Carol Twombly (born June 13, 1959) is an American designer, best known for her type design.
She worked as a type designer at
Adobe Systems
Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware
and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
from 1988 through 1999, during which time she designed, or contributed to the design of, many typefaces, including
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
,
Myriad
A myriad (from Ancient Greek grc, μυριάς, translit=myrias, label=none) is technically the number 10,000 (ten thousand); in that sense, the term is used in English almost exclusively for literal translations from Greek, Latin or Sinospher ...
and
Adobe Caslon.
Twombly retired from Adobe and from type design in early 1999, to focus on her other design interests, involving textiles and jewelry.
A biography of Twombly and her type design career by Nancy Stock-Allen was published in 2016.
Education
Carol Twombly was born June 13, 1959 in
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the conflu ...
.
She attended and graduated from the
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
(RISD) where she first studied sculpture, and later changed her major to graphic design. She credits her professors
Charles Bigelow and
Kris Holmes
Kris Holmes (born 1950, Reedley, California) is an American typeface designer, calligrapher, type design educator and animator. She, with Charles Bigelow, is the co-creator of the Lucida font family, among many other typeface designs. She is Pres ...
, whose studio she worked in, for her inspiration and stimulating her interest in typography.
Gerard Unger, a visiting instructor at RISD during Twombly's time as a student, also influenced her work.
At
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
Twombly was one of only five people to graduate from the short-lived digital typography program with Masters of Science degrees in computer science and typographic design.
Career
Twombly joined Adobe in 1988. One of her first projects at Adobe was Trajan.
As a designer, Twombly closely studied historical scripts for inspiration in creating digital fonts. She successfully translated Roman inscriptions—stone carvings on
Trajan's column
Trajan's Column ( it, Colonna Traiana, la, Columna Traiani) is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Ap ...
—into a modern digital design: the typeface
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
, in 1989. She next drew upon her background as a calligrapher and interest in
paleography
Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...
to translate
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...
versals, or decorative capital letters, into a digital typeface called Charlemagne (also in 1989). The specific source was a page of the Anglo-Saxon
Benedictional of Saint Aethelwold in the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
.
Similarly, Twombly based
Lithos
Lithos is a glyphic sans-serif typeface designed by Carol Twombly in 1989 for Adobe Systems. Lithos is inspired by the unadorned, geometric letterforms of the engravings found on Ancient Greek public buildings. The typeface consists of only cap ...
on historical precedents, although more generally to ancient Greek inscriptions, rather to any specific models.
Adobe marketed Trajan, Charlemagne, and Lithos as "Modern Ancients." In designing Adobe
Caslon
Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work.
Caslon worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or matrices used to cast metal ty ...
, she also examined closely the well-known eighteenth-century typeface designed by
William Caslon
William Caslon I (1692/1693 – 23 January 1766), also known as William Caslon the Elder,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was an English typefounder. The distinction and legibility of his type secured him the patronage of the leading ...
to create a modern digital equivalent. She collaborated with Robert Slimbach to create the sans serif
Myriad
A myriad (from Ancient Greek grc, μυριάς, translit=myrias, label=none) is technically the number 10,000 (ten thousand); in that sense, the term is used in English almost exclusively for literal translations from Greek, Latin or Sinospher ...
, her first completely original typeface design.
Awards
In her first international type design competition, Twombly was awarded the Morisawa gold prize for her typeface design in 1984. Subsequently, Morisawa Ltd., a Japanese typesetting manufacturer and the sponsor of the competition, licensed and marketed her entry as the Mirarae typeface. Twombly was also the 1994 winner of the
Prix Charles Peignot The Prix Charles Peignot (Charles Peignot Prize) is a major award in typeface design, given "to a designer under the age of 35 who has made an outstanding contribution to type design". It is awarded irregularly, typically every three to five years, ...
, given by the
Association Typographique Internationale
The ATypI () or Association Typographique Internationale (the International Typography Association) is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to typography and type design. The primary activity of the association is an annual fall confe ...
(ATypI) - the first woman, and second American, to receive this award given to a promising typeface designer under the age of 35.
Typefaces by Twombly
*
![Trajan typeface specimen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Trajan_typeface_specimen.svg)
Adobe
Caslon
Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work.
Caslon worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or matrices used to cast metal ty ...
(1990)
*
Californian FB
University of California Old Style is a serif typeface designed by Frederic Goudy and created for the University of California Press from 1936–8. It is one of Goudy's most popular serif typefaces. It is also known as Berkeley Old Style and Ca ...
(roman only)
*Chaparral (1997)
*Charlemagne (1989)
*
Lithos
Lithos is a glyphic sans-serif typeface designed by Carol Twombly in 1989 for Adobe Systems. Lithos is inspired by the unadorned, geometric letterforms of the engravings found on Ancient Greek public buildings. The typeface consists of only cap ...
(1989)
*Mirarae (1984)
*
Myriad
A myriad (from Ancient Greek grc, μυριάς, translit=myrias, label=none) is technically the number 10,000 (ten thousand); in that sense, the term is used in English almost exclusively for literal translations from Greek, Latin or Sinospher ...
(1991, designed with
Robert Slimbach
Robert Joseph Slimbach is Principal Type Designer at Adobe, Inc., where he has worked since 1987. He has won many awards for his digital typeface designs, including the rarely awarded Prix Charles Peignot from the Association Typographique Inter ...
)
*Nueva (1994)
*
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
(1989)
*Viva (1993)
Under Twombly's art direction, fonts such as Ponderosa, Pepperwood, Zebrawood, and Rosewood, were part of an Adobe project to revive American display typefaces in
wood type
In letterpress printing, wood type is movable type made out of wood. First used in China for printing body text, wood type became popular during the nineteenth century for making large display typefaces for printing posters, because it was lig ...
from the 1880s.
After this series, she went on to design two more typefaces for Adobe: Nueva, an original design, and Chaparral, which references nineteenth-century
slab serif
In typography, a slab serif (also called ''mechanistic'', ''square serif'', ''antique'' or ''Egyptian'') typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by thick, block-like serifs. Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular ( Rockwell), ...
forms and sixteenth-century roman
book hand
A book hand was any of several stylized handwriting scripts used during ancient and medieval times. It was intended for legibility and often used in transcribing official documents (prior to the development of printing and similar technologies). ...
, a calligraphic form. She designed Chaparral in collaboration with calligrapher
Linnea Lundquist.
Retirement
Twombly left Adobe in 1999. Speaking in 2014, she cited a variety of reasons for the decision, including a lack of interest in designing fonts for onscreen display and the market failure of Adobe's
multiple master font technology.
She is currently an independent artist, specializing in drawing, painting on textiles, beading
shekere
The shekere (from Yoruba Ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀) is a West African percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd. The Shekere originated in a tribe in Nigeria called the Yoruba. The ins ...
s, and basket-making.
References
Sources
Carol Twombly - Adobe Type Designers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Twombly, Carol
1959 births
Living people
American typographers and type designers
Rhode Island School of Design alumni
American calligraphers
American graphic designers
Women graphic designers
People from Concord, Massachusetts
Adobe Inc. people
Women calligraphers