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Events of 1925

Eric Gill

Story of Eric Gill

Perpetua

2. Perpetua was designed by Eric Gill. He was born February 22, 1882 in Brighton Sussex and passed away on November 17, 1940

3. Eric Gill, the highly skilled English letter-cutter, writer, and sculptor, originally designed this type for Stanley Morison at Monotype in 1925.

4-5. This font fits into the transitional classification because its face retains the qualities of stone-cut lettering, as well as the old style features of a slanted stress and medium contrast between thick and thin letter strokes. The serifs are particularly small, sharply cut, and horizontal. The italic looks more like a sloping roman compared to the usual cursive-style letter form. Perpetua has a small x-height which impairs readability. It also has long ascenders and descenders which need a lot of leading; this limits its use as a mainstream text face. Even so, the roman and italic fonts are widely available in regular and bold weights.

6. Three other fonts from the transitional classification are Baskerville, Caslon, and Bell.

7. In the year of 1925, the world starting to see the makings of World War II. This was the year when Hitler wrote his highly controversial book "Mein Kampf." The Locarno conferences took place to seek to secure European peace by mutual guarantees. John Baird transmitted the first television image in London. Leica marketed Oscar Barnack's 35 mm camera.

8. Eric Gill also designed the typefaces Gill Sans, Joanna, and Aries.

9. Perpetua is a typeface that was designed by British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker Eric Gill (1882–1940). Gill attended art college in Chichester before studying under Edward Johnston at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. A devout Christian, Eric Gill converted to Catholicism in 1913. Between 1913 and 1918 Eric Gill produced fourteen reliefs with scenes for the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral in London. In 1918 Eric Gill co-founded the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, a religious community of craftsmen. In 1920 Eric Gill co-founded the Society of Wood Engravers. From 1924 Eric Gill designed book layouts and most of his typeface designs date from around 1930. From 1928 Eric Gill had his own printing press at Speen, Buckinghamshire. He received commissions from bibliophile publishers, including Golden Cockerel Press, Cranach-Presse in Weimar, Leipzig publishers Faber & Faber, J.M. Dent & Sons, and the Limited Editions Club (established in 1929). Eric Gill executed numerous book illustrations, woodcuts, graphics, and watercolors, which are mainly devotional in content.

Though not designed in the historical period of transitional type (the hallmark of transitional type was John Baskerville's type designed in the last half of the 1700s), Perpetua can be classified with transitional typefaces because of characteristics such as high stroke contrast and bracketed serifs. Along with these characteristics, the personality of Perpetua bears the distinctive personality of Eric Gill's letterforms. According to Robert Harling in The Letter Forms and Type Designs of Eric Gill, Gill began work on Perpetua in 1925 at the request of Stanley Morison, typogaphical advisor to Monotype. Morision sought Gill's talent to design a new typeface for the foundry. By 1929, Perpetua Roman was issued as Monotype Series 239. Gill designed two companion faces for Perpetua. The first was a typeface called Felicity. That design was met with mixed reactions. A second italic, called Perpetua Italic, was drawn by Gill and subsequently issued by Monotype along with Perpetua Roman. Telltale distinctions of the unused Felicity (as seen in the illustration in Harling, page 51) include the absence of a serif at the baseline of the lowercase d and a straight tail on the lowercase y. Overall, Felicity is less sloped than Perpetua Italic. Aptly named, Perpetua was set in a limited edition of a new translation by Walter H. Shewring of The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity. The book was printed in 1929. The same type and illustrations (also done by Gill) for that book subsequently appeared in the Fleuron (number 7) which was edited by Stanley Morision and printed in 1930. Also set in Perpetua and published in 1929 was Art Nonsense and Other Essays written and illustrated by Eric Gill. He would receive many important and prestigious commissions, including works for Westminster Cathedral, the League of Nations, the BBC, and the London Transport before his death in 1940. Gill’s articles and ideas are being revived, reprinted and spread by so-called traditional and conservative Catholics. For example, his article “Painting and the Public” was included in the book Distributist Perspectives: Volume 1, Essays on the Economics of Justice and Charity, published by IHS Press in 2004. But what made Eric Gill famous was principally his art. Even though Gill has a highly skilled artist, some controversy with him and his work because some of it became very sexually explicit. Library Journal endorses that “Gill flaunted traditional morality by engaging in countless affairs as well as incestuous relationships with both his sisters and daughters.”

President Barack Obama used Perpetua in his campaign logo.

“The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist”

-Eric Gill

Font Classification: As typography progressed over time there came to be genre's within the field. This led to a system to differentiate typefaces based on thickness, serif's, improved techniques of print with more contemporary inks and paper. Designers began using techniques from different eras to form new typefaces using both new and old elements.

