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type specimen book
Scala Sans
Continuous stroke weight
0 Scala
Sans
fontshop foundry
designed in 1993
ABCDEFGHIJKLM
humanist sans
angled finial
a
0 A
Scala Sans came into existence in 1993 at the hand of Martin Majoor. It was designed to be the sibling to Scala, the “all type,” meaning it would contain true italics, small caps, ligatures, Roman style lettering, and old style numbering. His main purpose for designing this font family was because most typefaces available at the time had none of the aforementioned in their sets. Scala Sans falls under the Humanist Sans Serifs classification, a category that didn’t become popular until the early twentieth century. The classification was created because a body copy typeface was needed in the modern world that was a sans serif, one that can be familiar to the mind of mankind. In the early world of the 90s, designs were blocky, overused scroll-down menus, and were mainly using serif typefaces. Because of the grungy, rebellious, manner of that time, designs were usually out of the norm jumbled, etc. It is labeled as such because
Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff G
of aspects such as the angled terminals and the inspiration that was gained from the handwriting of Italian scribes, particularly letters like the lowercase g and a. Having those two story letters in the typeface set give a better sense of being recognizable and gaining a better readability. Throughout the 90’s era, Scala and Scala Sans were the only available typeface pair that could be bought through the FontShop/FontFont foundry. As an example, a news-paper in the Netherlands, “Algemeen Dagblad”—March 2005—, utilized both Scala and Scala Sans in its production. The Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri also utilizes the Scala Sans typeface on its welcoming doors.
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
martin
r
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g Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq R
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Short, hooking terminal
Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
Diagonal stroke is not straight; it curves at the points
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Structured with varying stroke weights
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“Scala Sans has become…
Martin Majoor was born October 14, 1960 in Baarn of the Netherlands. His first typeface was designed when he was twelve after his father brought home a printed receipt of plays from a chess game. This receipt was made of dotted inks that created the letters and it intrigued Majoor so he borrowed the receipt and copied down each of the letters. However, the alphabet was incomplete and Majoor had to create his own renditions of those letters. He gained an education at the School of Fine Arts in Anrhem and also worked at URW in Hamburg. In 1984, at URW, Martin gained the opportunity to work with the first type design system, Ikarus.
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While working on Ikarus, he created his first digital design. Martin Majoor later got a job at the Vredenburg Music Centre of Utrecht in 1990 where Scala was introduced. “At the time Scala and Seria were designed, my motto had been two typefaces, one form principle...” Majoor now spends his time as an independent writer and designer of typefaces, books, and articles. Some of his typefaces include Serré, Scala and Scala Sans, Ocean, Telefont, and Seria and Seria Sans.
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Left side of crossbar is slightly longer than the right
wo typefaces,
ne form principle.”
Looks more like a zero than an o
…a lesson in how much one learns.”
Scala Sans has become a favorite typeface of mine; a lesson in how much one learns. This typeface is charming in its manner of being so clean-cut with precise angles and it being different, like the way the descender of the lowercase “j” is both angular and curved. Though, the OCD in me finds the slight incline in the left perpendicular intersects of the lowercase f and t’s cross strokes bothersome. When compared to other typefaces such as DIN or Clarendon, the amount of differences between them was substantial such as things like the stroke weights and ascender of the lowercase “f” stretching out wider than most. Scala Sans would be great for body copy because of the Humanist Sans characteristics
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such as the oval letterforms and the wide apertures that each letter possesses. It would also be a great display font or web font because of its features, such as the subtle variances between the thick and thin stroke weights and the readability. The open readability of Scala Sans makes it a friendly typeface, one that is easily approachable and usable.
left half of cross stroke is sloped
The zero is being used to identify certain characteristics of this typeface; to show the versatile usability of Scala Sans
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Descender is both curved and angular
6 7 8 9 Uneven horizontal apexes
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Fall 2012
ypography 1
Jennifer Abate KCAI