EAMES
CENTURY MODERN: a typeface of designers
N E AM E S C C E N TURY YM O D E R N N E AM E S C C E NTUR Y YMOD ERN N E AM E S C C E N T U RY
Tableof
CONTENTS Ray & Charles Eames
The Designing Duo, a brief biography
Welcome to the Circus Eames Ideology, a short essay
All about the Letters
Usage and Anatomy, an apology
Colophon
“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.” —RAY EAMES
Ray& Charles
EAMES: The Designing Duo Charles Ormand Eames
was an architect and a man who identified as a “real Midwesterner.” While teaching at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, he met the enchanting painter Bernice Alexandra Kaiser, more well known simply as ‘Ray.’ He was already married at the time, so Ray closed the door on any romantic possiblities between them, although the attraction was admittedly there. They met while working on a seemingly impossible project - a chair made of bent plywood. As a painter, Ray had a hand in the project design and colors, while Charles oversaw the entire production. Ray left the Academy soon after the Eames chair became a reality. Charles and his first wife mutally agreed on divorce for other reasons, and Charles proposed to Ray not long after. The two quickly became the “dynamic duo” among designers. Together they designed the iconic Eames chair with the intent
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to produce “the best for the most for the least.” In more words, they designed a functional, but asthetically beautiful chair for the mass of consumers at a low cost. This mentality continued on through other projects, including numerous videos and design projects. But the ideal never evolved into a typeface. At least not while the dynamic duo were living. Years after their death, their legacy lives on through the efforts of House Industries and the dozens of designers inspired and taught by the Eameses. In 2007, the idea for a typeface family based off the Eameses was suggested and given approval by the family, as long as the typeface would be an honest and true embodyment of their legacy. Summing up these two design giants into a single set of characters turned into 18 different styles with additional symbols and numerals available. Eames Century Modern sought to grasp at the ideals and patterns set forth by Charles and Ray, a challenge met with success.
“Don’t be like I was. Don’t be afraid of history. Take all of it you can get.” —CHARLES EAMES
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Welcome to the
CIRCUS: Eames Ideology Eames Century Modern was designed with the specific ideals of the Eameses in mind, namely their belief of all things having necessary functions and order, as well as ornament and detail. Although the Eameses never designed a typeface in their lifetime, they left a clear map of what a good type design should be through their work and their teachings. The Designing Duo stressed function. Their famous Eames chair was designed to cater to the sitter. Elaborate testing processes were developed to form the chair to the most comfortable position for the most people. Although they were passionate about function, they never compromised on the details of their work. The Eameses were fans of color and of incorporating play in work. “Life is work is play is work� was a motto of theirs. Charles and Ray were leaders among their design generation and teachers to the others in their office. They took their teaching extremely seriously and paid special attention to scientific reality and detail. Likewise, the collaboration of House Industries and former Eames Office designers
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paid close attention to the minute details of Eames Century Modern and were intentional about the mathmatic relations between the letterforms. The Eames Office was often compared to a circus. The design offices of the day were orderly and patterned. Eames Office was quite the opposite, a studio environment catering to the needs of the designers. It was a flexible space, quickly changing from a room of desks and paperwork to a stage for a multimedia film about spinning tops or a circus. Charles Eames was specifically mesmerized by the order of a circus. He would take the entire Eames office to the local circus simply to watch the members set up and perform. Each person had a job, or several even, and seemed to perform each of them perfectly like clockwork. No one was out of their place and incidents disturbed nothing. The chaos was ordered and the members were of one purpose and mission, not unlike the Eames Office. These ideas of detail and order have been carefully crafted into the Eames Century Modern Typeface.
Eames Even strokes: function comes first with the even weight of the strokes, or lines, of the letterforms
Ball terminal: a bow to the ‘modern roman’ typefaces of the mid18th century
Extended tail: a direct reference to the Eames ideology of details
Bracketted slab-serifs: a slab serif describes a thick, block-like extention to the end of a stroke; brackets indicate a rounded transition from stroke to serif
Tall x-height: the height of an “x” or lowercase letter is relatively tall in relation to the height of capital letters
“The details are not the details. They make the design.” —CHARLES EAMES
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AAA 400 pt
200 pt
250 pt
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 1234567890 1234567890 apex
ascender
ear
eye
arms
shoulder
crossbar
counter
tail
stem
vertex
descender
unlined numerals
lined numerals
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A
AAA 150 pt
100 pt
72 pt
A 48 pt
A 36 pt
A 28 pt
A 22 pt
A
12 pt
A
8 pt
All about the
LETTERS: usage and anatomy Is this a ‘font’? A font is one style of a typeface in one
size. This paragraph is an example of a font; it consists of only the regular style of Eames Century Modern at 9 points. The lead sentence of this paragarph is a seperate font of medium Eames Century Modern at 12 points. A typeface is a single design of the alphabet, usually accompanied by numerical and anagromatical characters that are visually related. Eames Century Modern is a type family, which is a collection of multiple variations of a typeface. In Eames Century Modern, regular is the standard, but different weights are offered from thin to black and each of these are available in italic. The Eames Century Modern family has 18 different members, displayed in the pangram to the right.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
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“It makes me feel guilty that anybody should have such a good time doing what they are supposed to do.” —CHARLES EAMES
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N E AM E S C C E N TURY YM OD ERN Colophon N E AM E S C C E NTUR Y YMOD ERN N E AM E S C C E N T U RY All text is printed in Eames Century Modern of House Industries ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890
Information is gathered from the following:
Website, House Industries, www.houseind.com Essay, Enclosed by Images: The Eameses’ Multimedia Architecture by Beatriz Colomina Essay, Fifteen things Charles and Ray teach us by Keith Yamashita Film, Eames: The Architect and the Painter produced by Quest Productions and Bread and Butter Film
Photographs from the following websites:
Front and Back Cover, http://architectsandartisans.com/index.php/2011/12/ charles-and-ray-eames-debut-on-pbs/ Page 3, http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/1d/ae/43/1dae43da08701 28a249f59e8a475b61e.jpg
“Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world.” —CHARLES EAMES