Paul Mitchell Design Context
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1450
Generally regarded as the inventor of printing, in Mainz, Germany, in the 1440s. In fact it is likely his actual invention was limited to the brass moulds and matrices to produce lead type accurately in large quantities. (Laurens Koster in Haarlem probably made moveable type somewhat earlier.) Gutenberg brought together many existing technologies in the form of the screw press, wood-engraving, and punchcutting already used in many aspects of metal-working. His mission, like all the very early printers, was to emulate the writing of contemporary scribes. www.fontfactory.com
1530
‘Garamond is the original typographic naming disaster--a source of ongoing confusion. There are many types called “Garamond”, almost to the point where garamond has emerged as a category among serif text faces. What most of the Garamonds have in common is that they are more-or-less accurate revivals either of type cut by Claude Garamond in the late fifteenth century, or of type cut by Jean Jannon in the mid-16th century.’ http://typophile.com
1725 ‘[Caslon] is perhaps the most controversial face in history. Some persons consider it the greatest type ever (they have popularized a motto, ‘When in doubt, use Caslon’) and others think it overrated, a collection of mistakes, elusively out of keeping with everything. But—it works, is highly readable, alive, with warmth and open dignity that has no pretense whatsoever. Caslon is the prime example of a typeface in which the individual letters are nothing, but the total effect is strong and honest—the reverse of an allstar performance in which each letter has such perfection that it competes to be noticed.’ Ben Lieberman, Types of Typefaces (1967)
1754 ‘Designed by John Baskerville as his reaction to improving the Caslon typeface Baskerville remains metaphoric of the transitional period [between the Old Style and Modern]. He practiced designing typefaces with higher contrast strokes and geometric letterforms which were less influenced by its more humanist cousin Caslon. Baskerville’s ideologies were an influence to both Didot and Bodoni who lead the way to the modern type period.’ http://fontdeck.com
1767 ‘The Bodoni font distinguishes itself through the strength of its characters and embodies the rational thinking of the Enlightenment. The new typefaces displaced the Old Face and Transitional styles and was the most popular typeface until the mid-19th century. Bodoni’s influence on typography was dominant until the end of the 19th century and even today inspires new creations. Working with this font requires care, as the strong emphasis of the vertical strokes and the marked contrast between the fine and thick lines lessens Bodoni’s legibility, and the font is therefore better in larger print with generous spacing.’ www.myfonts.com
1799 ‘Didones are most commonly used for display and semi-display purposes, where the accentuated contrasts or stroke width create dynamic and elegant graphic effects. While these characteristics are moderated in the smaller sizes to allow for their use in text setting, the extremes of contrast impair readability, making them a less practical choice where large amounts of copy are to be set. At smaller sizes, the delicate hairlines can break up when printed on inferior papers, or fill in when reversed out of solids. The effective use of Didone typefaces depends upon high-quality printing and paper, and serves in turn to demonstrate that quality. As a consequence, they are frequently used to denote values of exclusivity and sophistication.’ http://alyssabastien.blogspot.com
1845 ‘Clarendon is a slab-serif typeface created in 1845 by typographer and Lord Mayor of London, Robert Besley. The typeface was originally created for use by the Fann Street Foundry, a type foundry that specialized in display fonts. The name “Clarendon” comes from the Clarendon Press, a branch of the Oxford University Press. Because of Besley’s foresight and business acumen, Clarendon holds the distinction of being the first patented typeface in history. However, because of the popularity of the typeface, the patent didn’t stop imitators from duplicating the typeface and flooding the market with bootleg versions of Clarendon.’ http://kernthat.blogspot.com
1912 ‘The Cochin font is based on the work of eighteenth-century punchcutter, Cochin. Charles Peignot commissioned the revival of this strong typeface in 1912. The capitals are squarish. The lowercase has long ascenders and sharp serifs, giving Cochin an unusual elegance. The curved ascender in the italic lowercase d is a major characteristic and the p and q lack foot serifs. Cochins overall vivacity derives from the engravings on copper, produced in France in the eighteenth century.’ www.itcfonts.com
1926 ‘The typeface was adopted by Germany in 1936 as a standard known as DIN 1451 (DIN is an acronym for Deutsches Institut für Normung—in English, the German Institute for Standardization). The typeface became a standard for traffic signs, street signs, house numbers and license plates. Over the next decades the typeface also found use on various household goods and products, making it synonymous with German design.’ http://idsgn.org
1927 ‘Unlike the ubiquitous and easily adaptable Helvetica, Futura can often be challenging to use. It was one of the first sans-serif fonts developed, and it was a radical departure from typography’s past. Developed by Paul Renner in 1928, Futura was a study in geometry. The characters are based on perfectly proportioned squares, triangles and circles, and the stroke is almost perfectly even throughout. These geometric shapes, however, coupled with exaggerated ascenders and descenders often create awkward spaces and can be problematic from a readability standpoint.’ http://mslk.com/reactions/
1930 ‘Gill Sans is the Helvetica of England; ubiquitous, utilitarian and yet also quite specific in its ability to point to our notions of time and place. As a graphic designer’s in-joke once put it ‘Q. How do you do British post-war design? A. Set it in Gill Sans and print it in British Racing Green’. As the preferred typeface of British establishments (the Railways, the Church, the BBC and Penguin Books), Gill Sans is part of the British visual heritage just like the Union Jack and the safety pin. So to pick an argument with something that is akin to a typographic national monument might appear unwise; it is so very much ‘ours’. But it is a flawed masterpiece.’ Ben Archer, http://www.typotheque.com
1931 ‘I think most people, whether interested in design matters or not, probably take Times New Roman for granted. I know I do. It’s one of those quietly hardworking typefaces that is very easy to read and with nothing in the way of quirky or artistic flourishes.
