For the Love of Type

M LU VO

E

I

R FO

E TH

VE LO

OF

PE

TY

VOLUME I

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

S N A IC S

AS B 05

n

adse

er M Walk y b ed esign

D

ELY B 09

rdy

s Ha y Jes b d e n

A C I ER

g

Desi

M A T G 7 1

iu

a Ch

Alin d by e n g i Des

S N A S Y L I UT

23

d by

gne Desi

barra

an I Morg

TO O B RO

31

lena

by So d e n esig

r

la Agui

D

35

M

A H T GO

on, ught

Ho Lucy y b ned

g Desi

ST O J 41 g

Desi

si avou

ly K y Kel b d e n

B 7 4

E C I R EAT met

Em d by e n g i Des

TYPOGRAPHY,

AN INTRODUCTION What is typography? Why does it matter? How does it impact our lives?

The Merriam-Webster definition of “typography” is: “the work of producing printed pages from written material” or “the style, arrangement, or appearance of printed letters on a page.” How those letters, words, and sentences are styled and arranged affects how they are perceived. Good typography clarifies content, establishes hierarchy, and presents information in a manner that makes it easier to read, and, therefore, to understand. Good typography is good communication: it can start a dialog or advance an idea or make a difference in the world.

Typography is also intertwined with our daily lives—we encounter type in everything from the products we buy, the signage around us, the books we read, the news we consume, and the directions we follow. Typography can be beautiful, functional, persuasive, and inviting. It can also fail, especially when there is a disconnect between how the type looks and what the text says.

This book is a celebration of typography and typeface design. It is also a creative collaboration among students in Art 338: Typography II at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, during winter quarter 2020. Each student in the class researched a different typeface and contributed the pages in this book that describe and showcase their assigned typeface. The final design reflects the many talents of the students who brought this project to life.

Charmaine Martinez Associate Professor of Design and Type Enthusiast Department of Art and Design California Polytechnic State University

The Typeface.

Basic sans is a neutral Grotesque typeface on the surface, but on closer analysis hold lots of subtle details that prove pleasant to the eye and much more comforting than your run of the mill sans serif. It comes in a wide variety of weights and supports over 200 languages. Basic Sans works well in just about any setting, but it does its best job as a sub-head or at medium sizes. Packed with tons of personality for such a neutral face and bursting with alternative characters through OpenType. Basic Sans will be a great addition to any project and as a compliment to your next typeface selection.

Whats the Story?

Released in 2016, Basic Sans is a contemporary typeface with Grotesque features designed by Daniel Hernรกndez for the Latinotype foundry. It breaks some of the rules for a Grotesque face with its more humanist nuances. Grotesque typefaces are generally characterized by their less sanitary appearance with lots of visual character and quirkiness as compared to Neo-Grotesques like Helvetica, which are generally regarded as

free of personality. This of course can be what is desired for your design, however, there is always an opportunity to use something more specific rather than generic. Grotesques are typically more geometric in their proportions but nowhere near the extremes of Geometric Sans Serifs like Futura. Basic Sans shows its more humanist side in its slightly looser letterforms that don’t conform as strictly to their geometric origins. A very subtle touch of the artists hand is present in these letterforms.

Another detail about this typeface is its breath of language support with almost every accent character under the sun. Although designer Daniel Hernández does not speak of it directly, I believe this may be the result of his proud Latino heritage and cultural awareness. As an English only speaker, it could be easy to disregard accent characters as English does not have any of its own. Basic Sans supports over 200 languages with copious different accent characters to be used.

The Designer.

Born in Chile, Daniel Hernández began his type design career rather early in his career when he left for Buenos Aires, Argentina. Before he was even out of school he won a 2006 award from Argentinian magazine tipoGráfica for his first typeface Stgotic, a stylish 8-bit (eight pixels tall) blackletter design. After graduating, desiring freedom in his work, Daniel partnered with Miguel Hernández and Luciano Vergara to start the Latinotype foundry. They desired to professionalize their discipline in Chile, a place not well known at the time for its type design, and as a means to distribute Latin American type to the world.

Daniel believes it important that Chile does not have the same typographic tradition that stands in the United States and in Europe as it allows him to try new things “without fear, without prejudices, without a past and with a lot of future” -Daniel

BASIC SANS

06

07

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

BASIC SANS

08

Bely.a typeface story Balance. Striking. Experimental.

