Type Through
The
1900’s
This decade opened the century with some amazing feats like the first flight by the Wright brothers, Henry Ford’s first Model-T, and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. It also had hardships like the Boxer Rebellion and the San Francisco Earthquake. The 1900s also saw the introduction of the first silent movie and teddy bear. Plus, don’t miss out in discovering more about the mysterious explosion in Siberia.
Morris
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was an influential American typeface designer who headed the design department of the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was the chief type designer from 1900 to 1937. Benton was America’s most prolific type designer, having completed 221 typefaces, ranging from revivals of historical models like ATF Bodoni, to adding new weights to existing faces such as Goudy Old Style and Cheltenham,
Fueller Benton
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1900 Century 1900 Gothic 1901 Card Mercantile 1901 Wedding text 1902 Typo Script 1902 Engravers Bold 1903 Frank Gorthic 1903 Cheltenham 1903 Bulfinch Oldstyle 1904 Cloister Black 1905 Typo Upright 1906 Engravers Shaded 1907 Clearface 1908 News Gothic 1909 Bodoni series
and to designing original designs such as Hobo, Bank Gothic, and Broadway. Benton’s large family of related neogrotesque sans-serif typefaces, known as “gothics” as was the norm at the time, includes Alternate Gothic, Franklin Gothic, and News Gothic. These typefaces better anticipated and were more similar to later realist sans-serif typefaces such as Helvetica than the other early grotesque types
1910’s
This decade was unfortunately dominated by the first “total war” -- World War I. It also saw other huge changes during the Russian Revolution and the beginning of Prohibition. Tragedy struck when a fire rampaged through Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the “unsinkable” Titanic hit an iceberg. and the Spanish flu killed millions around the world. On a more positive note, people in the 1910s got their first taste of an Oreo cookie and could fill out their first crossword.
Bruce
Rogers
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was an American typographer and type designer, acclaimed by some as among the greatest book designers of the twentieth century. Rogers was known for his “classical” style of design, rejecting modernism, never using asymmetrical arrangements, rarely
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1913 Cloister 1913 Della Robbia Light 1913 Cromwell 1913 Packard 1914 Souvenir 1916 Centaur 1916 Goudy 1919 Garamond 1915 Bakersville Roman 1917 Sterling 1919 American Caslon
using sans serif type faces, favoring stolid roman faces such as Caslon and his own Centaur. His books now fetch high sums at auction.
1920’s
The Roaring ‘20s were a time of speakeasies, short skirts, the Charleston dance, and jazz music. The 1920s also showed great strides in Women’s Suffrage and archaeology hit the mainstream with the discovery of King Tut’s Tomb. There were an amazing number of cultural firsts in the 1920s, including the first talking film, Babe Ruth hitting his home-run record, and the first Mickey Mouse cartoon
Paul
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was a typeface designer, most notably of Futura. He was born in Wernigerode, Germany and died in Hödingen.
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1924 Schoolbook Oldstyle 1926 Futura 1926 Bulmer Roman 1926 Gill Sans 1926 Perpetua 1926 Canterbury 1927 Kabel 1929 Bembo 1927 Futura 1928 Broadway 1928 Chic
He was born in Prussia and had a strict Protestant upbringing, being educated in a 19th century Gymnasium. He was brought up to have a very German sense of leadership, of duty and respon-
1930’s
The Great Depression hit the world hard in the 1930s. The Nazis took advantage of this situation and were able to come to power in Germany, establish their first concentration camp, and begin a systematic persecution of Jews in Europe. Other news in the 1930s included the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a wild and murderous crime spree by Bonnie and Clyde, and the imprisonment of Al Capone for income tax evasion.
Victor
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was a British advertising designer and draftsman at The Times, London. He created the font Times New Roman under the direction of Stanley Morison in 1932.
Lardent
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1930 Bodoni 1930 Tempo 1930 Karnak 1931 Times New Roman 1932 Mayfair Cursive 1934 Mandate 1937 Coronet 1938 Radient 1938 Stencil 1939 Balloon
1940’s
World War II was already underway by the time the 1940s began and it was definitely the big event of the first half of the decade. Plus, the Nazis established death camps in their effort to murder millions of Jews during the Holocaust. When World War II ended, the Cold War began. The 1940s also witnessed the assassination of Gandhi and the beginning of Apartheid.
