So Font of You

Parsons is not going to buy us new typefaces, so here’s how to make due with the Adobe Type Library

Once upon a time, we had a professor who told us to always use a typeface made in the last 10 years. Our first thought? “Lol. No.” Why? Because we are poor and typefaces are expensive. (#studentlyfe) Plus, the type resources we have access to as Parsons students is sad—really sad.

We at Parsons the New School for Design, like you and every decent design studio on the planet, have access to the Adobe Type Library, which is hidden on our lab computers in Universal Type Client. (If you go to another school please feel free to comment regarding your type situation!) By the website alone, you can see what kind of dire situation we find ourselves in (read: nothing designed in the last 25 years, let alone the last 10.)

Most of the typefaces in the collection are Classics with a capital ‘C.’ Which means that most of these typefaces were originally designed for metal, then redrawn for phototype and then digitized for the screen. Sometimes this comes out okay—other times it is a clusterfuck (the kerning situation is bad).

When you are a design student, it can be tempting to illegally download some of the industry’s hottest faces. BUT COME ON GUYS—we all dream of the day we actually get paid for our design work. When that day comes, we are all going to want people to fork over the ca$h. Steal now? Karma later.

So, everyone has the Adobe Type Library (henceforth known as The Library), making it the meat and potatoes of design, so you best know how to use it. And we are here to help you cope. The following are the typefaces worth your time in the The Library and some alternate (read: “free”) resources.

Serif Town

1. Arno (aka the homie)

Arno is gonna get you through the hard times. For one, its quite the workhorse. Arno is truly flushed with 32 weights. We like using it for cookbooks (lots of fractions), but given all of its weights and styles, you can make it work for anything (though that doesn’t mean you should). Arno Pro’s a great place to start your typesetting career because it’s literally idiot-proof. The weights are named for fuction, Display, Subhead, Caption, etc. You literally cannot mess this one up.

2. Perpetua

Small x-height, delicate. Perfect for when you write too much for your class paper and you need to fit a lot more text on the page (not that that ever happens, right?). Actual useage? When your client gives you way too much text and not enough space to make it happen and you don’t want to resort to a Sans-Serif Condensed.

3. Garamond

At last count, a Parsons student has access to 7 different cuts of Garamond. Adobe Garamond Pro and Premier Pro are both Adobe cuts, they’re similar in look, but you’re going to want to stick to Premier Pro because it has a ton more weights and styles. Adobe’s cuts of Garamond are more similar to the free one that comes with your computer, so this’ll probably be your favorite until you take a look at Stempel’s. Stempel Garamond, while lacking in weights, is cut closest to the metal version; use it when you want to evoke a very classic feel. The last Garamond worth taking a look at is ITC’s cut. ITC Garamond is great for Display purposes. It’s got a really tall X-height and interesting weights like Bold Condensed that are impossible to read when you’ve typed more then 9 words.

4. Caslon

Caslon’s gonna give you almost the same amount of options as Garamond, and the rules are the same—Adobe’s cut is your go to, and use ITC for Display.

5. Jenson

One of the oldest in the collection, Jenson will add a bit of flair to anything you want to give a classic edge. It’s got deep calligraphic roots. Just look at the lowercase e, and you’ll fall in love.

6. Baskerville

We’ve mostly just got ITC’s, but surprisingly, this cut of Baskerville isn’t as display oriented as the other ITC faces. Baskerville is a high-contrast Transitional typeface, and people hated it when it first came out, because they thought it was difficult to read. That sentiment still holds a little true, so be careful in large blocks of text. Baskerville should almost be treated like a Didot. Gorgeous in small amounts.

Slab the bag

1/2. Serifa & Glypha

Both brainchilds of Adrian Frutiger, Serifa and Glypha are definitely your go-to slabs in The Library. Glypha’s taller than Serifa and it’s comes with more weights, but either one is great.

3. Joanna

Your most text-friendly slab serif. It looks a lot like it’s sister Perpetua (also designed by Eric Gill), just with a little bit of attitude, which comes mostly from its incredibly condensed italic. Funfact: Eric Gill designed Joanna for his daughter’s wedding invitations. A lot of other creepy stuff happened after that, but we will try and spare you.

Sassy Sans

1. Avenir

We will always hold a place in our hearts for sweet Avenir. We fell in love with Avenir when we desperately needed to get over our ex, Helvetica (#basic). Adrian Frutiger makes damn good typefaces and Avenir is no expection. The kicker? It was digitized pre-InDesign. So, you have to kern it properly. It needs TLC, people. Don’t neglect it.

