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Archive through April 11, 2003
Posted by matha_standun in
8 Apr 2003 — 12:41pm
8 Apr 2003 — 12:41pm
It wasn't Comic Sans.
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It wasn't Comic Sans.
8 Apr 2003 — 1:15pm
Van Krimpen's Spectrum was one of the last Monotype faces. Thought there was a Linotype version as well. Just guessing here.
8 Apr 2003 — 2:46pm
Hmmm, I think I meant Sabon by Tschichold. This came out in both Lino and Mono and foundry. The machine casting versions in 1967. Two years later Linotype quit making its machines.
Barbou was Monotype's last, in 1968.
8 Apr 2003 — 3:14pm
Gerald, Sabon is an interesting answer, but I'm thinking of the last typeface designed specifically for Linotype (for metal). And it was later than 1967.
Hint: It was the last design to be made for metal, but it was released in both metal and photofilm, concurrently. And it was a newspaper face.
8 Apr 2003 — 7:23pm
I think it was Auriga, designed by Matthew Carter, but I don't know who did the production drawings. I know what was the last ATF face designed and who designed it, does that count?
9 Apr 2003 — 4:09am
Mark --
That's not it. I didn't know that Auriga was produced in metal. Matthew began that design while at Crosfield; and I think Crosfield only produced photocomposition machines. He finished the face when he came over to work with Mike at MLCo. But I didn't think it was cut in metal matrices. I could be wrong.
Anyway, Auriga predates the design I have in mind, just slightly. But you're getting closer.
Remember, it was a newspaper face -- newspapers being the last bastion of Linotype metal typesetting for many years.
-- K.
9 Apr 2003 — 4:54am
Olympian by Matthew Carter? It was released 1970.
And was made both for metal & photo settings.
9 Apr 2003 — 5:02am
Or Walter Tracy's Times-Europa? I know it was commisioned by Linotype.
9 Apr 2003 — 5:03am
...but it was probably not produced in metal.
9 Apr 2003 — 6:28am
Peter --
It seemed like you were just guessing, and I was going to make you pick one. But you may have caught me up on this one.
My answer was Olympian, designed for Mergenthaler Linotype Co. by Matthew Carter in 1970 for release in both metal matrices and photofilm. (The production drawings were done by the talented draughtsman George Ostrochulski.) My source for this was a conversation I had a month ago with Mike Parker, who was Director of Type Development. Olympian was the last new design to be cut in metal here in the States. It was designed, in part, to respond to the increasingly narrow restrictions of TTS standards. (Hey, there's another good trivia question: TTS -- what does it stand for and what was it? Oh well, next time.)
When MLCo. closed down matrix manufacture here early in the 70s, they transferred all metal manufacture to Linotype & Machinery Ltd. (English Linotype). Tracy was typographic director for L&M, and it seems that Times Europa was cut by L&M a little later than Olympian. The evidence I've found suggests that it was indeed made for metal. Mike obviously wasn't thinking about L&M when we were talking.
Anyway, in either case, I declare Peter the winner.
-- Kent.
9 Apr 2003 — 7:32am
oh, thanks :-D
It was a tricky one.
I've had an hour now to come up with something. I hope this will be at least a bit hard:
Fred Goudy made a typeface/lettering for Pabst Brewing Company. In 1902 he released the typeface - "Pabst" - through ATF.
The typeface was also released in Europe.
My question is:
What year was it released in europe, what was it called and through which foundry was it released?
9 Apr 2003 — 5:52pm
There were two Pabsts: One was Pabst Old Style brought out by Lanston Monotype. The other was Pabst Roman. This was the ATF release. Inland Typefoundry copies this as Avil. B. Krebs issued a copy called Latina, but I do not know the date. So, fortunately I do not win.
Pabst Old Style was cool. Pabst Roman was sort of the precurser to Souvenir.
9 Apr 2003 — 7:44pm
in$piration
9 Apr 2003 — 11:41pm
Sorry, I missed some of the thread since I had to go to bed, it was late.
It's Pabst (Roman) that was released through ATF in 1902.
Gerald - it's not Latina.
10 Apr 2003 — 3:56am
>BTW, Vintage Type offers an antiqued cut of Pabst Old Style.
Stephen -- Pabst was always "antiqued", with wobbly edges built in right from the get-go in metal.
>Pabst Old Style was cool. Pabst Roman was sort of the precurser to Souvenir.
Gerald -- According to McGrew, Pabst Oldstyle and Pabst Roman are very nearly the same. It's Pabst Extra Bold that looks like a precursor to Souvenir (if it hadn't been designed 14 years after the fact). Pabst Extra Bold is in the vein of Souvenir Bold and Cooper Black.
The rules forbid me from answering this question, but can I give a hint? Walter Tracy discusses Pabst in his chapter on Goudy, although he neglects to list the German foundry by name.
-- K.
10 Apr 2003 — 4:36am
Kent - why do the rules forbid you to answer the question?
Debernet & Peignot release a a typeface very much inspired by Pabst in 1913 named Naudin after the designer Bernard Naudin. But that's not it.
10 Apr 2003 — 9:23am
I thought that one of John's original rules was that the poser of the previous question could not win the next one. But now I can't find this rule.