Herman
Zapf
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is a German typeface designer who lives in Darmstadt, Germany. He is married to calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf von Hesse. Zapf’s work, which includes Palatino and Optima, has been widely copied, often against his will. The best known example may be Monotype’s Book
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Antiqua, which shipped with Microsoft Office and was widely considered a “knockoff” of Palatino. In 1993, Zapf resigned from ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) over what he viewed as its hypocritical attitude toward unauthorized copying by prominent ATypI members
1940 Astur 1940 Albertus 1940 Samson 1940 Stylescript 1941 Flair 1941 Coron 1942 Brush Script 1947 Fairfield 1948 Artscript 1948 Palatino
1950’s
The 1950s are sometimes referred to as the Golden Age. Color TV was invented; the polio vaccine was discovered; Disneyland opened; and Elvis gyrated his hips on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Cold War continued as the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union began. The 1950s also saw segregation ruled illegal in the U.S. and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.
Max
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was a Swiss typeface designer. He was famous for creating Neue Haas Grotesk typeface in 1957 which was renamed Helvetica in 1960. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica went global at once. Between 1926 and 1930, Max was trained as a
Miedinger
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1951 Dom Casual 1952 Micrograma 1953 Mistral 1954 Ondine 1954 President !955 Meridien 1955 Optima 1956 Egyptienne 1957 Helvetica 1957 Univers
typesetter in Zürich, after which he attended evening classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich. Later, he became a typographer for Globus department store’s advertising studio in Zürich, and became a customer counselor and typeface sales representative for the Haas’sche
1960’s
To many, the 1960s can be summed up as the Vietnam War, hippies, drugs, protests, and rock and roll. (A common joke goes “If you remember the sixties, you weren’t there.”) Although those were important aspects of this decade, other events occurred as well. For instance, the Berlin Wall was built, the Soviets launched the first man into space, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the Beatles become popular, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I Have a Dream” speech, and so much more!
Aldo
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was an Italian type designer who lived and worked mostly in Turin where he produced an impressive number of unique designs. After learning woodcutting, copper engraving, and lithography at the Scuola Arteri Stampatori] in Turin, Novarese worked as a draftsman at
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1960 Westminister 1962 Eurostile 1965 Impact 1966 Magistier 1966 Oscar 1967 Forma 1967 Metropol 1967 Sabon 1968 Elite 1969 Syntax
the Nebiolo type foundry. He became art director there in 1952. He taught at the Scuola Viglandi Paravia for ten years beginning in 1948. By 1977, foundry type had become largely obsolete, and Novarese left Nebiolo to become a freelance designer.
1970’s
The Vietnam War was still a major event in the beginning of the 1970s. There were other tragic events this decade as well, including the deadliest earthquake of the century, the Jonestown massacre, the Munich Olympics massacre, and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. Culturally, disco became extremely popular and Star Wars hit theaters.
Herb
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was an American graphic designer. He collaborated with Ralph Ginzburg on three of Ginzburg’s magazines: Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde, and was responsible for the creative
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1970 ITC Bauhuas 1970 Churcward 70 1970 ITC Garamond 1970 ITC Souvenir 1974 ITC Avant Garde Gothic 1975 Frutiger 1975 Bell Centennial 1975 ITC Bookman 1978 Basilia 1978 Galliard
visual beauty of these publications. He designed a typeface, ITC Avant Garde, for the last of these; this font could be described as a reproduction of art-deco, and is seen in logos
1980’s
Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika began the end of the Cold War. This was soon followed by the surprising fall of the Berlin Wall. There were also some disasters this decade, including the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez, the Ethiopian Famine, a huge poison gas leak in Bhopal, and the discovery of AIDS. Culturally, the 1980s saw the introduction of the mesmerizing Rubik’s Cube toy, Pac-Man video game, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.
Robin
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joined the Monotype Type Drawing Office in 1965. The teenager had served an earlier apprenticeship as a draftsman. That training in precision drawing, coupled with his natural artistic abilities, made him a perfect candidate to work in the field
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of type design.drew a contemporary sans serif typeface for low-resolution output devices – this design would eventually evolve into the Arial typeface family.
1982 Papyrus 1982 Arial 1984 Chicago 1984 Mirarae 1985 Lucida 1986 Andreas 1988 Avenir 1989 Trajan 1989 Charlemagne 1989 Lithos
1990’s
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The Cold War ends, Nelson Mandela is released from prison, the Internet becomes popular - in many ways the 1990s seemed a decade of both hope and relief. Unfortunately, the decade also saw its fair share of tragedy, including the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine High School massacre, and the Rwandan genocide.
Robert
is a type designer, who has worked at Adobe Systems since 1987. He has won many awards for his digital typeface designs, including the rarely-awarded
K Charles Peignot Award from the Association Typographique Internationale, and repeated TDC2 awards from the Type Directors Club.
1990 Bastard 1991 Exocet 1991 FF Meta 1992 Lexicon 1992 Minion 1993 Georgia 1994 SkiaLam 1996 Verdana 1997 Miller 1998 Zapfino
http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/ timeline.htm