2. Univers

Univers is kickass for info-graphics because it comes in literally every single weight and style from Thin Ultra Condensed through Extra Black Extended. Holla at yo boy, Frutiger. And it’s pronounced:

Enough said.

3. Grotesque MT Standard

The OG Helvetica. Also the better Helvetica in our opinion. Grotesque MT Standard isn’t exactly Akzidenz-Grotesk, but you’re a student, and you’re slumming it. So, use it, but don’t abuse it. And by that we mean KERN IT, GODDAMNIT.

4. Trade Gothic

Like Univers, Trade Gothic is amazeballs for infographics. Tall, slender & sexy, Trade Gothic is what you use when you are sick of Univers. Like Univers its got weights on weights. Fourteen to be exact. The kerning trick on this one? Watch out for the 1. This isn’t unique. In fact, a lot of number 1s are poorly kerned in typefaces so you should always keep a lookout.

5. Franklin Gothic

A humanist sans, Franklin gothic separates itself a bit from Trade and Univers. Franklin is sassy for a sans. His Q has a long tail and his lowercase g has a pretty sweet ear on it.

6. DIN 1451

DIN stands for Deutsche Industrie Normug, aka the German standard. In 1936 DIN 1451 was used for everything German, but mostly traffic signs. Similar to Gill Sans (see below), using DIN sometimes means that your design will be dubbed ‘German.’

7. Frutiger

Again, Adrian Frutiger k i l l s it.

8. Gill Sans

For British things only. You better also have tracked out bold type and small red letters. Pretend that Gill Sans Ultra Bold does not exist. Because it doesn’t. You could maaaybe get away with it designing a Sgt. Peppers by The Beatles Poster (both ridiculous and British), but that is the only way.

Dismal Displays

1. Fette Fraktur

For the numbers and the numbers only. Blackletters are illegible; the Germans are weird.

2. Didot & Bodoni

(Honestly though, maybe not. Bodoni / Didot is the Helvetica of serif typefaces. Overused and so #basic.)

3. Letter it yourself.

It’s display type, so you’re doing maybe 9 words tops, right? Man up; letter it yourself.

A word on kerning:

If you’re working on InDesign with any of these typefaces, which were likely digitized pre-90s, you’re going to want to use Optical Kerning.

Opitcal kerning is like the typeface writing a letter: Dear InDesign, HALP. I was digitized before sophisticated kerning systems, so you just take the reins on this one and make me look good.

You use Metrics to do exactly what the type designer said to do. Use this when your type designer is good (you paid a lot of money for your font or you go it from one of the places listed below).

Outside the Adobe Type Library.

There is life beyond the Adobe Type Library, believe it or not. Type collectives, open source typefaces and generous foundries are switching up the free font game.

The League of Moveable Type

Favorites: League Gothic, League Spartan, Raleway & Chunk

Google Fonts

Please, seriously. Use at your own risk. Favorites: Source Sans, Raleway, Roboto, Open Sans & Playfair Display

Beautiful Web Type showcases Google fonts at their sexiest. Thank youColin M. Ford and Juliette!

Also, see Aesop Fables with Google fonts.

Lost Type Co-op

Favorites: Mission Gothic, Dude, Mission Script, Lavanderia, Wisdom Script, & Pompadour Numerals.

The Free tag on MyFonts

Explore. Beware.

Punch

How fun (Inglorious bastards voice). But for real, this thing is a blast.

Open Source

Titillium & Cooper Hewitt (Coop is mac proprietary—only some weights available for PC—lame but more of a reason to switch over to the dark side)

How could we forget to mentionTypekit?

  Scrhift Muss Passen by L. Nettlehorst

Schrift Muss Passen was published in 1959 for Essen, a business and advertising publishing company. The name translates roughly to Writing Must Fit Font Choice; it’s so much nicer in German, isn’t it? (How often can you even say that, anyway?) The book appears within a larger work calledWritten Expression in Advertising; Manual for the Artwork of Advertising Materials, a book that focuses on the proper use of typography in advertising materials. Like every other scholarly text we’ve toured during Type Class Tuesdays, it also includes a thorough classification system.