Times New Roman is a rather puritanical typeface. It’s easy to imagine its individual letters dressed in sober Cromwellian garb. Baskerville is a Cavalier among types while Perpetua, something of a young goddess. As far as any typeface can be, Times New Roman is timeless. It is the serif equivalent, perhaps of a modern sans-serif type like Helvetica: clean, clear, regular and precise – a highly usable and more than satisfactory working tool.’ Jonathan Glancey, http://www.guardian.co.uk
1934 Rockwell is a geometric slab serif design. Like many of its squareserif cousins, Rockwell has very heavy serifs with no bracketing. Changes in stroke weight are imperceptible. Rockwell is an exceptionally robust design that evokes a feeling of straightforward honesty when set in text composition. It’s a strong, adaptable display face for headlines and posters, and is also legible in short text blocks. With nine weights, the Rockwell typeface family is a powerful and versatile graphic communicator. www.fonts.com
1938 ‘The typeface was commissioned by AT&T as a proprietary typeface for use in telephone directories. Bell Gothic was superseded by Matthew Carter’s typeface Bell Centennial in 1978, the one hundredth anniversary of AT&T’s founding. Bell Gothic remained in uninterrupted use for AT&T telephone directories for forty years. Following AT&T’s adoption of Bell Centennial, the Mergenthaler Linotype foundry licensed Bell Gothic for general use. Beginning in the early 1990s Bell Gothic became popular and associated with avant garde experimentation with type at places like the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and RISD. The typeface was used as a display and caption face by Metropolis magazine, by Canadian graphic designer Bruce Mau in designing the initial ZONE book series, Dutch graphic designer Irma Boom, and has been widely used by Semiotext(e) Books, the MIT Press, and Dia Art Foundation.’ http://typedia.com
1957 ‘I don’t really get Univers but love Helvetica. The lovely sweep and subtlly modulating thicknesses of the lowercase Helvetica “a” is much more interesting (and distinctive) than the cramped Univers affair. I would also cite (in no particular order) the Helvetica “k,” “e,” “G,” and “Q” as head and (“slightly” square) shoulders above Univers alternatives. All Helvetica’s numerals are better than those in Univers, especially the swan necked “2” and the sprung “7” but also, less obviously, the sensitive proportions of the “3.” Even the ampersand and asterisk are superior in Helvetica...’ Simon Palmer http://www.graphicshowroom.com/
1957 ‘If I had to pick a side I would, without doubt, pick Univers as the superior typeface. It looks great in body text whereas Helvetica isn’t balanced as well. Although, I use Helvetica when I feel it suits the need.’ http://www.stephenleeogden.com ‘Univers was designed by Adrian Frutiger and released in the same year as Helvetica. Many Univers characters echo the problems that are found in Helvetica, especially in the almost closed forms and in the fact it had a sloped roman instead of an italic. But Univers was a much more original design, with one strong feature that was new in type design: it was made up of an almost scientific system of 21 weights and widths that could be mixed perfectly. It was an answer to the jungle of different sans serif faces that lacked a clear system of weights and widths.’ http://www.eyemagazine.com
1955
‘On the one hand, Courier New is the voice of raw clarity and transparency. It can be absorbed quickly, with little relative effort, which is why it is still the preferred font for screenplay drafts (many film festivals require copies of scripts in Courier 12). On the other hand, precisely because it has become the visual connoter of the kind of government doings executed by McNamara and his ilk, it has come to serve as blunt shorthand for secrecy or for the chilling revelation brought to light. Witness the appearance of Courier (or similar typewriter fonts) in places like the film poster for Costa-Gavras’ Z, or the “X” in The X-Files, or any number of History Channel documentaries dealing with espionage.’ Tom Vanderbilt, http://www.slate.com
1965 ‘American Type Founders designed OCR-A in 1966 to be read explicitly by machines. To wit: All the character forms are the exact same width, which is great for processing data -- not so great for human eyeballs. Nevertheless, it has become wildly popular among graphic designers for its retrotechy aesthetic.’ http://www.fastcodesign.com
