis Simmoneau, and cut by Philippe Grandjean. Commissioned in 1692, the first typeface did not see print until 1702, and the full suite of 82 was not completed until The Transitional period of type design began in the French Royal Court. The 18th century was what we today call the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason. This was also a period of Revolution in the world. But before those political revolutions happened in France and in the American colonies, there was a revolution of thought happening in Europe. People were reconsidering the knowledge and skills possessed in Classical antiquity by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, who had prized above all geometry, symmetry and proportion. Suddenly, architecture exploded in symmetrical, neoclassical forms. Gardens went from rampant overabundance to symmetrical, mathematical designs. Reason and logic was meant to dictate all of this, and Louis XIV intended to have it in his country s printed work. In the waning days of his reign as the Sun King, he commissioned the Romain du Roi The King s Roman [Typeface]. More than ever before, the conventions that had tied printed letters to written letters were broken apart. Geometry and proportion governed the building of this typeface, and it was built architecturally, by a committee from the French Academy of Science. It took almost half a century for the full suite of typefaces to be completed. Meanwhile, England was taking a lead in type design for the first time ever. John Baskerville created the definitive English transitional typeface, and a slew of other English designers followed in his wake: Joseph Fry, Isaac Moore, Alexander Wilson, John Bell all came along for the ride, as did most of western Europe. Benjamin Franklin, a printer by trade and one of the most influential intercontinental figures of the 18th century, championed Baskerville s types, and they flourished in America. PAGE 6 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

6 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF TRANSITIONAL SERIF TYPE: Head serifs are geometrical and very precise and slim. Extremely thin horizontals and connectors. Even greater contrast between Thicks and Thins. Totally vertical stress: no angle. NOTABLES EXAMPLES OF TRANSITIONAL SERIF TYPE IN USE TODAY: JBaskerville by František Štorm, 2003 (Based upon John Baskerville s design) Times Roman by Paxson E. Helgesen, 1935 (For the London Times) Cheltenham by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, 1896 Mrs.Eaves by Zuzana Licko, 1996 (Based upon John Baskerville s designs) JOHN BASKERVILLE In the Age of Enlightenment, one was expected to have one s hand in many disciplines, and John Baskerville did. A businessman by trade, he also refinished, built and sold furnishings, as well as being a printer. A member of society, he published works for Cambridge and for the Royal Society of Arts, where he befriended fellow member Benjamin Franklin, who became an admirer. PIERRE FOURNIER Pierre-Simon Fournier (or Fournier le Jeune, as he was known) was one of the printers that followed the wake of the creation of the Romain du Roi, experimenting further with letterforms. It was in standardizing type metrics, though, that he was to leave his mark. Fournier invented the Points system: 72 per inch. DC SCARPELLI PAGE 7

7 NOTABLES SERIF TYPEFACES, CONTINUED: MODERN (late 18th early 19th c.) also called Didone FIRMIN DIDOT A third-generation Parisian printer, engraver, and typographer, Firmin Didot was famous for, among other things, coining the word stereotype, which in printing refers to a metal printing plate used instead of movable type. The use of stereotypes in the early 1800s turned the book trade on its ear, making printed material really inexpensive for the first time. Stereotype, of course, would come to mean a typical, completely unchangeable suite of character traits as applied to groups of people. It isn t until the arrival of Modern typefaces that the handwritten form is completely abandoned in favor of rational geometry. This is truly the age of revolution, both in France and in the United States, and the new Modern type, especially in France, represented a complete break from the monarchy and everything it represented, including the official Romain du Roi. HUMANIST GARALDE TRANSITIONAL MODERN E-VOLUTION Here s a series of lowercase e s from Humanist (Jenson), Garalde (Garamond), Transitional (Baskerville) and Modern (Bodoni) typefaces. Watch how the vertical stress (red line) shifts from slanted to perfectly upright as time goes on. By the same token, note how the cross strokes (yellow line) shift from slanted to perfectly horizontal. Advances in the physical craft of typemaking has enabled progressively greater contrast between thicks and thins; by the time we arrive at Bodoni, the difference is enormous. One additional design trait that sets Modern type apart: the verticality of its downstrokes. The spine of the e is very round and fluid until we get to the Modern e, at which point the outside remains round but the inside is very heavily influenced by the vertical axis. Now we have a typeface that is truly designed, not written by hand. Everything extreme and geometric about type was exaggerated: Strokes were as thick and thin as they could possibly, legibly be. Serifs left behind their handwritten origins entirely, appearing for the first time completely without brackets merely as thin, rectilinear tops to letter stems. The axes of the type were now completely geometrical: the horizontal was parallel to the baseline and the vertical was perpendicular to it. The result was less legible than previous typefaces. (In truth, the most readable serif typefaces for long body copy are probably the Garalde Oldstyles). But with their extreme thicknesses and their sharp lines, they re certainly very stylish, clean and super-slick. And that makes Modern typefaces extremely popular nowadays in the fashion industry. In publishing, that s where you ll see them most, from Harper s Bazaar to Vogue to Elle. ABOVE: MOVABLE TYPE BELOW: STEREOTYPE Moderns need very generous leading and margins. They re fussy, so pair them only with the simplest complementary type.. The two most prominent designers of modern type were Firmin Didot, and Giambattista Bodoni. So, just as Garaldes were named after Garamond and Aldus, Didones are so called after Didot and Bodoni. PAGE 8 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

