Typography ENGL 3190

Terms Concordant, conflicting, contrasting (NDDB 123) X-height (NDDB 142) Ascenders (NDDB 142) Descenders (NDDB 142) Baseline (NDDB 142)

Terms (con’t) Serif Sans serif Leading

Typefaces Typefaces have a history ABC Typography has an interesting virtual museum. We will only look at a few of offerings on this site

Clarendon (Times New Roman) The first Clarendon of that name appeared in 1845, by Robert Besley of Fann St. Foundry. It was designed as a bold condensed highlight face to complement the ordinary serif designs. Its simplified, solid style was predestined for newspaper printing. Clarendon was also the first typeface to enjoy copyright protection. (based on

Garamond (Garamond) Based on the types of the French 16th century typecutter Claude Garamond, the Garamond typeface has been a standard among book designers and printers for four centuries. This type traces its development to the printers of the Italian Renaissance but its heritage extends to an earlier time: Roman inscriptional letterforms for the capital letters, the Caroline minuscules for the lowercase letters. (from

Arial (Arial) Arial is the archetype of traditional sans serif typefaces. It is very close of the two most famous sans serif typefaces: Helvetica and Univers. However, there are subtle differences in the drawing of many letterforms. Arial is a simple and functional type and its graphic unity is remarkable. Designed for Microsoft by the designers’ team of Monotype, Arial is (thanks to Windows) as famous as Times New Roman. (based on

Times New Roman In 1931, The Times of London commissioned the Monotype Corporation, under the direction of Stanley Morison, to design a newspaper typeface. Research into legibility and readability led to a design that was unique in newspaper typography; it is based on old style types, and has greater contrast and is more condensed than previous newspaper types. (from

Mistral Mistral was designed by Roger Excoffon, a French leading typographer in the 1950s working for the Fonderie Olive. It is based directly on Roger Excoffon’s own handwriting. As explained by Excoffon the challenge was to “to keep all the freedom, all the spontaneity of handwriting despite the rigorous imperatives of casting.” I ndeed, the letters of Excoffon are so free that they seem to dance on the page. Mistral was a very successful typeface in the 1960s. (based on

Verdana (Verdana) In its proportions and stroke weight, Verdana is a humanist sans serif. But it is more than that: a type really designed for the medium of screen. Verdana exhibits new characteristics, derived from the pixel rather than the pen. The balance between straight, curve, and diagonal has been meticulously tuned to ensure that the pixel patterns at small sizes are pleasing, clear, and legible. Commonly confused characters have been carefully drawn for maximum individuality. Another reason for the legibility of this font on the screen is its generous width and spacing. (based on

Stencil Designed originally as a derived version of Clarendon. Very legible, Stencil is usually used in the industrial, military, and building construction field. (from