1968 ‘The only place Avant Garde looks good is in the words Avant Garde. Everybody ruins it. They lean the letters the wrong way.’ Ed Benguiat ‘The first time Avant Garde was used was one of the few times it was used correctly. It’s become the most abused typeface in the world.’ Tony DiSpigna
1969
‘Type Director Colin Brignall designed Aachen Bold in the 1960’s to capitalize on the freedom that photosetting and dry transfer lettering offered.’ www.letraset.com
1977 ‘The availability of many variants and weights as well as its excellent legibility make Frutiger a very versatile font. It can be used for anything that needs a distinct and clean or modern look. Keep in mind that Frutiger is one of Linotype’s best selling fonts: it is not exactly an exclusive font.’ http://www.prepressure.com
1986 ‘Spierkermann’s original brief for the German Post Office in 1984 called for a font optimized for “the detailed requirements of small type on bad papier”. This earlier font (PT 55) was not accepted by the customer and the project was cancelled. Finally launched under the FF Meta brand name, it was one of the most popular typefaces of the last decade, often referred as “the Helvetica of the 90’s”.’ http://www.planet-typography.com
1991
‘Hoefler Text is a serif typeface designed in 1991 by Jonathan Hoefler. Apple Computer commissioned Hoefler to create a typeface that would show off the Mac’s ability to handle complex typography with its advanced type technologies. Starting with System 7.5, every version of the Macintosh operating system has included a version of it. For sometime now, I’ve used Hoefler Text as my default font. It’s compact without being cramped, formal without being stuffy, and distinctive without being obtrusive. Jeff Croft sums it up perfectly: “You may never need another body type.” Mark Womack, http://obsessionwithdetail.net
1992 ‘With the release of Adobe Illustrator version 10 a decade ago, Myriad became the application’s default font (an honor previously held by Helvetica). In turn, it became the default font for a generation of design dabblers and print shops—to whom the font dialog will remain a mystery. The typeface has shipped with its Creative Suite software ever since. Perhaps as a result, Myriad remains popular today, and can be spotted everywhere.’ http://idsgn.org
1994 ‘First released in 1994, Interstate was based loosely on the font family Highway Gothic, used by the United States Federal Highway Administration for road signs. Despite the specificity of its origins, Interstate was embraced universally by graphic designers and has been used on most everything, including the 2000 U.S. Census.’ http://www.typotheque.com
2002 ‘Back in 2002, House released Christian Schwartz’s Neutraface, a family of fonts based on the architectural lettering specified by Richard Neutra in his gorgeous, modern architectural designs. It was epic. The type appeals to me on so many levels. In fact, architectural lettering was one of the factors most exciting to me about moving to Los Angeles several years ago. But it occurred to me yesterday when looking at my junk mail (the physical kind that arrives in your mail box) that Neutraface is now everywhere. It’s an epidemic. It’s managed to find its way into all sorts of unlikely and inappropriate places—in my opinion, it’s somehow jumped the gap from highbrow to lowbrow better than any of House’s fonts that were intended to be lowbrow.’ Josh Korwin, www.threestepsahead.com
2008 ‘Museo was conceived out of the love for one letter form. In some kind of daydream I saw before me the letter ‘U’ with the endings bent. So it really started with my love for the letter ‘U’. The design of Museo was fairly straight forward. I remember a few things that really determined the design… Museo looked a bit like some piece of bent metal wire so I thought of making the stroke contrast as low as possible and I also wanted to keep the shapes simple like for instance a nice round geometric “O”.’ Jos Buivenga
2010 ‘We started working on the Eames collection in earnest over three years ago, although we first started talking to the family in 1999. For us, there’s a lot of historic research, then even more hand wringing as we try to create beautiful and functional typefaces that honor their source material. We partnered with Dutch type designer Erik van Blokland to create the main text family, and I know he spent a solid three years on that alone.’ Rich Roat, www.houseind.com