8 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN SERIF TYPE: Extremely high contrast between thick and thin strokes Unbracketed, rectilinear serifs Totally vertical and horizontal axes Small apertures to bowl areas. NOTABLES EXAMPLES OF MODERN SERIF TYPE IN USE TODAY: Didot by Adrian Frutiger, 1991 (based on the designs of Firmin Didot) Bodoni by Morris Fuller Benton, 1915 (Based upon Giambattista Bodoni s design) Walbaum by Justus Erich Walbaum, ca 1803 Kepler by Robert Slimbach, 2006 GIAMBATTISTA BODONI At the cusp of the 19th century, Giambattista Bodoni was a towering figure in Italian publishing. He came from a printing family in Parma (the city of cheese and prosciutto fame), and spent his youth working for the Vatican in Rome, where he became expert not only at his trade, but in many varied languages and alphabet systems. When he was at last permitted to open his own print house, he immediately built upon the work of his famous French forbears, Grandjean and Fournier. Using the same tenets they employed in the creation of the Romain du Roi, Bodoni went to extremes. He took serifs that were already becoming geometric and removed their brackets entirely. He took Baskerville s extreme thick/thin contrast and heightened it further. Though he produced exquisite editions of some extremely important works (Notably Dante Alighieri s Divine Comedy), his Manuale tipografico did not appear in print until after his death in DC SCARPELLI PAGE 9

9 NOTABLES VINCENT FIGGINS Vincent Figgins essentially invented what he called Egyptian type. The first recorded slab serif, Antique, appears in Figgins 1817 catalogue. ROBERT BESLEY Creator of Clarendon, a typeface he designed for the Fann Street Foundry of London, Robert Besley became the first man ever to register a typeface for (essentially) copyright protection. Did it work? No... Knockoffs abounded. And nothing much has changed since. Besley was also a very influential man in terms of politics. Later in his career, he served as Lord Mayor of London for some years. Slab serifs are currently enjoying quite a revival in popularity, with major type foundries like Hoefler & Frère Jones, as well as smaller, individual typographers like Jos Buivenga, celebrating the form. SERIF TYPEFACES, CONTINUED: SLAB SERIF (19th c.) also called Mechanistic and Egyptian SERIF STYLES The explosion of the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s caused huge shifts in the way type was designed, used and even thought of. Long gone was the notion that type was an extension of writing. New type was designed to emphasize its function and shape. The more geometric, the more easily mass-producible. Enter slab serif typefaces, which are primarily characterized by serifs that are no longer adornments to the design, but full-blooded structural elements. They re generally blocky, which made them ideal for creation in wood as well as lead. (That s why many slab serifs have an Old West feel wood type was commonly used for signage). Slabs break down into two major categories: MONOTONE slab serifs (or square serifs ) have unbracketed serifs that are usually the same stroke weight as the rest of the letterform. Indeed, the entire letter is often one stroke weight a completely new idea in type. Stress was vertical and horizontal, and geometry ruled. CLARENDON slab serifs are named after Oxford s Clarendon Press, where they originated in the mid-1800s. Clarendons are notable in that they were to some degree back-engineered from monotone slab serifs in order to reincorporate more readable, friendly elements from transitional and modern type. Serifs remained prominent and structural, but they regained their brackets. Stress remained vertical and horizontal. But stroke weight variation returned for legibility s sake. Serifs by this point in time come in many different flavors. The two primary divisions are ADNATE, or BRACKETED serifs, and ABRUPT serifs. Adnate serifs have an organic connection to the stem, which widens to meet them. Abrupt serifs simply split off from the stem without any warning. WEDGE ADNATE SERIFS Within these two categories are a world of variations, some of which are depicted here. OldStyle typefaces, for example, are characterized by a wedge-shaped adnate serif, which looks like it was created by a pen. This is not to be confused with a triangular Latin abrupt serif, which, because of its shape, is also sometimes called a wedge. Cupped adnate serifs curve outward like suction cups toward the baseline and cap height. Modern typefaces are often instantly recognizable by their abrupt, hairline serifs. Likewise, monotone slabs are instantly recognizable by their abrupt, square serifs. CUPPED ABRUPT SERIFS Of note: slab serifs are sometimes called Egyptians because they came into prominence just as Napoleon conquered Egypt (1809) and brought home (i.e., stole) boatloads of Egyptian treasure. Egyptophilia swept Europe, and the typefaces seen so often on travel posters and newsbills became associated with it. Also of note: This document is primarily set in slabs. Heads are set in Vitesse, a square, monotone slab, and body copy is set in Sentinel, a Clarendon that was especially designed for readability. Both typefaces are by Hoefler & Frère Jones. FILLETED HAIRLINE SQUARE LATIN PAGE 10 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