So, I'll reveal the part that I know and if anyone wants to dig deeper and claim the prize, they can.
In 1912 (I don't have Letters of Credit with me right now, so I may be remembering the date wrong) a German foundry picked up and released a version of Goudy's Pabst under the name Ohio.
I don't know which German foundry, but someone can probably deduce it.
-- K.
10 Apr 2003 — 9:43am
LoC only says "Some German foundries"...
hhp
10 Apr 2003 — 9:52am
Sounds like an answer to me
10 Apr 2003 — 12:06pm
Yes, Kent you are so right :-D
The info I have was that it was first released in 1912 at the German foundry "Brüder Butter" (a foundry I never had heard of before).
It was also released in here Sweden. I've found it in "Wez
10 Apr 2003 — 4:51pm
Yikes! Peter, you weren't supposed to declare me the winner. I'm too busy to on top of the forums right now. Oh well.
I posed a question earlier, in passing; but now let's make it official:
In the context of newspaper type, what does "TTS" stand for, what was it, and what was its impact on typeface design?
I'll check back in the morning.
-- Kent.
10 Apr 2003 — 8:08pm
Oh! Oh! I know this one!
In newspaper context, TTS stands for Teletypesetter. There were a few variants of this technology, but basically they all involved remote keyboarding and transmission by wire or cable (telegraph) direct to a linecaster, phototypesetter or, later, digital typesetting system. Although it would work with any font on the target typesetting system, TTS's efficiency contributed to the increase in content in daily newspapers, and so indirectly generated a large demand for condensed typefaces. I'm not sure if that's the impact on type design you were thinking of, Kent; I can't think of another, more direct impact.
11 Apr 2003 — 5:10am
John --
I'm going to give this one to you, just to keep things moving along.
The third part of your answer, however, is not quite complete. The TTS system mandated a set of character widths, to which a font had to conform in order to perform properly. (I'm not sure why this was so, but I think it may have had to do with consistent line counts for the syndicated material.) These prescribed widths were fixed, *independent* of type size. As the tendency grew among newspapers to increase body size, the rigid widths meant progressively narrower letterforms and ever more condensed newspaper faces. That's the impact on type design I had in mind.
Apparently, much of Jackson Burke's tenure at MLCo. was taken up (regrettably) with most of his staff redrawing and recutting Corona over and over for TTS systems.
With Olympian, Carter and Parker took the lessons of the Legibility Series but applied an oldstyle stress. This allowed Carter to move the thickest point of a curve off the extreme horizontal positions, where space was at a premium, and thus achieve a more open counter on a narrower width.
-- K.
11 Apr 2003 — 11:08am
Thanks for the extra information, Kent. I wasn't aware of the fixed character widths. My guess is that this is not something inherent to the idea of TTS, but simply to its implementation in newspaper settings, e.g. to achieve consistent line counts as you suggest. In other words, the idea of remote keyboarding sent to a typesetter by telegraph doesn't rely on set widths.
I'll post a new question shortly.
11 Apr 2003 — 12:54pm
NEW QUESTION:
Okay, here's a chirographic question (excused on the grounds that I think the style of writing involved is an untapped source of potential typographic design).
Arabic scribes developed a style of miniature writing, examples of which are often as small as 1.3 mm in height. The question is in three parts:
1. What is the name of this style?
2. What does the name mean in English?
3. For what purpose was this style originally developed?
11 Apr 2003 — 1:45pm
I should really boycott this... ;-)
1. Ghoubaari
2. "Of dust"
3. To be able to easily carry the entire Glorious Qour'aan on
your person, like on a rosary*. Or for chirographic bravado...
* Bonus digression: Christian rosaries have beads in multiples of 10, plus one; Muslim rosaries have beads in integer divisions of 99 (the number of sooras in the Qour'aan).
hhp
11 Apr 2003 — 2:24pm
Hrant, you're nearly correct, the style is indeed called Ghoubaari or Ghubar, meaning the writing of dust, but you are incorrect about the original purpose of the style. Ghubar was only adapted for writing the Qur'an after it had demonstrated its value in a much more mundane utility. What was it?
Apparently a particularly small Ghubar was recently used to write the entire Qur'an on a hen's egg.
11 Apr 2003 — 3:38pm
> you are incorrect about the original purpose of the style.
It's OK, I made it up. Hey, you disallowed guessing, but you didn't say nothin'bout pure fabrication. Actually, it wasn't pure, as Ghoubaari was indeed used on rosaries [eventually].
> Mundane utility
I was thinking something related to secret messages, and then I just Googled it and got this: "Originally designed for messages being sent by carrier pigeon".
I was also thinking about currency (since Ionia was the first place currency was introduced), but I don't think you need to write a lot of stuff of money - just have some guy's head.
> hen's egg
Isma'eel 'abd-Alla must be pissed. He did that on an ostrich egg in the 14th century. I'm waiting for a Quail one.
hhp
9 Apr 2003 — 5:58pm
BTW, Vintage Type offers an antiqued cut of Pabst Old Style.
9 Apr 2003 — 6:56pm
but what about pabst blue ribbon?