Loads - but you can’t go to a desert island without Eric Gill - just don’t turn your back on him if you know what I mean.

I love eggs.

hmmm.... sounds familiar. try reading:

Patron Saints of Type

if you’re referring to a literary canon, we have what we like to call the triumvirate.

> Are there names you’d expect young designers to be exposed to early on

Yes, not only type designers, but graphic designers, artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, in short, anyone that can influence creativity and exploration.

> or do you think it’s more important to cultivate a style from individual influences?

Young designers should be warned NOT to cultivate a “style”. If one’s personal work or exploration evolves into themes or uniquely identifiable elements for purposes of development, that’s learning. If one’s sole intention is to create a “style”, then it impedes exploration and learning since the goal is narcissistic.

> Who or what would appear on your personal canon?
I wish when I was in school I had been introduced the lesser known individuals (Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, Lucian Bernhard, Bruce Rogers), since the giants, saints and heroes are encountered inevitably.

Who or what would appear on your personal canon?

I think the whole point of a canon, in the sense that we talk about an artistic or literary canon, is that it is not personal. It includes the works or authors who are highly regarded by a community. This does mean of course that the canon changes over time as tastes change, with some works having greater esteem in some generations that others, and there are always edge-cases, works that slip in and out of the canon. There are also, of course, different communities, even within a broader culture, and hence different or even competing canons, but the idea of community remains central to the recognition of a canon. A canon is not a ’desert island’ list: when you are alone on a desert island with your favourite typefaces, there is no canon, only the things you thought you liked when the ship went down. :)

John’s right, of course, though schools of art production and criticism tend quite rightly to reconstruct the canon for their own uses. One could thus create any number of type-design canons according to one’s preferences: tradition vs novelty, high- vs low-register, all the usual things. But if one starts by saying that types are to be judged only according to (1) their readability in some large or small range of printing and reading conditions, and (2) by their ability to delight a large group of attentive readers over many years (per reader) as patterns on a page or screen, while preserving the detachment of a measure of impersonality, then the canon of roman and italic type designers for me goes:
Griffo, Granjon, Guyot, Jannon, van den Keere, Christoffel van Dijck, Fleischman, Fournier le jeune, Besley, Monotype drawing office, Gill, van Krimpen, Dwiggins, Bloemsma, Majoor. Dishonourable but admiring mention goes to Peter Schoeffer the Younger, who was not very good as a type designer but who can be said to have invented the typographic display letter.

I can’t say that I have been deeply exposed to the designers of type more than actual type and design. From my background most designers don’t really know a lot about the people behind their favourite fonts and unless you take a type and typography course as part of your education the likelihood of being educated in that area is slim.

While I learnt about serif versus sans serif; there was never mention on the history. I think young designers should at least be exposed to the names that give them the most common faces, such as Arial, Times, and the beloved Comic Sans, so as to not hate it. :)

Maybe that wasn’t the answer you’re looking for; forgive me if I misinterpreted.