10 BEST TYPEFACES by MYMIND

?? CONTENT

10 BESTTYPE FA C E S

NO.1 HELVETICA

DIDOT .02

0 3 F U T U R A

4.ROCKEWELL

NUMBER 5 Myriad

4 6 8

06 Basker ville

NO.7 DIN

8 . Berlin

20 22

Sans

NO.9 Times New Roman

OPTIMA 10.

BEST TYPE FACE S

Helvetica

max Eduar mie ding er TYPEFACE DESIGNER

H off m ann

Hel ve ‘‘

‘‘

Helvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) of Münchenstein, Switzerland. Haas set out to design a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with the successful Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss market. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, its design was based on Schelter-Grotesk and Haas’ Normal Grotesk. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage. In 1960, the typeface’s personification of the Swiss name was changed by Confederation (Confoederatio Haas’ German parent Helvetica), similar Britannia in the co mp a n y Stempel to Hel- United Kingdom, Marianne in vetica (meaning Swiss in France and historically Columbia Latin) in order to make it more in the United States. Helvetia’s marketable internationally. The figure is used on Swiss government word’s origins come from a documents and currency. “CH” is derivative of the Swiss goddess, often used as an abbreviation for Helvetia. She is the national “Switzerland”.

dido DI DOT

Firmin Didot

Didot is a name given to a group of typefaces named after the famous French printing and type producing family. The classification is known as modern, or Didone. The typeface we know today was based on a collection of related types developed in the period 1784–1811. Firmin Didot (1764–1836) cut the letters, and cast them as type in Paris. His brother, Pierre Didot (1760–1853) used the types in printing. His edition of La Henriade by Voltaire in 1818 is considered his masterwork.

“

The typeface takes inspiration from John Baskerville’s experimentation with increasing stroke contrast and a more condensed armature. The Didot family’s development of a high contrast typeface with an increased stress is contemporary to similar faces developed by Giambattista Bodoni in Italy. Didot is described as neoclassical, and is evocative of the Age of Enlightenment. Several revivals of the Didot faces have been made, most of them for hot metal typesetting. Like Bodoni, early digital versions suffered from a syndrome called “dazzle”–the hairline strokes in smaller point sizes nearly disappearing in printing. Among the more successful contemporary adaptations are

the ones drawn by Adrian Frutiger for the Linotype foundry, and by Jonathan Hoefler for H&FJ. Both designs anticipate the degradation of hairline in smaller point sizes by employing heavier weighted strokes in the smaller point sizes. This font has also been altered on Madonna’s album MDNA.

FUTURA

FU TURA Paul Renner

Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1927 by Paul Renner. It was designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project. It is based on geometric shapes that became representative of 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 1936. The f amily Although Renner was not associated with was originally the Bauhaus, he shared many of its idioms c a s t i n L i g h t , and believed that a modern typeface Medium, Bold, and should express modern models, rather than Bold Oblique fonts in be a revival of a previous design. Renner’s 1928. Light Oblique, Medium initial design included several geometriOblique, Demibold, and Demibold cally constructed alternative characters and Oblique fonts were later released in 1930. ranging (old-style) figures, which can be Book font was released in 1932. Book found in the typeface Architype Renner. Oblique font was released in 1939. Extra Bold font was designed by Edwin W. Shaar Futura has an appearance of efficiency and in 1952. Extra Bold Italic font was designed forwardness. The typeface is derived from in 1955 by Edwin W. Shaar and Tommy simple geometric forms (near-perfect circles, Thompson. Matrices for machine composi- triangles and squares) and is based on tion were made by Intertype. strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. In designing Futura, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating nonessential elements. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals

RO WE 04

Rockwell

Frank Hinman PierFRANK HINMAN pont PIERPONT

OCK ELL Rockwell is a serif typeface

belonging to the classification slab serif, or Egyptian, where the serifs are unbracketed and similar in weight to the horizontal strokes of the letters. The typeface was designed at the Monotype foundry’s in-house design studio in 1934.The project was supervised by Frank Hinman Pierpont.

Slab serifs are similar in form and in typographic voice to realist sans-serifs like Akzidenz Grotesk or Franklin Gothic. Rockwell is geometric, its upper- and lowercase O more of a circle than an ellipse. A serif at the apex of uppercase A is distinct. The lowercase a is two-story, somewhat incongruous for a geometrically drawn typeface.

Because of its monoweighted stroke, Rockwell is used primarily for display rather than lengthy bodies of text. Rockwell is based on an earlier, more condensed slab serif design called Litho Antique. The 1933 design for Monotype was supervised by Frank Hinman Pierpont. The Guinness World Records used Rockwell in some of their early-1990s editions. Informational signage at Expo 86 made extensive use of the Rockwell typeface. Docklands Light Railway also used a bold weight of this typeface in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. It is also used by the poetry publisher Tall Lighthouse for all their books, as well as on their website. The New York Times uses a similar typeface, Stymie Extra Bold, for the headlines and some other typographical uses in its Sunday magazine. The letterform of Stymie Extra Bold’s lower-case “t” is highly geometrical, whereas Rockwell’s Extra Bold has a rounded letterform. The ascender of the Rockwell “t” is also cut at a sharp angle not to be found in the Stymie typeface. The CW television network has used Rockwell in its on-air identity since 2009 in addition to Avant Garde Gothic.

1 1

my riad

1 2

Myriad is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems. The typeface is best known for its usage by Apple Inc., replacing Apple Garamond as Apple’s corporate font since 2002. Myriad is easily distinguished from other sans-serif fonts due to its special “y” descender (tail) and slanting “e” cut. Myriad is similar to Frutiger. As is the case with every typeface, the A Multiple Master typeface is created appearance of the Myriad font family using visual axes: for character was shaped by the tools of its time. weight, character width or optical size, for example. By means of the When Adobe launched its groundtwo- or three-dimensional breaking Multiple Master technology coordinate system, thousands of (MM) in 1992, its capabilities were fonts within a family can be unprecedented in the history of created without destroying the typography. forms of the characters by compressing or distorting them.

Myriad

Robert Slimbach

Carol Twombly