Fonts of the 19th and 20th Century Morris Fuller Benton was a master of the technology that was presented to him in the early 20th century. His father being the creator of the pantographic engraving machine, which was capable not only of scaling a single font design pattern to a variety of sizes, but could also condense, extend, and slant the design, allowed
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him to work closely with that technology. In his life he completed 221 typefaces, some being revivals and interpretations of historical typefaces and some being entirely new. He is well know for his F R A N K L I N G OT H I C , a realist sans-serif that is closely related to Helvetica. Many of his typefaces are still in high use across the design fields.
Typography from the 19th to the 20th Century
Jobbing printers in the cities during the early 19th century and on were demanding a new typeface, the “display” typeface. With the increase of sophisticated commercial activities, advertisements needed to catch the attention of the consumer. Serif fonts weren’t cutting it. The first display typeface was the “fat face” and was created by the man, Robert Thorne.
Just before Thrones death he was in the process of cutting a slab-serif display which he had coined the name “Egyptian” due to the commonalities of the square black serifs and the relics of ancient Egyptian architecture. Vincent Fliggins was a British punchcutter and typefounder who worked under the man, Joseph Jackson, until Jackson passed away. Unable to
He increased the thickness of stems to an enormous degree while maintaining the thin strokes and the thin, unbracketed serifs seen in such fonts as Bodoni. This became popular with advertisers but horrified typographic commentators, yet it still spread all over the world.
purchase his masters typefoundery, he decided to go off on his own to purchase a typefoundry in 1792. Unlike Throne, he finish his own and the first slab-serif to be used in 1815 called A N T I QU E . All the sizes were titling, meaning no lower case is available. This was Britain’s first real contribution to the art of type design. Over the years, numerous variations of Antique with narrow vertical forms or stretched out forms that were wider than high were cut.
-Franklin Gothic
Fonts of the 19th and 20th Century
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