Flapper Fonts
Five Fonts Designed in the 1920s
Dd
Ff
6 Heinrich Jost
Ee
Bodoni is a series of serif typefaces
first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in 1798. The typeface is
classified as Didone modern. Bodoni
followed the ideas of John Baskerville,
Bb
Gg
Hh
as found in the printing type
Ii
Baskerville, that of increased stroke
contrast and a more vertical, slightly
condensed, upper case, but taking
them to a more extreme conclusion. The Bauer Type Foundry version was
Aa
drawn by Heinrich Jost in 1926. The
Bauer version emphasizes the extreme
contrast between hairline and main stroke. The series consists of the
following weights: Roman, Title, Bold, Italic, and Italic Bold.
Cc
Bauer Bodoni
7 Paul Renner
Futura is based on geometric shapes that became representative visual
elements of the Bauhaus design style
of 1919–1933. Commissioned by the
Bauer Type Foundry, in reaction
to Ludwig & Mayer’s seminal Erbar of 1922, Futura was commercially released in 1927. The type family was
originally cast in Light, Medium, Bold, and Bold Oblique fonts in 1928. Light
Oblique, MediumOblique, Demibold, and Demibold Oblique fonts were
later released in 1930. Book font was
released in 1932. Book Oblique font was released in 1939. Extra Bold
font was designed by Edwin W. Shaar in 1952. Extra Bold Italic font was
designed in 1955 by Edwin W. Shaar
and Tommy Thompson. Matrices for machine composition were made by
Intertype, a typecasting company.
Bb
Cc
Gg
Ff
Ii
6 Eric Gill
The original design appeared in 1926 when Douglas Cleverdon opened a
bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where Eric Gill painted the fascia over
the window in sans-serif capitals that would later be known as Gill Sans. In
addition, Gill had sketched a design
for Cleverdon, intended as a guide
for him to make future notices and
Ee
Hh
Aa
announcements. Gill further developed
it into a complete font family after
Stanley Morison commissioned the
development of Gill Sans to combat
the families of Erbar, Futura and Kabel
which were being launched in Germany during the latter 1920s. Gill Sans was later released in 1928 by Monotype
Dd
Corporation. Gill Sans is a classic.
Dd
Cc
8 George William Jones
Granjon is an old style serif typeface
designed by George William Jones
(1860–1942) in the period 1928–1929,
Ii
and based on the Garamond typeface
Ee
that was used in a book printed by
the Parisian Jean Poupy in 1592. The
Aa
roman design was from Claude
Bb Ff
Gg
Garamond and the italic version was
from Robert Granjon. Because several
other Garamonds were on the market
in the 1920s, Jones decided to name his
type Granjon. Many of the Garamond
revivals of the 1920s were later shown
to be actually based on the types
of Jean Jannon. A longtime popular text type, Granjon’s digital version is
sometimes criticized as being “anemic,” or frail, in smaller point sizes.
Granjon
Gg
Dd
7 Rudolf Koch
Kabel is a geometric sans-serif typeface
Bb
designed by German typeface designer Rudolf Koch, and released by the
Klingspor foundry in 1927. The face was
named to honor the newly completed
Hh
Ff
trans-Atlantic telephone cable. Today the typeface is licensed by the
Elsner+Flake GbR foundry.
Like its contemporary Futura it bears
influence of two earlier geometric sans-
Aa
Ee
serif typefaces; the 1919 Feder Schrift,
drawn by Jakob Erbar, and more so his 1922 design called Erbar. Still, Kabel
comes less out of the influences of
German modernism, but more German expressionism. Stroke weights are more
varied than most geometric sans-serifs, and the terminus of vertical strokes are
cut to a near eight-degree angle.
Cc
Ii
Kabel
Maryland Institute College of Art
Designed by Lizzie Tonkin
Typography I, Jennifer Cole Phillips
2011