Old Style fonts originated from the Renaissance era which led to the fonts appearing "warm" and "friendly." It is based on handwriting and often has a noticeable contrast with thick and thin strokes. Bracketed serifs are an important element as well.

Examples: Caslon, Garamond, and Palladium

Transitional: Coming from the 18th century, this style combines Old Style features with broad nib pen writing along with a new system of using metal engravings.

Examples: Newton, Petersburg, ITC New Baskerville, Bachenas

Modern: After the introduction of the metal engraving system, this style became known for using a strong contrast between the widths of letters. Serifs tended to be long and thin with strictly vertical axes.

Example: Bodoni, Neva, and Selina

Slab Serif: This style differs from serifs because of a noticeable use of thick square-ended serifs. This was popular in the mid-19th century. Usually all strokes are of a similar width with a large x-height.

Examples: Luxor, Clarendon, Ziggurat

Sans Serif: This style became known as the "bare minimum" due to the lack of serif aspects, like a "tail." They became popular in the mid-19th century by the introduction of type being carved into wood.

Examples: Akzidenz Grotesk, Gill Sans, Futura

Script: Similar to handwriting, the fonts in this family vary and have been in existence since people have been writing. These fonts have a dynamic, fluid, and imperfect form. Usually these fonts are used for something formal, like a wedding invitation.

Example: Brush Script, Sonora, Choc, Mistral

Blackletter: These recognizable and memorable fonts are often used for headlines, labels, and even tattoos. Even though some fonts in this category can be difficult to use, it is one of the most popular types of font.

Examples: San Marco, Fette Fraktur, Engravers Old English

Grunge: "Sketchy" is the best way to describe this category. There are no clear, set descriptions of this style but many are a variation of another font. This became popular along with the Grunge musical movement.

Examples: MC Auto, Turbo Ripped, Laundromat

Monospaced: In this category, all letters are evenly spaced with the same width, this resembles the way a typewriter works. This leads to letters being nonproportional because they each take up the same amount of space by expanding or condensing.

Examples: Courier, Orator, OCR B

Undeclared: These fonts use both serif and sans serif characteristics. They mostly have sans serif form with flared serif elements

Examples: Optima, Beorcana, Copperplate Gothic

Established in New York, New York in 1989, typeface designers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones founded Hoefler and Frere-Jones. Their past experience in the industry made it easy for the duo to make their company successful. Coincidentally both men were born six days apart in 1970. Each took in interest in typography as teenagers and started designing fonts before they were 20. Hoefler began working with editorial designer Roger Black (who established Font Bureau) but was mostly a self-taught designer. However working with Black gave him experience at a young age to the field allowing him his first typeface commissions; he established the Hoefler Type Foundry the same year. Frere-Jones went to the Rhode Island School of Design and joined Font Bureau where he worked for seven years designing fonts that would soon become popular such as Interstate, which resembles the font used on U.S. Highways. The two men joined forces in 1999 and started their partnership five years later. Interested clients pursue Hoefler and Frere-Jones when they are seeking a unique typeface for publications and branding. Many of the typefaces become retail fonts do become retail after the contracts run out. Some clients include Sports Illustrated, GQ and Martha Stewart Living. From these examples the fonts Champion, Gotham and Archer have emerged. Even though this firm has a strong connection with the history of typography, they strive to keep their work contemporary to keep up with the times.

After looking through the Hoefler and Frere-Jones website the font that grabbed my attention the most was Mercury Display. It looks best in larger fonts, particularly larger then 18 point. It is a serif font that looks very modern and readable. It also has three weights that are all equally appealing. It was first designed for Esquire magazine. (above)

Hoefler and Frere-Jones

In addition to starting a design firm called Brand Design Inc, Andy Cruz and Rich Roat established House Industries in 1993 in Wilmington, Delaware. They gained another member, Alan Mercer, and the team decided that instead of selling a service they had to sell a product. In their first mailer they advertised ten typefaces. They were all display typefaces and all had their own unique components. These fonts were even delivered on a floppy disk, which encouraged the team to come up with a more unique and visually appealing system of delivering their product. House Industries became known for having fonts that were specific to a certain time, culture, or subcultre. Some examples of inspiration come from artist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, 1950s bowling alleys, 1960s horror movies and architecture from Richard Neutra. The company has expanded with lettering master Ken Barber, technologically savvy Tal Leming and from collaborations with Christian Schwartz. Some of their popular sans serifs include Neutraface, Chalet. After browsing House Industries fonts one that stuck out to me was the "Tiki" collection (example above). They are very fun fonts and also visually appealing because they create interest with each letter and its attributes. They all look tropical and like something you would see on vacation. Even though these fonts are very stylized, they

are still legible. House Industries has also expanded their business by selling things such as t-shirts and pillows.

