FRONT COVER
A Typeface Specimen Book for
I Want My MTV! A Type Specimen Book for Linotype Centennial Adrian Frutiger, Typeface Designer Grace Garlesky, Editor and Designer
Linotype Foundry
©2021
https://www.linotype.com
table of contents
introduction........... chapter 1.................. about the type designer
chapter 2............... typeface specimen
chapter 3............... typeface anatomy
colophon...............
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design narrative Centennial is a typeface created by Adrian Frutiger in 1986. This type specimen book was created using a 1980’s design style. The design elements, including bright colors, geometric shapes, and pop culture, all borrow from the 80’s. More specifically, the book focuses on the graphic design and artists featured in MTV (Music Television), which debuted in 1981. Before YouTube existed, MTV was a way for the public to watch music videos, and ended up promoting careers of well-known artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna. By using this style, this book shows the versatility of Centennial as a typeface that can be used universally.
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about the designer Adrian Frutiger, who passed away September 10, 2015, was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of digital typography in the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting, and digital typesetting eras. Aside from creating a large number of world-famous typefaces, he also produced signets and corporate identities for various publishers and industrial enterprises.
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Adrian Frutiger was born on May 24th, 1928 in Switzerland. After attending school, he was a typesetter’s apprentice from 1944 to 1948 at the printing press, Otto Schlaefli AG. After his apprenticeship, he attended the Kunstgewerbeschule, College of Technvical Arts, in Zurich for three years. In 1952, he moved to Paris and became the art director for the Deberny & Peignot Type Foundry. After 10 years of successful work, he left the foundry to open a Graphic Design studio with Andre Gürtler and Bruno Pfäffli in Arcueil near Paris.
At the very young age, he began experimenting with stylized handwriting and invented scripts, defying the formal, cursive penmanship taught at Swiss schools. He was also interested in sculpture. His interest in sculpting was not met with very encouraging views by his father and teachers. However, they supported the idea of him going into the print industry.
Consequently, he entered the world of print yet kept his love for sculpting alive by incorporating the sculpture designs in his typefaces. He began his apprenticeship, at the age of sixteen, as a compositor to the printer Otto Schaerffli, for four years. He also attended school of applied arts, Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich. Here he thrived under the supervision of art instructors like Walter Käch and Alfred Willimann. Frutiger studied monumental inscriptions from Roman forum rubbings, although he primarily focused on calligraphy rather than drafting tools.
Frutiger illustrated the essay, Schrift / Écriture / Lettering: the development of European letter types carved in wood, which earned him a job offer at the French foundry Deberny Et Peignot by Charles Peignot. His wood-engraved essay illustrations displayed his meticulous skills and knowledge of letterforms. At the foundry, he designed various typefaces including Ondine, Méridien, and Président. Upon witnessing his marvelous work, Charles Peignot assigned Frutiger to convert extant typefaces for the new Linotype equipment, phototypesetting.
In 1954, Frutiger’s first commercial typeface Président was released. It was designed in a manner that showcased a set of titling capital letters with small, bracketed serifs. It was followed by Ondine, a calligraphic, informal, script face which translated as Wave in French. Then Méridien appeared the following year, illustrating a glyphic, old-style, serif text face. The typefaces were inspired by Nicholas Jenson’s work. Frutiger clearly demonstrated his ideas of letter construction, unity, and organic form in Méridien. In a few years, he designed slab-serif typefaces. Egyptienne was one of those typefaces that had him commissioned for photocomposition.
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In 1968, Adrian Frutiger became an official advisor for D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, Germany, and therefore also for its successor companies such as Mergenthaler, Linotype, Linotype-Hell and today the Heidelberg subsidiary, Linotype, Bad Homburg. During early 1970s, upon the request of the public transport authority of Paris, Frutiger inspected the Paris Metro signage. Moreover, he recreated Univers typeface in a variant font. It was a set of capitals and numbers designed for whiteon-dark-blue backgrounds visible especially under poor lighting. Upon the successful reception of this modern typeface, the French airport authority commissioned him yet again to work for the new Charles de Gaulle International Airport. He was required to design a wayfinding signage alphabet and in such way that is both legible from afar and from any angle. Frutiger first decided to adapt Univers typeface but then relinquished the idea considering a little outdated. He took a different approach to the matter and altered the Univers typeface and fused it with organic influences of the Eric Gill’s Gill Sans typeface. The resultant typeface was originally titled, Roissy, though it was named after Frutiger in 1976, when it was released for public use. 55 Roman 10/12
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Plus, his computer type OCR B for automatic reading became a worldwide standard in 1973. Adrian Frutiger was a lecturer for ten years at the Ecole Estienne and for eight years at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs, both in Paris. In addition, he has given numerous seminars around the world. From 1963 to 1981, he was responsible for the design and adaptation of typewriter and composer fonts at the IBM World Fair.