Released by TypeTogether in 2016, Bely is a luxurious, sophisticated spin on the classic serif style containing four text weights that ensure ease of legibility. As a classic serif Bely Text features beautifully balanced capitals. The family also includes Bely Display, a bold and expressive French-style inspired display weight which experiments with the balance of stroke contrast and both triangular and rectangular shape. Bely Display is an excellent weight for larger sizes with its striking angled and high stroke contrast. Bely includes the Latin A Extended glyph set as well as its two text weights, matching italics, and unique display style. Bely’s OpenType features allow for typographic exploration as it offers small caps, both tabular and proportional lining and old-style figures, ligatures, alternate characters, case-sensitive variants, and fractions.

Since its creation in 2016, Bely has won the following awards: the TypeTogether’s Typeface Publishing Incentive Programme scholarship (2014), the French magazine Étapes for the Diploma Issue (2014), the “TransFormations” exhibition at Centre Pompidou in France (2014), and the SOTA catalyst Award (2016).

BELY

10

BELY

12

BELY

14

BELY

16

Grilli Type Grilli Type is an independent Swiss type foundry based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Grilli offers retail and custom typefaces. They often collaborate with other designers, artists, and developers like Josh Schaub, Pieter Pelgrims, and David Elsener. All of Grilli’s team members actually work remotely which makes meetings in different time zones a huge challenge. Each of Grilli’s typefaces include a minisite that allows the type design to be appreciated by type aficionados.

o t e m Welco

o l u Pa

Meet the Designers GT America was created by Noel Leu and Seb McLauchlan under Grilli Type. The independent Swiss type foundry was founded by Leu and Thierry Blancpain in 2009.

Noel Leu Noel Leu is a Swiss graphic designer and type designer who travels extensively across Asia, Europe, and North America where he gives workshops. At art school, his teachers told him to “forget about type design as a career” as it was “way too difficult” and that Leu shouldn’t consider it. Leu asked other teachers and they all seemed to have the same response of typography not being able to market well and that no one would pay for it. Leu didn’t listen to them and felt rebellious. This is when he began his early design internship at the Swiss type foundry, Moire. After Leu gained more knowledge and experience, he went on to start up Grilli Type and quickly released GT Pressura as their first type family in collaboration with Moire.

Seb McLauchlan Seb McLauchlan is a self-taught type designer since his university did not offer type design as a part of their program. He spent many nights working on letters and eventually emailed Grilli type, shortly after they opened, to ask for advice and feedback on his first attempt at type design.

Everytime that he thought he designed a letter that was presentable, he would email Grilli and “pester” them for feedback. After a year, he saw that Grilli was looking for an intern, so he was able to work with them after Grilli had seen his progress over the course of the year.

GT AMERICA

18

GT AMERICA

20

GT AMERICA

22

23

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

UTILY SANS

24

UTILY SANS

26

UTILY SANS

28

29

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

UTILY SANS

30

Typeface Story

Roboto Slab CREATED IN 2013

In first approaching the idea of creating Roboto, Christian Robertson wanted to create something that had flexibility to it and could be converted into a lot of styles and weights. Robertson was working with Google when they pitched him to create a default typeface for their new Android applications and sites. Robertson wanted to create more than just a regular and bold, so he created medium weights for the regular, mono, and slab versions.

M M M

Since this type was to be a default, it had to be easily adjusted to fit different types of uses and tones. Roboto, in all its forms, has sophisticated aspects, with its big counters and strong angles, but also some playful aspects, with circular dots and curved shoulders.

could easily be updated and altered so that it is a growing and still relevant typeface. The Roboto Slab was then created in 2013 to be used with and next to the original Roboto, Roboto Condensed and Roboto Mono.

“

While some grotesks distort their letterforms to force a rigid rhythm, Roboto doesn’t compromise, allowing letters to be settled into their natural width. This makes for a more natural reading rhythm more commonly found in humanist and serif types — Google Fonts

This type family has since been the default This typeface was first created in 2011, but since Robertson knew that this type would be widely used for digital screens, he made sure that it

31

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

typeface for Android users and for other Google systems such as Google+, Google Play, YouTube,

DESIGNER TIMELINE 2001 Graduates from Brigham Young University

2005 Visual Design Director at Punchcut

DESIGNER BIO

Christian Robertson Christian Robertson received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design at Brigham Young University and then went on to be the visual design director for Punchcut, an experience design company. After Punchcut, he started working at Google in 2010 and then created Roboto in 2011 and Roboto Slab in 2013.

