Syntax comprises a family of fonts designed by Swiss typeface designer
Hans Eduard Meier. Originally just a
sans-serif font, it was extended with additional
serif designs.
Syntax
Syntax is a
humanist sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are thousands o ...
designed by Meier in 1968, and released in 1969 by the D. Stempel Schriftgießerei (
type foundry
A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and M ...
) of Frankfurt am Main.
It is believed to be the final face designed and released by D. Stempel for foundry casting.
The original drawings were done in 1954; first by writing the letters with a brush, then redrawing their essential linear forms, and finally adding balanced amounts of weight to the skeletons to produce optically monoline letterforms. In the period 1968–1972, Meier worked on additional weights and variations to the Syntax typeface. In 1989, the original foundry metal design was digitized by Adobe, which also expanded the family to include bold and ultrabold weights, resulting in a font family of 4 romans and 1 italic (in lightest weight) fonts.
Meier described Syntax as being a sans-serif face modeled on the Renaissance serif typeface, similar to
Sabon
Sabon is an old-style serif typeface designed by the German-born typographer and designer Jan Tschichold (1902–1974) in the period 1964–1967. It was released jointly by the Linotype, Monotype, and Stempel type foundries in 1967. The design ...
or
Bembo
Bembo is a serif typeface created by the British branch of the Monotype Corporation in 1928–1929 and most commonly used for body text. It is a member of the " old-style" of serif fonts, with its regular or roman style based on a design cut ar ...
. The uppercase has a wide proportion, and the terminals not being parallel to the baseline provide a sense of animation. The lowercase a and g follow the old style model of having two storeys. The italics are a combination of humanist italic forms, seen in the lowercase italic q, and the obliques of industrial or grotesque sans-serifs, seen in the lowercase italic a, which retains two storeys, unlike in other humanist sans-serif typefaces like
FF Scala Sans
FF Scala Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Dutch designer Martin Majoor in 1993 for the Vredenburg Music Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It was designed as a companion to Majoor's earlier serif old style typeface FF Scala, d ...
and
Gill Sans, where the a has a single storey italic.
On its release
Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold (born Johannes Tzschichhold, also known as Iwan Tschichold, or Ivan Tschichold; 2 April 1902 – 11 August 1974) was a German calligrapher, typographer and book designer. He played a significant role in the development of gra ...
praised Syntax as "very easy to read, well designed: better than the related
Gill Sans".
Different brand names and derivative fonts
Bitstream released Syntax under the name ''Humanist 531''. The family does not include an italic font.
Infinitypereleased Syntax under the name ''Saxony'', including an italic and medium font.
The Cyrillic version was developed a
ParaTypein 1999 by
Isay Slutsker and
Manvel Shmavonyan.
Oberon version
The Syntax font family was chosen by
Niklaus Wirth
Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally ...
for the
Oberon operating system. During part of the period that Oberon was under development, Meier worked in Wirth's group at
ETH
(colloquially)
, former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule
, image = ETHZ.JPG
, image_size =
, established =
, type = Public
, budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021)
, rector = Günther Dissertori
, president = Joël Mesot
, a ...
, developing hand-optimized bitmap versions of the Syntax fonts (this was in the days prior to font anti-aliasing).
Linotype Syntax
In 1995, Hans Eduard Meier and Linotype began to produce an extensive revision and expansion of the Syntax font family.
Based on original font design, the alterations made to accommodate
hot metal
''Hot Metal'' (1986–88) is a British sitcom produced by London Weekend Television about the newspaper industry.
Written by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall, it is very much a continuation in style from their previous sitcom '' Whoops Apoc ...
and
phototypesetting machines were discarded. The family was expanded to 6 weights with italics on all weights. All fonts include old style figures and proportional lining figures, while 3 lightest weights also include
small caps glyphs. Regular and bold weight fonts also include
Cyrillic characters. Characters such as @, C, R, , were redesigned.
The font family was released in 2000.
Linotype Syntax Lapidar
It is a variant of Linotype Syntax, but modelled after chiseled letter forms of the ancient Greeks. Linotype Syntax Lapidar is available in two different design forms: Linotype Syntax Lapidar Text and Linotype Syntax Lapidar Display.