Schrift Muss Passen offers the first system in which the Lineal category has been sub-classified, though part of that credit is due to Maximilien Vox, who was working on a revised version of his 1954 system (in conjunction with ATypI—tune in next week) that included four subcategories for the Lineals. Schrift Muss Passen has two subclasses: Grotesk and Humanist. It’s simple and a good start, but it would be difficult to force a geometric sans serif face, like Futura or Gotham into either of those two categories, and since there is no catch-all (read: Display) section in this system, there would be no place for these faces to go (sad face).

Nettlehorst’s classification of Blackletter is typical, though missing a Rotunda category. Considering this classification was written in German (so excuse us if our translations are a wee-bit off), it’s a smidge bizarre that the Blackletter is not appropriately fawned over.

The breakdown of Serifs, which Nettlehorst calls Roman is interesting. This is certainly not the first system to classify the serif by period, but it is the first to do it so succinctly. Ultimately, Vox’s choices become more standard, with terms like Venetian and Transitional, but at this point, prior to the publication of the Vox/ATypI collaboration, those terms had not yet caught on. 

At this time, scholars hadn’t yet figured out what to do with the emerging Slab Serif category. Nettlehorst places it under Lineals, a term Vox used to describe Sans-Serifs, which makes sense given that Nettlehorst calls does not classify his serifs by their terminals, but by their historic period (Roman). Slab Serifs are certainly much more Lineal than they are Roman, after all.

The Vox System is the closest we’ll ever get to Classification Nirvana.

His classification isn’t the first, but French Critic, Maximilien Vox’s Vox System, introduced in 1954, is certainly one of the most lauded. Google ‘typeface classification system’ and Vox is going to be in your first five hits. Vox was an art theorist and historian of French typography. And according to our research; he is king, he is the master. He is, for our intents and purposes, not perfect, but the father of modern type classification.

His systems consists of ten main categories, our second single-level classification. He uses a lot of the established terminology, as well as inventing some of his own vocabulary.

As is in vogue, Vox classifies the serif typefaces based upon their historical period, from the Venetian humanist letter to the modern Didone. The remainder of typefaces, by comparison, are named by the visual appearance of the letter.

Maximilien Vox, ever the perfectionist, revised his system several times, resulting in certain inconsistencies. Some scholars report that the Vox System sub-classifies the Lineals (Sans-Serifs) into Grotesque, Neo-Grotesque, Geometric and Humanist, but we maintain that this addition was made in one of the later revisions, likely the 1961 Vox-ATypI System.

To classify the Serif typefaces, Maximilien Vox gets a little creative with his frankenwords (or portmanteau for the upper class among us). He invented the term Geralde, a nod to Claude Garamond and Aldus Manutius (the elder), two prolific printers who practiced in the fifteenth centuries, who made type in the French style (more contrast between the thicks and thins, and more delicate proportions than Venetian type).

This term is far more specific than the much-used and general Old Style, but in it’s newness, it was criticized for being unrecognizable (this was before Obama, back when we were still afraid of Change). Those critics had a point, but ultimately they were wrong (just like the Tea Partiers), as Geralde has outlasted the Vox System, and been used in many typeface classification systems since.

Vox did a similar thing with his term Didone (for the Modern serifs), combining the surnames for Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni, still the most popular and oft-copied Modern types to this day.

Lineal, Vox’s term for Sans-Serifs, hardly carried the criticism that his portmanteau did, which is perplexing to say the least. Lineal carries the false assumption that sans serif typefaces are inherently (and all) monoline. The term remained popular for several decades before it was replaced by sans serif around the 1980s.

This kid wasn’t messing around when it came to typeface classification.

Daniel Berkeley Updike was an American printer and typographic historian. In 1893, he founded the Merrymount Press in Providence, Rhode Island with the express purpose of doing “common work well.” Could you imagine? There used to be a time when hand-set printing was common. We were all born in the wrong era. Ultimately, his excellence in printing inspired other printers. He taught the first college course in the United States on this history of typography, and the practice of printing at Harvard University. 

In 1922, he published his sweeping scholarly achievement: Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use in 1922 which covers typography from before the golden age of printing, well through to the opening of the twentieth century.

In Printing Types, Updike discusses 15th century printing types in Europe with astounding depth, far more depth, in fact than could be captured within our pie chart system. Shown above is the paired down version of his typeface classification system. To see the detailed version, one would have to imagine six of these charts—one each for Germany, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Spain and England).

