Azimuth Print - Blog from and about the UK's premier printer

Azimuth Print the premier on-line printer offers a fast, efficient and cost effective printing service. Our products include Flyers, Leaflets, Folded leaflets, Postcards, Folders, Perfect Bound Books, Wire Bound Books, Hardback Books, Booklets, Brochures, Wall Calendars, Desk Calendars and Stationery.

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 1

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 1 Name: Helvetica Designed by: Max Miedinger 1957

Helvetica didn’t start out with that name. The story of Helvetica began in the fall of 1956 in the small Swiss town of Münchenstein. This is where Eduard Hoffmann, managing director of the Haas Type Foundry, commissioned Max Miedinger to draw a typeface that would unseat a popular family offered by one his company’s competitors. Miedinger, who was an artist and graphic designer before training as a typesetter, came up with a design based on Hoffmann’s instructions, and by the summer or 1957, produced a new sans serif typeface which was given the name “Neue Haas Grotesk.” Simply translated this meant “New Haas Sans Serif.” The Stempel type foundry, the parent company of Haas, decided to offer the design to its customers in Germany, where Stempel was based. The company, however, felt it would be too difficult to market a new face under another foundry’s name and looked for one that would embody the spirit and heritage of the face. The two companies settled on “Helvetica,” which was a close approximation of “Helvetia,” the Latin name for Switzerland.

Used by: 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, BMW, Jeep, JCPenney, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Orange, Target, Toyota, Panasonic, Motorola, Kawasaki, Verizon

Our designers’ opinion: "The Helvetica typeface is one of the most famous and popular in the world. It’s been used for every typographic project imaginable, not just because it is on virtually every computer. Helvetica is ubiquitous because it works so well. The design embodies the concept that a typeface should absolutely support the reading process - that clear communication is the primary goal of typography."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 2

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 2 Name: Garamond Designed by: Claude Garamond 1530

Garamond is the name given to many serif typefaces, after the Latinized name of the 16th-century French artisan Claude Garamond, often written as 'Garamont' in his lifetime. Garamond worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp matrices, the moulds used to cast metal type. He worked in the tradition of what is now called old-style serif letter design, that produced letters with a relatively organic structure resembling handwriting with a pen but with a slightly more structured and upright design.

Our designers’ opinion: "Some distinctive characteristics in Garamond's letters are the small eye of the 'e' and the bowl of the a, which has a sharp hook upwards at top left. The 'M' is slightly splayed. The x-height (height of lower-case letters) is low, especially at larger sizes, making the capitals large relative to the lower case, while the top serifs on the ascenders of letters like 'd' have a downward slope and rise subtly above the cap height. Garamond typefaces are popular and often used, particularly for printing body text and books."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 3

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 3 Name: Frutiger Designed by: Adrian Frutiger 1977

In 1968, Adrian Frutiger was commissioned to develop a sign and directional system for the new Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Though everyone thought he would want to use his successful Univers font family, Frutiger decided instead to make a new sans serif typeface that would be suitable for the specific legibility requirements of airport signage: easy recognition from the distances and angles of driving and walking. The resulting font was in accord with the modern architecture of the airport.

Our designers’ opinion: "The Frutiger family is neither strictly geometric nor humanistic in construction; its forms are designed so that each individual character is quickly and easily recognized. Such distinctness makes it good for signage and display work. Although it was originally intended for the large scale of an airport, the full family has a warmth and subtlety that have, in recent years, made it popular for the smaller scale of body text in magazines and booklets."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 4

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 4 Name: Bodoni Designed by: Giambattista Bodoni 1790

Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Bodoni followed the ideas of John Baskerville, as found in the printing type Baskerville: increased stroke contrast reflecting developing printing technology and a more vertical axis, but took them to a more extreme conclusion. Bodoni had a long career and his designs evolved and varied, ending with a typeface of a slightly condensed underlying structure with flat, unbracketed serifs, extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and an overall geometric construction.

Our designers’ opinion: "When using the “royal type” it is important to note that its harmonious forms and clear contrast between black and white require careful handling. Bodoni is not the font of paper-shuffling bureaucrats. Nor is it particularly practical. But when it comes to presenting an important text to its best advantage, one does well to learn from Bodoni himself and use plenty of white space, generous line leading and a font size of at least 10 points."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 5

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 5 Name: Futura Designed by: Paul Renner 1927

Futura, the first drafts of which date back to 1924, was greatly inspired by the Bauhaus. Renner regarded the typeface as an overcoming of the “irreconcilability of Roman capitals and the Latin lower case characters which originate in handwritten Carolingian minuscule”. His Futura was the prototype of a geometric sans-serif Linear-Antiqua.