Robertson has also helped release the Ubuntu-Title typeface. He did this through his own type foundry called Betatype, located in San Francisco, California, which is where Robertson is also from.

2010 Android Visual Designer at Google

2011 Creation of Roboto for Android operating system

2013 Release of Roboto Slab

2020 Robertson works at Google and Betatype, his type foundry.

Robertson is currently still working at Google as an Android Visual Designer and at Betatype. Christian Robertson also has a family and in his off time enjoys tending to his garden and tomato plants.

ROBOTO

32

Characteristics

Rbto

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

1234567890

Roboto Slab is a neo-grotesque slab serif typeface that was originally created as a default typeface for Google. Because it is a slab serif, the serifs in this typeface are large and are about the same width as the rest of the letters. What makes this typeface unique to others is that its serifs have slight, diagonal brackets that connect the serifs to the rest of the letter. This component makes the typeface more welcoming and playful than other slab serif typefaces that have no brackets between their serifs.

The overall cap height of these letters is also very large, which means that if someone is designing with this typeface, they should choose a smaller point size than they would normally for subheads and headlines, for instance. Since Roboto Slab also has a large character and body width, this typeface should not be used for body copy because

Diagonal brackets

33

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

No serifs on crossbars or arms

No serifs on tails

In terms of the overall sizing of Roboto Slab, the lowercase letters have a very high x-height, and small ascender and descender highs, compared to other slab serif typefaces. The thin, extra light and light weights should also only be used for large scale pieces and sizes because the stems and arms of these weights are very thin and most strokes could be considered hairline strokes.

Gpb Ascender

X-height

Descender

Strokes taper when bowl meets stems

Large bowls, counters, and eyes

ROBOTO SLAB WEIGHTS

Roboto Slab also carries no serif with its crossbars or arms, as seen in E, F, t, and f. The tail on the uppercase Q also contains no serif. This typeface also has very large counters and eyes and fairly small vertex spaces and crotch angles.

RRRRRR

these heights, along with the large serifs, make this typeface difficult to read at a small scale.

Thin

Light

Regular

Medium

Bold

Cap-height

Black

Small vertex and crotches

ROBOTO

34

ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQR STUVWXYZ 1234567890 “It’s not German, it’s not French, it’s not Swiss.

It’s very American.”

abcdefghi jklmnopqr stuvwxyz !@#$%&*?

6

For the Love of Type

HISTORY

Gotham is described as a no-nonsense, masculine, all American typeface. Gotham is straightforward, yet has a personality of its own. It is a new typeface that feels familiar, as it hearkens back to the signage many people are so familiar with.

It has become the typeface of American politics, known for its use in Barak Obama’s presidential campaign. Gotham has become a no-nonsense, working class typeface.

Created by Tobias Frere-Jones, Gotham goes beyond the traditional sans serif look, escaping the bounds of the traditional grid which was used to create it. Newsweek described Gotham best, “Unlike other sans serif typefaces, it’s not German, it’s not French, it’s not Swiss. It’s very American” (Challand).

Gotham was created in 2000, after GQ magazine commissioned Tobias Frere-Jones to create something “masculine, new, and fresh” (Challand).

Exploring the humanist and geometric signage of the post-war building signage found around New York City, Frere-Jones used New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal as inspiration for his project. In an outtake from the film Helvetica,

Frere-Jones said “[w]e both noticed the lettering on the Port Authority Bus Terminal up on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. The lettering over the front door is this very plain geometric letter, but its not the type of letter that a type designer would make.

It’s the kind of letter an engineer would make. It was born outside of type design, in some other world and has a very distinct flavor from that” (Challand). Gotham is often critiqued as being too associated with New York City due to this, and its visual language being similar to that of the architecture of the city.