10 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF SLAB SERIF TYPE: Prominent, usually rectangular serifs Monotone slabs have unbracketed serifs; Clarendon slabs are bracketed. Monotone slabs have little or no stroke contrast EXAMPLES OF SLAB SERIF TYPE IN USE TODAY: Rockwell by the Monotype Corp., 1933 (based on the designs of Vincent Figgins) ADDITIONAL SLAB SERIF SUBCATEGORIES ITALIENNE In Italienne slabs, the serifs are actually heavier than the stems, which turns the type s proportions inside out, a very attention-grabbing effect. This became a popular feature of woodcut type, and is the type of slab that instantly calls to mind a Wanted poster. Clarendon by Robert Besley, 1845 Cæcilia by Peter Matthias Noordzij, 1990 TYPEWRITER The typewriter, invented in the 1860s, required type of a fixed width, because the space that the carriage advanced for each letter-strike was the same. Letters like M were compressed, and letters like I were expanded, largely through the use of monotone slab serifs, which padded out the letter width. Archer by Hoefler & Frère Jones, 2001 DC SCARPELLI PAGE 11

11 NOTABLES SANS SERIF, GOTHIC OR TYPEFACES: GROTESQUES (19th c. onward) and Neo-Grotesques HERMANN BERTHOLD Berthold created his type foundry, H. Berthold AG, in 1858, and it continued for a century and a half as one of the most prolific and influential type foundries in the world. When the first sans serif typeface was created (in 1816, by William Caslon IV), it caused strong feelings. Which is something of an understatement. Just as adherents of Humanistic script had done 400 years earlier, critics who disapproved of sans serif type labeled it Gothic, or Barbarian. They also called them Grotesques, because of what they considered to be their unnatural shape, and the name stuck, and was eventually embraced by typographers themselves. Though Grotesque and Gothic were originally catchall terms for sans serif fonts in general, they now tend to be used exclusively for early sans-serifs developed around the turn of the 20th century. These first sans serif typefaces developed alongside the equally adventurous slab serifs. Indeed, Grotesque sans serif typefaces look a lot like slab or modern serif type with the serifs merely broken off. They retain many of the metric characteristics of their immediate forebears. REVIVALS AND REVIVALS These radical new directions in type spurred a first: the first type revival movement. Around the turn of the 20th century, coinciding with the Art Nouveau movement (which spurned mechanistic design in favor of organic and Humanistic shapes), there was a large resurgence of Humanist and Garalde type design. MORRIS FULLER BENTON Benton headed the design department of American Type Founders (ATF), where he was the chief type designer from 1900 to A big proponent of the then-popular resurgence in OldStyle revival, Benton also broke new ground in typeface design, putting out an amazing volume of design output in his 40 years as a working typographer. Many of Benton s designs are as much in use today as they were in his time, from standbys like Franklin and News Gothic, to novelty typefaces like Hobo, Bank Gothic, and Broadway. The second major type revival occurred about 50 years later, when postwar European designers began to shun the geometric sans serifs that had been so popular in the 1920s and 1930s (and which we ll discuss next). They began to return to the Grotesque forms of the end of the previous century. Designers like Adrian Frutiger and Max Miedinger turned to old type designs like Akzindenz Grotesk and came up with a new movement in type: the Neo-Grotesques. Though very reminiscent of their inspirations, the Neo- Grotesques tended to be airier, more versatile and of more universal stroke weight. Massive families were designed with multiple levels of compression and expansion, and weights from feather-thin to ultra-heavy. The watchword was function, and Neo-Grotesques were about as functionally-designed as type could be. PAGE 12 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