Our designers’ opinion: "Although Renner retained unusual (anti-cursive) forms for a, g, n, m and r in the first publication of the font, Futura achieved its great success without these characters. On the first sample sheet by the Bauer foundry in 1927 they were promoted as special characters, but the second in 1928 no longer even included them."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 6

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 6 Name: Times Designed by: Stanley Morison 1931

The manager of the London daily newspaper The Times, William Lints-Smith, had heard that the respected typographer Stanley Morison (40) was unimpressed by the print quality of his newspaper. On 1 August 1929, they could be found sitting opposite each other at the publishing offices, discussing a redesign of the paper. Morison, who had been artistic advisor to the typesetting equipment manufacturer Monotype for the previous six years, impressed the newspaperman with his arguments, and on the spur of the moment Lints-Smith offered him a job as an advisor. The first conflict of wills arose when Morison announced that the period after “Times” in the newspaper’s nameplate would not survive his redesign. Lints-Smith consulted with the publishers and, a week later, gave his consent. Towards the end of 1930, after fruitless experiments with the printing machines, Morison decided that the newspaper needed a new typeface of its own. In January 1931 he presented two drafts: a reworked Perpetua and a modernised Plantin. A group of experts decided on the latter, which soon became famous across the world as “Times New Roman” and replaced its predecessor “Times Old Roman”.

Our designers’ opinion: "New printing machines and better varieties of paper led in the early 1950s to Times’ London name-giver abandoning the font. But it enjoyed a renaissance in the 1980s thanks to the invention of the laser printer, which incorporated it in a digitised form on a memory chip. Together with web browsers and word processing programs, the operating systems Windows and Mac-OS – which include Times New Roman – sustained the font’s profile over many years."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 7

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 7 Name: Akzidenz Grotesk Designed by: Günter Gerhard Lange 1966-1972

Akzidenz-Grotesk has no known date of birth. In fact, several people can claim to be the father of “AG”, as insiders like to call it. As early as 1880, the German typographer and hieroglyphics expert Ferdinand Theinhardt designed four sans-serif fonts which he called “Royal Grotesk” for the publications of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. In 1908, Hermann Berthold took over the Theinhardt Type Foundry and integrated “Royal”, which by then had gained considerable popularity, into his Akzidenz-Grotesk family, giving it the name “AG Mager”.

Used by: NASCAR, Brooklyn Nets

Our designers’ opinion: "The designs are rumored to have been a derivative of the Walbaum or Didot serif fonts. When the serifs are removed from these designs, the proportions are very similar to those of Akzidenz-Grotesk. The Akzidenz-Grotesk family is actually a collection of numerous grotesque typefaces from different designers, unified to create a complete family."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 8

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 8 Name: Officina Designed by: Erik Spiekermann 1990

The ITC Officina Sans design was created in response to the popularity of inexpensive laser printers. Building on the typewriter fonts Courier and Letter Gothic, Erik Spiekermann wanted to create a simple, useful typeface for business communication such as letters and emails. The ITC Officina Sans typeface was the result. After its release, the typeface became popular for use in other media as well. Spiekermann introduced additional weights and character options to the original design, which featured only regular and bold weights. The arm and the leg of ITC Officina Sans make a right angle as they meet the vertical line, making a subtle but unique difference from other typefaces.

Our designers’ opinion: "The ITC Officina Sans design is deceptively simple. It has a look reminiscent of older print technologies, typewriters and printing presses, but was designed for improved legibility when printed on low-resolution output devices, such as laser-printers."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 9

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 9 Name: Gill Sans Designed by: Eric Gill 1930

Gill Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards. Gill Sans takes inspiration from Edward Johnston's 1916 Johnston alphabet for London Underground, which Gill, by the 1920s a well-established sculptor and lettering artist, had worked on in its early development stages. Marketed by Monotype as a design of 'classic simplicity and real beauty', it was intended as a display typeface that could be used for posters and advertisements, as well as for the text of documents that need to be clearly legible at small sizes or from a distance, such as book blurbs, timetables and price lists.