Gotham became public in 2002, where it was quickly used for many brands, newspapers, movie posters, and political campaigns due to its distinctly American feel. Most notably it appeared in Obama’s HOPE campaign, which only further drove its popularity. Appearing in the FIFA World Cup logo, the Cartoon Network rebrand, Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, Saks, New York University, The Tribeca Film Festival, TV shows including CONAN and Saturday Night Live (Hawley). Gotham is everywhere. It has become such a part of culture that it is hardly worth noting when it appears somewhere new anymore.

GOTHAM

36

GOTHAM

38

39

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

GOTHAM

40

BEHIND THE TYPE

ON OWEN EARL Owen Earl with indestructible type* has a true love for typography. In the short five years he’s been creating fonts, he’s worked for several companies but enjoys most working on a smaller scale. His passion involves making valuable, functional, versatile, and contemporary typography.

ON JOST* Jost* was designed by Owen Earl from the indestructible type* Foundry, debuting in June 2017. It was inspired by the legendary Futura typeface designed by Paul Renner in 1927, taking this historic typeface to a new level in modern times. Jost* was created to take all the best elements of Futura and enhance its functionality, with a larger x–height and more balanced capital forms. Additionally, Jost* included features not possible in the time of Futura. Jost* contains alternative character sets where you can choose to use the iconic single story “a” of Futura, or double–story as well. Jost* also includes tabular numbers and the default proportional numbers. Jost* was also previously known as Renner*, the name was changed due to copyright infringement over the name “Renner,” and in part to pay tribute Heinrich Jost, a German designer who aided Paul Renner in bringing his typographic ideas to life. Just as of September 2018, version 3.3 of Jost* includes the support of over 50 languages and 18 styles. Updates on July 13, 2019 (Version 3.4) and January 01, 2020 (Version 3.5) added full Romanian support, Cyrillic (Russian), and fixed any metadata issues that arose previously.

With indestructible type*, the goal is creating highly versatile and timeless typography that would hold well in any situation. Even within the name of the foundry is its mission statement, making type indestructible in its accessibility, modernism, and overall having such a broad range of use.

Undeniably, any designer will want these typefaces, including Jost*, in your back pocket. Look for an asterisk at the end of any indestructible type* and you’ll know you have a keeper.

JOST

42

43

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

JOST

44

45

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

JOST

46

BEATRICE DISPLAY Beatrice Display is a san serif typeface published by Sharp Type in 2018. It is meant to accompany Beatrice, a much more traditional san serif designed for large sections of text. The creators of Beatrice set out to design something entirely new. By ignoring the rules that govern most typefaces, Beatrice explores an entirely new realm of type through a new system of contrast.

The display version takes this system to the extreme by offering up a super high contrast sans serif with inner thin strokes.

47

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

Display of typeface weights from Sharp Type

BEATRICE DISPLAY

48

49

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

51

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

BEATRICE DISPLAY

52

53

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

BEATRICE DISPLAY

54

TYPOGRAPHY, Basic Sans

Design, 22 July 2014, desktopmag.com.au/features/ switzerland-shanghai-wellington-seb-mclauchlans-jour-

My Fonts. “Creative Characters Interview with Daniel

ney-type/.

Hernández, January 2012.” Edited by Jan Middendorp, Creative Characters Issue #54, MyFonts, Jan. 2012,

info@fiascodesign.co.uk, Fiasco Design -. “Swiss

www.myfonts.com/newsletters/cc/201201.html.

Graphic Designer and Grilli Type Cofounder Noël Leu • Inkygoodness.” Inkygoodness, inkygoodness.com/

P., Greta. “What Are Grotesque Fonts? History,

features/grilli-type-cofounder-noel-leu/.

Inspiration and Examples.” Creative Market, 21 Aug. 2017, creativemarket.com/blog/grotesque-fonts.

Riechers, Angela. “American Gothic Meets Swiss Grotesk, New GT America Typeface Is the Best of Both

Shoaf, Jeremiah. “Basic Sans Font Combinations &

Design Worlds.” Eye on Design, AIGA, 27 May 2017,

Free Alternatives” Typewolf, 2018, vwww.typewolf.com/

eyeondesign.aiga.org/american-gothic-meets-swiss-

site-of-the-day/fonts/basic-sans.

grotesk-new-gt-america-typeface-is-the-best-of-bothdesign-worlds/.

Bely Shoaf, Jeremiah. “GT America Font Combinations “Bely.” TypeTogether | High Quality Fonts and Custom

& Free Alternatives.” Typewolf, www.typewolf.com/

Type Design, 2020, www.type-together.com/bely-font.

site-of-the-day/fonts/gt-america.