12 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF GROTESQUE TYPE: Capitals that only have a slight height to width proportional variation. Rounded letters that tend to be elliptical rather than circular. Grotesques often have a bar-and-spur capital G. Grotesque typefaces often have some thick/thin stroke variation. This is less the case in Neo-Grotesques. NOTABLES OF THE REVIVAL EXAMPLES OF GROTESQUE SANS SERIF TYPE IN USE TODAY: Akzidenz Grot. by the H. Berthold AG type foundry,1898 Franklin Gothic by Morris Fuller Benton, 1902 Univers by Adrian Frutiger, 1957 Helvetica by Max Miedinger with Zach Spinner, 1957 MAX MIEDINGER If Benton was a wunderkind, with over 200 typefaces to his name, Miedinger was a one-hit wonder. But what a hit! Helvetica, which Miedinger based on Akzidenz Grotesk, has become one of the most ubiquitous of the 20th and 21st centuries. (For a great discussion about Helvetica s and typography s place in the world, I heartily recommend the film Helvetica, by Gary Hustwit.) ADRIAN FRUTIGER A Swiss designer, like Miedinger, but with a prolific output rivaling Benton s, Frutiger has produced some of the most oft-used and most beloved typefaces of the 20th century, working mostly in the realm of the sans serif. These include Univers, Frutiger, Glypha, Avenir, Serifa and Vectora. DC SCARPELLI PAGE 13

13 NOTABLES SANS SERIF, GOTHIC OR TYPEFACES: GEOMETRIC (20th c. onward) PAUL RENNER (top), JAN TSCHICHOLD (bottom) Compatriots linked by history and context, Paul Renner and Jan Tschichold were leaders in the 20th century Modernist movement, especially where it concerns typography. Strongly influenced by Bauhaus principles, Renner and Tschichold defined what they called The New Typography, which would be a fusion of traditional German Gothic letterforms with the Roman alphabet. Futura was Paul Renner s attempt to do just that. In fact, Renner s sympathy for Roman letterforms ran him afoul of the Nazis, who officially (at the time) only recognized the Gothic alphabet. Like their fellow Bauhaus artists, Renner and Tschichold denounced the cultural oppression of the Nazis and were persecuted for their dissidence. The use of sans serif type didn t catch on wholeheartedly for a while: most of the 19th century, in fact. Considered grotesque and ungainly, they were used where needed: headlines, functional posters, showbills anywhere that good design wasn t a necessity and vulgar design was acceptable for the sake of printing expediency and typefitting. Sans serif didn t really find an identity of their own until the 20th century came along, and brought revolution along with it. It wasn t until massive changes in art and industrial design most notably the Constructivist movement in Russia, the Art Déco movement in France and especially the Bauhaus movement in Germany all coincided in the 1920s, that the need for a new kind of type was recognized. That all this followed in the wake of World War One and the Russian Revolution is not a coincidence. Sea changes in art and design have always followed political shifts, as we saw in the advent of the Modernist movement. Utilitarian, unadorned and functional, the typefaces produced during this and the subsequent midcentury period relied on the barest geometry for their design. Futura, which is essentially the flagship of geometric type design of the 1920s, was radical for the time. It just barely conformed to standard letter shapes. The hope at the time was that Futura would become the standard, ubiquitous sans serif typeface... and for a time, it certainly was a contender. But it wasn t until the Neo-Grotesque revival of the 1950s that a typeface would come along to supplant it for good: Helvetica. Since the, geometric sans serifs have enjoyed periodic revivals, most notably in the 1960s and 1970s, when a major revival in Art Déco and Bauhaus design prompted a slew of new type designs. As of this writing, though, another geometric sans serif stands poised to take Helvetica s place. Gotham, designed by Tobias Frère Jones to be a masculine, geometric sans serif based upon New York inscriptional lettering is fast becoming the new Helvetica. The race is on... PAGE 14 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