Adrian Frutiger was been an active type designer for over thirty years. In this time, he created timeless typefaces such as Avenir, Versailles and Vectora. He also tried to expand and modify these typefaces. He created sixty-three variants of Univers and he reissued Frutiger Next as an extension of Frutiger with true italic and additional weights. He won several awards for his contribution to typography such as The Gutenberg Prize, Medal of the Type Directors Club and Typography Award from SOTA.
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linotype centennial family Linotype Centennial 55 Roman Linotype Centennial 56 Italic Linotype Centennial 75 Bold Linotype Centennial 76 Bold Italic Linotype Centennial 95 Black 18
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alphabet
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ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQR S T U V W X Y Z abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz ,.<>?/:;“‘{}[]|\!@ #$%^&*()_-+=
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A B C D E F G H I JKLMNOPQR S T U V W X Y Z abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz ,.<>?/:;“‘{}[]|\!@ #$%^&*()_-+=
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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz ,.<>?/:;“‘{}[]|\!@ #$%^&*()_-+=
J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz ,.<>?/:;“‘{}[]|\!@
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A B C D E F G H I
#$%^&*()_-+=
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alphabet A B C D E F G H I
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J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz ,.<>?/:;“‘{}[]|\!@ #$%^&*()_-+=
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numbers
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leading
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Twenty years ago, a start-up television network flickered into homes across America with the words, “Ladies and gentlemen, rock `n’ roll.” Since then, MTV has dominated American popular culture with a fusion of media. MTV combined television and radio, two of the most popular mediums at the time, and added a raw flair that was distinctively youth oriented.
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It was the first network to speak directly to the teenage/young adult market and the first network to bring televised music to the masses 24 hours a day. There was no beginning, middle or end to its programs. The network strived to evoke emotions in its viewers through music, visuals and presentation. As MTV began to grow as a network and as a corporation, its programming changed while retaining the network’s raw feel.
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Currently, the total MTV franchise is worth about 20 billion dollars and has offices in 35 countries. Its total viewing population globally approaches one billion through 22 customized feeds in 18 different languages.
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In America alone, MTV is available to 77 million households.
56 Italic The network has suffered from negative criticism saying that it has lost its original goals but even with its massive expansion, MTV still maintains its original character as a teenage driven, sexually charged, fun-filled purveyor of televised music. The concept of music television rose in the late 1970’s due to the need for an outlet for new ideals and culture. American music was dominated by corporate rock, most rock radio stations refused to play new artists. Instead, they resorted to classic rock from years past. Disco was at its peak and punk was just beginning.
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Instead, they resorted to classic rock from years past. Disco was at its peak and punk was just beginning. Music clips, usually short films of live performances, were becoming popular in Europe near the end of the decade, fueled by bands such as Pink Floyd and Duran Duran.
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American recording labels also made clips that were sent overseas to promote their artists. There was no consideration of using the clips domestically to promote music.
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In 1977, ex-Monkee Michael
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Nesmith pioneered the first “music video.” 29
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55 Roman MTV, in full Music Television, cable television network that began as a 24-hour platform for music videos. MTV debuted just after midnight on August 1, 1981, with the broadcast of “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. Following the format of Top 40 radio, video disc jockeys (or “veejays”) introduced videos and bantered about music news between clips. After an initial splash, the network struggled in its early years. The music video reservoir was then somewhat shallow, resulting in frequent repetition of clips, and cable television remained a luxury that had not quite found its market.
MTV expanded its programming to include rhythm and blues artists, and the network took off. Singles such as “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” from Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1982) not only showcased the strengths of the music video format but proved that exposure on MTV could propel artists to superstardom. The network brought success to such newcomers as Madonna and new wave icons Duran Duran, who used increasingly sophisticated techniques to make the visual elements of the video as important as the music.
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MTV also gave renewed life to veteran performers such as ZZ Top, Tina Turner, and Peter Gabriel, each of whom scored the biggest hits of their careers thanks to heavy rotation of their videos. By the mid1980s, MTV had produced a noticeable effect on motion pictures, commercials, and television. It also changed the music industry; looking good (or at least interesting) on MTV became as important as sounding good when it came to selling recordings. In 1985 entertainment conglomerate Viacom Inc. purchased MTV Networks, the parent corporation of MTV, from Warner Communications Inc., and the shift in content was both dramatic and immediate.
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Instead of free-form playlists of music that covered a veejay’s entire shift, videos were packaged into discrete blocks based on genre. This gave rise to specialty shows such as 120 Minutes (alternative rock), Headbangers Ball (heavy metal), and Yo! MTV Raps (hip-hop). Before long, game shows, reality shows, animated cartoons, and soap operas began to appear in the MTV lineup, and the network shifted its focus from music to youth-oriented pop culture. By the mid-1990s, the majority of MTV’s daily schedule was devoted to programming that was not related to music.