Linotype Syntax Lapidar Text supports old style figures, while Linotype Syntax Lapidar Display supports titling capitals. Both families come in 5 weights of roman fonts, covering Basic Latin to
ISO Latin-1 character sets, available in
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating ...
or
PostScript Type 1
PostScript fonts are font files encoded in outline font specifications developed by Adobe Systems for professional digital typesetting. This system uses PostScript file format to encode font information.
"PostScript fonts" may also separately ...
formats.
Linotype Syntax Lapidar Serif
It is a variant of Linotype Syntax containing serifs. Like the sans-serif version, it comes with Text and Display designs with same amount of fonts per family, and covers same character sets. However, Linotype Syntax Lapidar Serif Display does not support titling capitals.
Linotype Syntax Letter
It is a variant of Linotype Syntax modelled after the style of the Roman Rustic capitals. This family come in 6 weights with complementary italic fonts on all weights, covering ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin Extended character sets.
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...
features include old style figures.
Linotype Syntax Serif
It is a variant of Linotype Syntax with serifs. This family come in 6 weights with complementary italic fonts on all weights, covering ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin Extended character sets. OpenType features include old style figures, with small caps and proportional lining figures on 3 lightest weights.
Badiya
It is an Arabic variant designed by
Nadine Chahine
Nadine Chahine (in Arabic: نادين شاهين) is a Lebanese type designer working as the CEO at I Love Typography Ltd and the Director at ArabicType Ltd. From 2005 till 2015 she worked as the Arabic Specialist at Linotype and Monotype Imagi ...
, based on the original Syntax. Badiya, which means "desert" in Arabic, is a modern and slightly modulated
Naskh. The design has open counters that enable it to be used in quite small sizes, optimized for print in magazines and corporate communication.
2 roman fonts, in regular and bold weights, were produced. It supports ISO Adobe 2, Latin Extended, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu characters, tabular numerals for the supported languages.
Awards
Linotype Syntax won TDC
2 2000 (
Type Directors Club
The Type Directors Club (TDC) is an international organization devoted to typography and type design, founded in 1946 in New York City. TDC believes that type drives culture, and that culture drives type—and is dedicated to cataloging, showcas ...
Type Design Competition 2000) award under the Text/display type systems category.
Bitstream Humanist 531 Cyrillic won awards at Kyrillitsa'99 under text category, and "bukva:raz!" type design contests.
Usages
Linotype Syntax is used in
OÖ Nachrichten,
Deccan Herald
''Deccan Herald'' is an Indian English language daily newspaper published from the Indian state of Karnataka. It was founded by K. N. Guruswamy, a liquor businessman from Ballari and was launched on 17 June 1948. It is published by The Print ...
newspapers,
Lonely Planet Guidebooks;
impuls 2000 magazine
[ ] and was used in
Sinclair
Sinclair may refer to:
Places
* Lake Sinclair, near Milledgeville, Georgia
* Sinclair, Iowa
* Sinclair, West Virginia
* Sinclair, Wyoming
* Sinclair Mills, British Columbia
* Sinclair Township, Minnesota
* Sinclair, Manitoba
People
* ...
computer box art, manuals and brochures.
References
*Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. ''Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History.'' Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. .
*Macmillan, Neil. ''An A–Z of Type Designers.'' Yale University Press: 2006. .
*Meggs, Philip B. and Rob Carter. ''Typographic Specimens: The Great Typefaces.'' Wiley: 1993.
External links
The New Linotype Syntax - December 1999{dead link, date=April 2017
*
ttp://www.linotype.com/en/56320/linotypesyntaxlapidarserifdisplay-family.html Linotype Syntax Lapidar Serif Display Font Family - by Hans Eduard Meierbr>
New Arabic Typefaces for Multilingual Communication TodayHumanist 531Essay on the work of Hans Eduard Meier Font Bundles
Unified serif and sans-serif typeface families
Humanist sans-serif typefaces
Linotype typefaces
Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1969