There would then be some differentiations in those charts. Only the Italian chart would have the Italic, which it would use over the Vernacular classification. Germany’s Gothic types would be called Textura, Fraktura and Schwabacher (say that 5 times fast).

England would remove the Classical Roman classification and Spain would lose the vernacular category. It would also have a Woodcut Capitals classification, which brings up a whole other mess–should there also be printing based classification? (Probably) And how would that work? (Ugh, we’ll save that for another post.)

In addition to detailing the most in-depth classification system, Updike discusses nearly all of the known printers of each country, which typefaces they used, and their contributions to the art of letterpress printing. Can you say workaholic? We’re glad though. He’s pretty much the 1920s James Bond of typefaces­–attempting to crack all the typographic mysteries with his never-ending knowledge. He kind of reminds us of Paul Shaw, one of our favorite professors who happens to be an extremely knowledgeable historian and talented calligrapher.

Parisian Typesetter Francis Thibaudeau was determined to create the first rational system for categorizing type. He worked as a French typographer who designed type catalogues for Renault and Marcou and later Debergny and Peignot. 

Because of the density and disorganization of the type libraries for these foundries, Thibaudeau was determined to create a new system for typeface classification. He presents his conclusions across two books: Letter Printing (1921) and then a revised version in French modern typography Manual (1924). 

Originally, his system only had four main categories: Roman (Elzévirs), Didot, Egyptian (L’Egyptienne) and Antique. We have two problems with the original system: the peculiar choice to use Antique to describe sans-serif faces, which were being popularized in Greece at this time, and being French, Thibaudeau chooses to name his Modern category for the French Modern type drawn in the 19th century by printer Firmin Didot. This is a tradition that continues into the next half-century when the Vox System is released in 1954 before it reverts to Modern with the 1961 ATypI revision. 

In his second book, Thibaudeau adds Scripts (Écritures) and Display (Fantaisies) to over the typefaces being used in early 20th century advertising (#tgod). 

Kicking off Type Class(ification) Tuesday with Theodore Low De Vinne’s  pioneering 1899 system

Theodore Low De Vinne was an American typographer and printer practicing in the late nineteenth century—the golden age of typography, seriously, because never again will a typeface ever be immortalized in lead. He began his career in 1849 at the print shop of Francis Hart. When Hart died in 1877, De Vinne took over the business, and it operated as Theodore L. De Vinne & Co until 1908, when it was renamed the De Vinne Press. 

De Vinne is best known for his typeface Century Roman, which he co-designed with Linn Boyd Benton. De Vinne Press is also responsible for printing Century Magazine, and Century Dictionary, both considered some of the finest specimens of typographic art. 

In The Practice of Typography, De Vinne discusses the process of classifying types in 19th century specimen books. He wants to discuss all of the typefaces used by the printers of his time, but decides it’s “not practical” “within the limits prescribed for this volume” (De Vinne, 183). So instead, he discusses the popular typeface naming conventions of his day. Like the modern hashtagging system, each font was assigned a series of names. The first word refers to the body of the type (#Italian). If no other word is added, it is understood to be a Roman face (#nofilter). The second word describes the face, (#Italian #Antiqua). The third word refers to width of the font (#Italian #Antiqua #Condensed). The forth word is only used if the face is an ornamental, such as an outline typeface (#tagsforlikes). 

De Vinne details this entire system and concludes, “all ornamental types, and indeed many plain types, are named and classified in an unsatisfactory manner.” Duh. Well, to be fair, at De Vinne’s time, this was a deep thought. To us, modern type-users, who are still without a standardized system of typeface classification, it seems a bit obvious. Also, sorry that it’s been 165 years and we still don’t have our act together, Teddy. Our bad. 

De Vinne shares his own attempt at type classification. While useful in its simplicity, it’s far too old school for our purposes. For example, De Vinne does not include Clarendons (now known almost universally as Slab-Serifs) with the Roman typefaces. Instead, he lumps Clarendons in the Display category along with Fat Faces and Gothics (aka Sans-Serifs). 

In fact, it is not until the 1950s that Sans-Serif is broken out into it’s own category, when Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) finally acknowledges that this new-fangled Sans-Serif thing is not just a fad (Helvetica, anyone?) and remodels the Maximillen Vox system. It is also around this time that Slab-Serif typefaces are classified under the Serif category (hello, serif is in the name, thank you), instead of being thrown in to the frustratingly ubiquitous Display/Other catch-all. 

