Bell Gothic is a sans-serif

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 ...

in the industrial or grotesque style designed by Chauncey H. Griffith in 1938 while heading the typographic development program at the

Mergenthaler Linotype Company The Mergenthaler Linotype Company is a corporation founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine (), a system to cast metal type in lines (linecaster) invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It became the world's leading manufacture ...

. The typeface was commissioned by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

as a proprietary typeface for use in

telephone directories A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization tha ...

and has since been made available for general licensing. Bell Gothic is designed for maximum legibility in the adverse conditions of small print on poor-quality newsprint paper, into which ink tends to absorb and spread out. It is therefore a popular font in printing at small sizes. Bell Gothic was replaced by

with

Matthew Carter Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is a British type designer.Christophe_Plantin.html" ;"title="y Christophe Plantin">y Christophe Plantin' in typography's golden age was in perfect condition (some muddle aside) long withPlantin's accoun ...

's typeface Bell Centennial in 1978, the one centennial anniversary of AT&T's founding. Bell Gothic was derived from Monotype Grotesque Std Black typeface.

Design

Earlier in Griffith's career at Mergenthaler Linotype, he had developed a highly successful newspaper text face called

Excelsior Excelsior, a Latin comparative word often translated as "ever upward" or "even higher", may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature and poetry * "Excelsior" (Longfellow), an 1841 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * ''Excelsior'' (Macedo ...

, which overcame many of the limitations of printing smaller point sizes on low quality newsprint. This contributed to his addressing similar limitations of telephone book printing. Bell Gothic was designed to be highly legible at small sizes, economical in its use of space (and hence paper), and reproduce well on uncoated, absorbent paper newsprint stock under less than optimal conditions. Griffith's face Bell Gothic is distinct for the cross bars on the uppercase I, the foot and cross bar on figure 1, and the angled terminus of the stroke on characters b, d, h, k, l, n, p, and q. While there are suggestions of an ink trap in several characters, they are minimal in comparison to the exaggerated ones found in Bell Centennial.

Evolution of use

Bell Gothic remained in uninterrupted use for AT&T telephone directories for forty years. Following AT&T's adoption of Bell Centennial, the Mergenthaler Linotype foundry licensed Bell Gothic for general use. Beginning in the early 1990s Bell Gothic became popular and associated with avant garde experimentation with type at places like the

Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of C ...

the

Design Academy Eindhoven Design Academy Eindhoven is an interdisciplinary educational institute for art, architecture and design in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The work of its faculty and alumni have brought it international recognition, and is widely regarded as one of the ...

in the Netherlands, and RISD. The typeface was used as a display and caption face by ''Metropolis'' magazine, by Canadian graphic designer

Bruce Mau Bruce Mau D.Litt. (born October 25, 1959) is a Canadian designer and educator. He began his career a graphic designer and has since applied his design methodology to architecture, art, museums, film, eco-environmental design, education, and conc ...

in designing the initial ZONE book series, Dutch graphic designer

Irma Boom Irma Boom (born 15 December 1960) is a Dutch graphic designer who specializes in bookmaking. Boom has been described as The Queen of Books, having created over 300 books and is well reputed for her artistic autonomy within her field. Her bold ...

, and has been widely used by

Semiotext(e) Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher of critical theory, fiction, philosophy, art criticism, activist texts and non-fiction. History Founded in 1974, ''Semiotext(e)'' began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Syl ...

Books, the

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

, and

Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumb ...

Revisions

Along with Matthew Carter's 1978 Bell Centennial reworking,

Tobias Frere-Jones Tobias Frere-Jones (born Tobias Edgar Mallory Jones; August 28, 1970) is an American type designer who works in New York City. He operates the company Frere-Jones Type and teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program. Among his ty ...

designed the ''Griffith Gothic'' typeface family for the Font Bureau in 1997. Condensed and italic variants were added, thus expanding the family in 2000. Isabella Chæva produced a cyrillic version of Bell Gothic for ParaType, based in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

, in 1999. She added italics in Griffith's original style in 2009. ''(For specimen showings and further information, see External Links.)''

References

*Aldersey-Williams, Hugh, Katherine McCoy, Lorraine Wild, et al. ''The New Cranbrook Design Discourse.'' Rizzoli: 1990. . *Blackwell, Lewis. ''20th Century Type.'' Yale University Press: 2004. . *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. .

External links

{{Commons category, Bell Gothic (typeface), Bell Gothic
Linotype's page for Bell GothicThread on Typophile discussing Bell Gothic
Linotype typefaces Grotesque sans-serif typefaces Corporate typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1938 Letterpress typefaces Photocomposition typefaces Digital typefaces AT&T Typefaces designed by Chauncey H. Griffith