14 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF GEOMETRIC SANS SERIF TYPE: Constructed from simple geometric shapes, circles and/or rectangles. The same curves and lines are often repeated throughout the letters, resulting in minimal differentiation between letters. NOTABLES EXAMPLES OF GEOMETRIC SANS SERIF TYPE IN USE TODAY: Futura by Paul Renner, 1927 Eurostile by Aldo Novarese, 1962 (based on his own Microgramma design) ALDO NOVARESE Novarese designed for the prestigious Nebiolo type foundry in Turin. His output of type designs was prodigious, and included several that have become iconic. His evocative Microgramma, with its rounded rectilinears, was eventually was expanded into the typeface Eurostile. Another face he designed which is still in everyday use is Symbol, a dingbat font that is a designer staple. Avant Garde by by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, 1968 Gotham by Tobias Frère Jones, 2000 HERB LUBALIN American designer Herb Lubalin, especially proiminent in the 1960s, is closely associated with the Art Déco revival in the United States. He experimented in type through his magazines, Eros, Fact, Avant Garde, and U&lc. He also co-founded ITC, the International Typeface Corporation. DC SCARPELLI PAGE 15

15 NOTABLES SANS SERIF, GOTHIC OR TYPEFACES: HUMANIST SANS (20th c. onward) ERIC GILL An accomplished artist, sculptor and engraver, Gill designed many famous faces besides Gill Sans, which has become, largely due to the fact that it s the BBC s official typeface, an icon of England as a whole. HERMANN ZAPF Zapf was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1918 meaning that he came of age right as the Nazis were coming to power in the Great Depression. Not good. Despite humble beginnings, he managed to start a career in printing before being conscripted to fight on the German front lines. After the war, he specialized in calligraphy and type design, and began designing type for computers even as it was first being developed in the 1960s. He is the creator of numerous iconic typefaces, ending his career with Zapfino, the now-ubiquitous script face. Just as serif type evolved over 300 years from letterforms based on penmanship to letterforms based on rational geometry, so has sans serif type evolved in the exact opposite direction over the last 150. Humanist sans serifs take their cue not from geometry or from any previous sans serif face, but from handwriting. Gill Sans, one of the first Humanist sans serif typefaces, takes its upper case from Roman inscriptional lettering and its lower case from Carolingian minuscule script, exactly as the original Humanist OldStyle typefaces did. Gill began work on his most famous typeface by joining with Edward Johnston to create the nowiconic typeface for the London Underground. Though he didn t continue with Johnston, that work inspired him to design the most legible sans serif possible. The fruits of his labor were Gill Sans. What defines a Humanist sans? It s a little hard to say. Humanist sans serifs, though they spring from the same design well as Humanist serif typefaces, do not resemble them. They re quite clean, but they possess a friendlier, more approachable look than their grotesque and geometric cousins. Like geometrics, humanists are tied together more by a concept than by any particular design feature; they don t all look alike. They re simply meant to evoke human writing. Just like the very first typefaces were. Which makes this a pretty good place to end this rough primer. PAGE 16 A ROUGH PRIMER IN TYPE HISTORY

16 IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMANIST SANS SERIF TYPE: Upper case has the proportions of Roman instriptional capitals. Lower case has the proportions of Carolingian minuscule script. Usually have true italic versions instead of sloped obliques. As in Carolingian, lower case a s are two-storey. Lower case g s may vary. NOTABLES EXAMPLES OF HUMANIST SANS SERIF TYPE IN USE TODAY: Gill Sans by Optima by Eric Gill, 1926 Hermann Zapf, 1952 ROBERT SLIMBACH, CAROL TWOMBLY Two of the most prolific and popular typographers of the 20th century, Slimbach and Twombly have done most of their work for Adobe Systems, where, during the 1980s and 1990s, they created many iconic typefaces, including the Humanist sans serif Myriad, now famous as Apple s branding face. Officina Sans by Erik Spiekermann, Ole Schäfer, 1990 Myriad by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly, 1992 ERIK SPIEKERMANN One of the most respected modern typographers, Spiekermann is a founder of FontShop, the first distributor of digital fonts. Spiekermann has created many branding typefaces (mostly for German institutions like Audi and Volkswagen, and for public information conveyance). His Meta and Officina typefaces are considered paragons of clean informational design. DC SCARPELLI PAGE 17