“Roxane Gataud.” TypeTogether | High Quality Fonts and

Utily Sans

Custom Type Design, 2020, “Utily Sans.” Latinotype New Home, LatinoType, 2019, www.type-together.com/roxane-gataud.

latinotype.com/display-weights?font=222.

GT America

“Utily Sans: A Humanist Geometric Sans Serif From LatinoType.” Blog.youworkforthem.com, You Work

“GT America,” Grilli Type, 2016, www.grillitype.com/

For Them, 20 Sept. 2019, blog.youworkforthem.

typeface/gt-america.

com/2019/09/20/utily-sans-a-humanist-geometric-sans-serif-from-latinotype/.

GT America. “GT America Typeface,” 2016, www.gt-amer-

55

ica.com/.

Roboto Slab

Hutton, Julian. “Interview: Seb McLauchlan’s

Coles, Stephen. “Roboto Was a Four-

International Type Education.” Desktop: The Culture of

Headed Frankenfont.” Typographica, 19

FOR THE LOVE OF TYPE

A BIBLIOGRAPHY Oct. 2011, typographica.org/on-typography/

Končal, Petr. “Tobias Frere-Jones.” Design History

roboto-typeface-is-a-four-headed-frankenstein/.

Research, 7 Dec. 2010, designhistoryresearch.wordpress. com/category/tobias-frere-jones/.

Dunham, Ethan. “Roboto Font Free by Christian Robertson: Font Squirrel.” Latest Font, 24 Oct. 2011,

Murray, Morgan L. “Gotham.” The History, Style and Use of

www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/roboto.

Type, 23 June 2014, morganlmurrayims224researchtopic. wordpress.com/2014/06/23/gotham/.

Isaac, Mike. “Google Unwraps Ice Cream Sandwich, the Next-Generation Android OS.” Wired, Conde

Jost

Nast, 3 June 2017, www.wired.com/2011/10/ android-ice-cream-sandwich-3/.

Earl, Owen. “Jost*.” indestructible type*. indestructible type*, n.d. Web. https://indestructibletype.com/Jost.

Robertson, Christian. “Christian Robertson. Interface,

html. Accessed 18 February 2020.

Type Designer.” Christian Robertson. Interface, Type Designer, www.christianrobertson.com.

Miller, Meg. “Happy 90th Birthday to Futura, the Modernist Typeface That is Literally Everywhere.” AIGA Eye on

Robertson, Christian. “Making Material Design: Refining

Design. AIGA, 03 October 2017. https://eyeondesign.aiga.

Roboto.” YouTube, Google Design, 28 May 2015, www.

org/happy-90th-birthday-to-futura-the-modernist-type-

youtube.com/watch?v=6WxACOHm0_g.

face-that-is-literally-everywhere/. Accessed 03 March 2020.

Shoaf, Jeremiah. “Roboto Slab Font Combinations & Similar Fonts.” Typewolf, www.typewolf.com/

Sava, Alina. “Jost* by Owen Earl.” Fonts Arena. Digital

site-of-the-day/fonts/roboto-slab.

Ocean, Key CDN, Simple Analytics, n.d. Web. https:// fontsarena.com/jost-by-owen-earl/. Accessed 03 March

Gotham

2020.

Challand, Skylar. “Idsgn (a Design Blog).” Back to

Beatrice Display

Idsgn (a Design Blog), 22 July 2009, idsgn.org/posts/ know-your-type-gotham/.

Sharp Type. “About Us.” Sharp Type, sharptype.co/ typefaces/beatrice-display/.

Hawley, Rachel. “How This One Font Took over the World.”

The Outline, 26 Apr. 2019, theoutline.com/post/7356/

Sharp Type. “Beatrice Display.” Sharp Type, sharptype.co/

gotham-font-is-everywhere?zd=1&zi=ocvz4cci.

typefaces/beatrice-display/.

“Jones Type.” Frere, 2015, frerejones.com/about.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

56

For the Love of Type was made using Barlow and Noto Serif typefaces

Overall layout designed by Solena Aguilar Designers of individual spreads indicated on Table of Contents

Cal Poly, SLO Art 338 Winter 2020