http://www.houseind.com/

The Font Bureau, Inc was established in 1989 in Boston. The two men who founded this bureau are publication designer Roger Black and type designer David Berlow, even though they have different backgrounds they were able to join efforts and create this successful company. Berlow had an early interest in digital typography and he quickly grew to appreciate the technology of Adobe postscript and Apple's TrueType. Black had a history of working with magazines such as Rolling Stone, New York, and Newsweek which led to him starting his own business which focused on designing newspapers and magazines. Coincidentally, this business started up the same year he and Berlow founded The Font Bureau. The bureau is now responsible for the production of over 1,500 typefaces which are still pursued by publications today. The bureau prides themselves on having a wide variety of fonts which include traditional serifs to dingbats. Some of the fonts from the FB are Saber(left hand corner), Miller, Sloop, Giza, Tilting Gothic, Boomer Serif (lower left corner) and Roxy to name a few. After looking through the Fonts the Boomer Serif really grabbed my attention because of the thickness of the letters, how they look somewhat condensed, and because of the tails on almost each letter. I find the letter spacing visually appealing however it may influence readability in a negative way. This font was used by the AARP magazine and also the Chicago Tribune.

Font Bureau

I think my biggest challenge in this project is going to be making my sketches successful once they are on the computer- majority of my sketches are very outlined and not filled in so it will be interesting to see what I can come up with to fill the space in a way that works with the animal. I want to emphasize graceful lines but also elude to the animal being fun and playful.

John Baskerville was born in Worverly, Worcestershire England on January 28th, 1706. Throughout his lifetime he made his living by being a type designer, writing master and a printer. In 1725 Baskerville moved to Birmingham where he eventually became a writing master in 1733. By 1740 he was able to set up his own type foundry and printing works. As a result of this new business, his profits allowed him to experiment with typefounding. One of his first projects done in 1757 when his first printed book was published. This was an edition of Virgil, and soon after in 1758 en edition of John Milton followed. Baskerville's masterpiece came in 1763 when he completed an edition of the Bible. As a result of this, Baskerville was appointed as the printer at the University of Cambridge in 1758. Another important work came from Baskerville in 1763 when he designed a New Testament in Greek Type. By 1770 Baskerville was able to print and produce a four volume edition of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso." Baskerville passed away on January 8th, 1775 but his legacy lives on with the use of his typefaces still in the circuit today. Baskerville's type was recognizable due to his bold quality, high gloss paper and also the true black ink he used that he also invented. In 1953 the Cambridge University Press received Baskerville's original letter stamps and matrices from a donation.

Baskerville is unique in several ways, commonly for its large X-height which improves readability. It also has four different weights including roman, semibold, bold and heavy. Due to its "tail" present in many letters it is a very graceful fond and it very effective when it is in a large font size.

Adrian Frutiger is a famous Swiss designer born in 1928. He began his career as an apprentice as a compositor. Soon after he received more training in type and graphics at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts from 1949-51 where he was taught by Alfred Williams and Walter Kach. He moved to Paris in 1952 to pursue a career as a typeface designer and Artistic Manager at Derberny and Peignot. His early creations included Phoebus, Ondine and Meridien. He is known for makig some of the earliest typefaces for photocomposition. He established himself internationally with the creation and design of the Univers sans-serif typeface. It was originally intended for metal and film in 1957. Frutiger founded his own studio with Bruno Pfaffli and Andre Gurtler near Paris in 1961. He worked as a professor for ten years and the Ecole Estienne and also for eight years in a Paris school. In addition to being a designer, Frutiger also worked as a consultant to IBM and also Stempel type foundry. He also produced the typeface for the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in the early 1970's- in 1977 this font was released as the Frutiger typeface. In honor of Frutiger's 80th birthday in 2008 he collaborated with other designers to rework the Meridien typeface which resulted in the new Frutiger Serif. Frutiger has created over fifty fonts, some of which include Courier New, OCR A, OCR B, Serifa, Versailles, and Zurich.

Univers in a unique typeface because it was the first modular type family which includes 21 face, 5 weights and 4 widths. It has become known as the "alternative" to Helvetica.
The univers grid was originally used by Frutiger as a way to present the type family in a systematic way that would be organized by width and thickness.

I'm still having some issues coming up with ways to represent dolphins using circles squares and triangles. One fact that I learned while doing research was that a dolphins dorsal fin is as recognizable as a person's face. I think once we get our sketches onto the computer I can do more to make this apparent with my dolphin representations.