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Its sister station VH1 had been broadcasting adult-oriented rock videos since 1985, and it soon filled the vacuum, with original content such as Pop Up Video and the documentary series Behind the Music. MTV Networks launched MTV2 in 1996, with the intention of recapturing the spirit embodied by their “I want my MTV” advertising campaign in the 1980s. MTV2 started with the same free-form structure that characterized early MTV, but it soon shifted to genre-specific programs.
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By 2005 MTV2 had followed the same course as its parent network, with the bulk of its schedule consisting of reality shows, celebrity coverage, and comedies. While music had a reduced presence on MTV, videos remained important to the network and its image. Beginning in 1984, MTV honoured achievement in the format with its annual Video Music Awards. Total Request Live (TRL), an hour-long interview and music video show, debuted in 1998 and anchored the weekday lineup. By the early 21st century, however, MTV increasingly sought to position itself as a destination for music on the Internet.
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Its Web site offered streaming video and audio content, and in 2007 it launched Rhapsody America, a joint venture with RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless, as a subscription-based alternative to Apple Inc.’s wildly popular iTunes service; in 2010 it was spun off as the independent company Rhapsody International. Partly because of the popularity of viewing music videos on the Internet, TRL was canceled in 2008, though it returned in 2017. In addition to its American properties, MTV maintained several continentwide channels and numerous countryspecific channels across the world.
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56 Italic Britney Spears is the quintessential ‘TRL’ success story. She premiered her very first music video, “Baby One More Time,” on the show in 1999, which immediately reached the number one spot on the countdown. From there, the show’s audience grew up with the singer. Over the show’s 11 year run, she had the most videos top the countdown of any female artist. Post-‘TRL,’ she continues to thrive on pop radio. There were only two artists that could shut down Times Square when they appeared on ‘TRL’ and *NSYNC was one of them.
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Like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera grew up on ‘TRL.’ She premiered her first video on the show, though she didn’t hit number one until her second single premiered. The show’s audience witnessed Aguilera’s many transformations on the show, from sweet and innocent to “dirrty” to classic. And her success endured long after the show went off the air. Pop punk was starting to make a comeback in the late 1990s-early 2000s with Blink-182 carrying on the torch from bands like Green Day and The Offspring. With catchy, fun tracks and creative music videos that poked fun at just about everyone, the band became huge on ‘TRL.’
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Looking back at number one lists, it interesting just how much pop punk influenced the countdown in the early-mid 2000s. Sum 41 and My Chemical Romance both did extremely well on the show while Simple Plan, Fall Out Boy and New Found Glory all topped the countdown at least once. But Good Charlotte seemed to earn the most rock glory from the show. All of the singles from the band’s sophomore album topped the countdown multiple times and “The Anthem” even became song of the year for 2003. Twins Joel and Benji Madden became overnight celebrities and socialites from the popularity they earned on the show.
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Besides bubblegum pop, ‘TRL’ also brought us nu metal. Korn were regulars on the countdown, consistently landing singles at number one. But none of the other nu metal bands got as much from being on the show as Limp Bizkit did. They didn’t spend much time at number one, but Fred Durst ended up being a “spokesmodel” for the genre. His backwards red cap, white t-shirt and cargo shorts became a fashion trend. He had the privilege of pretending to date Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. If it wasn’t for ‘TRL,’ he’d have become irrelevant far sooner.
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How many white rappers do you know of that have proven their staying power more than Eminem. But when his work was introduced to the world on ‘TRL’ back in 2000, he was a relative unknown. After his music took hold and started topping the countdown, he gained a lot more ground in the industry; He started his own label, signed 50 Cent (who also did really well on ‘TRL’) and D12 (who he also performed with), and has won several Grammys including many for Best Rap Album and one for Album of the Year for ‘Recovery.’
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CHAP TER 3
TYPE FACE ANA TOMY
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cente aperture
ascender line cap height
cross stroke
x-height
baseline
descender line
open counter
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finial
eye
shoulder
terminal
ascender
nnial serif
tittle
bowl
spur
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counter
arm axis
overshoot shoulder
leg crossbar bracket
stem
neck
ear
tail loop 42
characteristics a transitional, serif font roman and light cuts
vertical stress high-contrast strokes
curved, upright tails
emphatic ball terminals high x-height
slightly condensed forms 43
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CO LO PHON
credits: https://www.fontshop.com/content/adrian-frutiger-1928-2015 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mtv-launches http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/index.php/the-age-of-information/theinternational-typographic-style/176-adrian-frutiger https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/leaving-neverland-what-do-michael-jackson-smusic-n981241 https://medium.com/@vinylbay777/seven-artists-who-became-popular-on-mtvs-totalrequest-live-fab12b606530 https://sites.google.com/site/charisselpree2/research/MIT-CMS/mtv/one-world-oneimage-one-channel
fonts used: Centennial LT Pro 55 Roman Centennial LT Pro 56 Italic Centennial LT Pro 75 Bold Centennial LT Pro 76 Bold Italic Centennial LT Pro 95 Black
BACK COVER
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