Our designers’ opinion: "The light font has a heavily hooded f and a tall t, and is open and elegant in appearance. The regular is compact and muscular, with a flat-bottomed b, flat-topped p and q, and triangular-topped t. The bold Gill Sans reflects the open style of the light, while the extra bold and ultra bold have a flamboyant character of their own. Thus, the Gill Sans family reflects its creator’s understanding of craftsmanship."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 10

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 10 Name: Univers Designed by: Adrian Frutiger 1954

The typeface that made Adrian Frutiger famous around the world has its origins in exercises that he worked on way back in 1949. What was new about Univers was that it treated a font family as a complete, cohesive system for the first time. Its starting point is the regular font (Univers 55), from which all others are derived. The contrast is balanced in such a way that the font is suitable even for long texts.

Our designers’ opinion: "It took 15 years for Univers to become widely known and available on the various types of mechanical and phototypesetting equipment. The cool, systematically designed font family appealed to the rationalistic style which dominated typography in the late 1970s."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 11

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 11 Name: Optima Designed by: Hermann Zapf 1954

Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic serif. Optima was inspired by Roman and Italian stonecarving.

Our designers’ opinion: "Optima is an example of a modulated-stroke sans-serif, a design type where the strokes are variable in width. The design style has been intermittently popular since the late nineteenth century; Optima is one of the most lastingly popular examples of the genre."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 12

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 12 Name: Franklin Gothic Designed by: Morris Fuller Benton 1903

Morris Fuller Benton’s exceptional talent as a draughtsman predestined him to study mechanical engineering and, in 1896, secured him a job as an assistant to his father at the New York headquarters of the American Type Founders Company (ATF). Benton was appointed as chief type designer at ATF in 1900. In the years that followed he designed a multitude of typefaces, including Parisian, Broadway, Cheltenham, Poster Bodoni, Balloon Light, News Gothic and, in 1903, Franklin Gothic.

Our designers’ opinion: "Franklin Gothic has been used in many advertisements and headlines in newspapers. The typeface continues to maintain a high profile, appearing in a variety of media from books to billboards."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 13

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 13 Name: Bembo Designed by: Francesco Griffo 1496

In February 1496, Griffo designed a typeface for the essay “De Aetna” by the Italian scholar Pietro Bembo, which achieved great popularity under the name Bembo. In 1929, the British Monotype Corporation released a family of Bembo fonts. A 1524 pattern book by the Italian calligrapher Giovanni Tagliente provided a template for the italics.

Used by: Penguin Books

Our designers’ opinion: "Bembo has enjoyed continuing popularity as an attractive, legible book typeface."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 14

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 14 Name: Interstate Designed by: Tobias Frere-Jones 1993

The typeface was designed in the 1970s by the United States Federal Highway Administration. Type designer Tobias Frere-Jones digitised his interpretation for the first time in 1993, and expanded the font family in the years that followed for use in print design.

Used by: United States Federal Highway Administration

Our designers’ opinion: "Frere-Jones' Interstate typeface, while optimal for signage, has refinements making it suitable for text setting in print and on-screen, and gained popularity as such in the 1990s."

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 15

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 15 Name: Thesis Designed by: Lucas de Groot 1994

Thesis is a large typeface family designed by Lucas de Groot. The typefaces were designed between 1994 and 1999 to provide a modern humanist family. Each typeface is available in a variety of weights as well as in italic. Originally released by FontFont, it is now sold by de Groot through his imprint LucasFonts.

Used by: Bristol City Council, AOL, RBS, Hard Rock Café

Our designers’ opinion: "Thesis pioneered the concept of the all-purpose type system or superfamily which has since become such an important tool for the discerning typographer."

[azimuthprintltd]

50% Extra FREE on 50 products

https://www.azimuthprint.co.uk/news/50-Extra-FREE-on-50-products/800371965/

[azimuthprintltd]

Font Friday - No. 16

On every Friday we are going to introduce you one of the 100 best typefaces of all time. An international jury assembled the list of the fonts based on sales numbers, historical relevance and aesthetic qualities.

No. 16 Name: Rockwell Designed by: Frank Hinman Pierpont 1934

In 1932, the Monotype works manager Frank Hinman Pierpont commissioned his studio to design a new version of Egyptian 173, which was soon released as Rockwell – the name having been “borrowed” from the company’s American joint venture, Lanston Monotype. Its weight is reminiscent of Stempel’s Memphis. Rockwell was soon available in several different font versions, becoming the most successful Egyptian typeface of the 20th century.

Our designers’ opinion: "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."