And as frustrating as the Display/Other/IDownloadedThisFromDaFont category may be, it is used so often in classification systems because of its inherent convenience; allowing for relatively neat taxonomies like De Vinne’s. Becuase De Vinne makes use of the Display category in this way, his system is relatively simple, with under 15 subcategories. The tradeoff then becomes neatness of system vs. depth and breadth of system, a choice we will explore in detail as the series continues. 

You can purchase The Practice of Typography here.

A Weekly Look Into (at Least) 25 (Maybe More Who Knows We’ll Get Bored Eventually) Systems of Typeface Classification 

This is a topic of conversation you’re only going to find vehemently discussed at places like TypeCon, and in the basement of Cooper Union on a Monday night while Indra Kupferschmid takes the stage. But if you’ve ever struggled to find the right typeface amid a library as depthless as MyFonts, or heavens forbid, DaFont, you know the pain of the modern designer: we have no universal system of typeface classification. 

Many attempts have been made standardize the classification of typography, but so far—165 years and counting—no taxonomy has been successful enough that everyone up and decides: Okay, Stop Now, ‘Cause We Got This. 

Join us every Tuesday for the foreseeable future as we analyze 25(+?) different typeface classification systems published in the last century and a half. Our picks range from typographic forefathers like Theodore Low De Vinne and Maximilien Vox and culminate with contemporary type superstars such as Ellen Lupton and Tobias Frere-Jones (there’s even a bonus appearance from much-beloved wackadoodle, Robert Bringhurst). 

We’ll take each system and place it into our patented pie chart format, completely ignoring any original visualization (or lack thereof) in the name of standardization. (See what we did there?) Our colors represent the three main branches of type design: Serif, Sans-Serif and Topical—a term we stole from William Bevington and Sue Chong, our champion hand-holders and mentors for this behemoth project—that replaces the insufferable “Display” category. (We’ve already given so much away). 

By examining a wide cross section of naming taxonomies, we will recognize the categorical names that have prevailed, shun those that have failed, and play God smiling down upon those that tickle our fancy. We will see the useful, and the daring, and we’ll show you their journey as they are either added or removed to the typographic lexicon. 

Furthermore, (because we are pie-chart-making-machines) every categorical name, from each system will be collected and then divided into a series of master diagrams that serve to enumerate the usage of each term over time. 

From these we will suggest a final, master classification, that we know—we just know—will swiftly replace all others as industry standard (or at the very least, be immortalized in some other designer’s paper in the next 100 years). 

Mourning the breakup of Typography's greatest partnership 

The news broke a few months ago. And it shocked the design world to the core. 

Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones were not two separate entities. They were born six days apart in the very lucky month of August 1970. They were competitors and then they were business partners; one in the same. Each time one was interviewed or called for comment, the other butted in. They were the darlings of type design. Their work was prolific; their typefaces seen everywhere. Hoefler & Frere-Jones was so synonymous with its craft that when you Googled typography, their homepage was the first result after Wikipedia.

So it was unfathomable. Yet there it was. Black and white. Set 12 on 24 points in Arial like some sort of ironic punch-line: the terms of the lawsuit Tobias Frere-Jones had taken out against Jonathan Hoefler. 

…in the most profound treachery and sustained exploitation of friendship, trust and confidence, Hoefler accepted all of the benefits provided by Frere-Jones while repeatedly promising Frere-Jones that he would give him the agreed equity…

—Lawsuit, January 2013

When logos become typefaces

The “Share a Coke” campaign has been annoying me for weeks, but it wasn't until a few days ago that I was able to pinpoint exactly what was irritating me.

At first I thought it was the idea in general. I complained to my typophiles in crime, Cody & Jess. The whole thing is so random. What are the chances you actually get a Coke that makes sense?

They argued that the chance of getting something that did make sense, made you want to share it via all your social networks even more. Hell, Jess and her friend Lauren shared pictures of “Share a Coke with Lauren” and “Share a Coke with Jess”months ago from across the pond (the campaign started overseas before it came to the US a few weeks ago). 

So, ugh. They were right. 

While the two of them got the campaign, Jess and Cody shared in my annoyance about it; something was off. We suggested a few different ideas before it hit us: the custom typeface Coke had commissioned to match their logo had been right in front of us all along, but we were too distracted by the campaign itself to notice how much we didn’t like it.