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typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
and
lettering Lettering is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Lettering is considered an art form, where each letter in a phrase or quote acts as an illustration. Each letter is created with attention to de ...
, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "
serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...
s" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than
serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...
typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. Sans-serif typefaces have become the most prevalent for display of text on computer screens. On lower-resolution digital displays, fine details like serifs may disappear or appear too large. The term comes from the French word , meaning "without" and "serif" of uncertain origin, possibly from the Dutch word meaning "line" or pen-stroke. In printed media, they are more commonly used for display use and less for
body text __NOTOC__ The body text or body copy is the text forming the main content of a book, magazine, web page, or any other printed or digital work. This is as a contrast to both additional components such as headings, images, charts, footnotes etc. on ...
. Before the term "sans-serif" became common in English typography, a number of other terms had been used. One of these outmoded terms for sans-serif was
gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
, which is still used in East Asian typography and sometimes seen in typeface names like
News Gothic News Gothic is a sans-serif typeface in the grotesque or industrial style. It was designed by Morris Fuller Benton and released in 1908 by his employer American Type Founders (ATF). News Gothic is similar in proportion and structure to Franklin ...
,
Highway Gothic Highway Gothic (formally known as the FHWA Series fonts or the Standard Alphabets for Highway Signs) is a sans-serif typeface developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and used for road signage in the Americas, includin ...
,
Franklin Gothic Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head desi ...
or
Trade Gothic Trade Gothic is a sans-serif typeface first designed in 1948 by Jackson Burke (1908–1975), who continued to work on further style-weight combinations (eventually 14 in all) until 1960 while he was director of type development for Linotype in t ...
. Sans-serif typefaces are sometimes, especially in older documents, used as a device for emphasis, due to their typically blacker
type color Type color, or colour, is an element of typography that describes how dense or heavy the text appears on the page. Finding the correct balance of type color and white space can make text more easily readable. The term ''type color'' should not ...
.


Classification

For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into three or four major groups, the fourth being the result of splitting the ''grotesque'' category into grotesque and neo-grotesque.


Grotesque

This group features most of the early (19th century to early 20th) sans-serif designs. Influenced by Didone serif typefaces of the period and sign painting traditions, these were often quite solid, bold designs suitable for headlines and advertisements. The early sans-serif typefaces often did not feature a lower case or
italics In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed ...
, since they were not needed for such uses. They were sometimes released by width, with a range of widths from extended to normal to condensed, with each style different, meaning to modern eyes they can look quite irregular and eccentric. Grotesque typefaces have limited variation of stroke width (often none perceptible in capitals). The terminals of curves are usually horizontal, and many have a spurred "G" and an "R" with a curled leg. Capitals tend to be of relatively uniform width. Cap height and ascender height are generally the same to produce a more regular effect in texts such as titles with many capital letters, and descenders are often short for tighter line spacing. Most avoid having a true italic in favor of a more restrained
oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...
or sloped design, although at least some sans-serif true italics were offered. Examples of grotesque typefaces include
Akzidenz-Grotesk Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin. ''german: label=none, italic=no, "Akzidenz"'' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tic ...
,
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
,
News Gothic News Gothic is a sans-serif typeface in the grotesque or industrial style. It was designed by Morris Fuller Benton and released in 1908 by his employer American Type Founders (ATF). News Gothic is similar in proportion and structure to Franklin ...
,
Franklin Gothic Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head desi ...
and
Monotype Grotesque Monotype Grotesque is a family of sans-serif typefaces released by the Monotype Corporation for its hot metal typesetting system. It belongs to the grotesque or industrial genre of early sans-serif designs. Like many early sans-serifs, it forms ...
. Akzidenz Grotesk Old Face, Knockout, Grotesque No. 9 and Monotype Grotesque are examples of digital fonts that retain more of the eccentricities of some of the early sans-serif types. According to Monotype, the term "grotesque" originates from it, grottesco, meaning "belonging to the cave" due to their simple geometric appearance. The term arose because of adverse comparisons that were drawn with the more ornate Modern Serif and Roman typefaces that were the norm at the time.


Neo-grotesque

Neo-grotesque designs appeared in the mid-twentieth century as an evolution of grotesque types. They are relatively straightforward in appearance with limited stroke width variation. Similar to grotesque typefaces, neo-grotesques often feature capitals of uniform width and a quite 'folded-up' design, in which strokes (for example on the 'c') are curved all the way round to end on a perfect horizontal or vertical.
Helvetica Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
is an example of this. Unlike earlier grotesque designs, many were issued in large families from the time of release. Neo-grotesque type began in the 1950s with the emergence of the
International Typographic Style The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style that emerged in Russia, the Netherlands, and Germany in the 1920s and was further developed by designers in Switzerland during the 1950s. The Internati ...
, or Swiss style. Its members looked at the clear lines of
Akzidenz-Grotesk Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin. ''german: label=none, italic=no, "Akzidenz"'' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tic ...
(1898) as an inspiration for designs with a neutral appearance and an even colour on the page. In 1957 the release of
Helvetica Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
,
Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such a ...
, and
Folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
, the first typefaces categorized as neo-grotesque, had a strong impact internationally: Helvetica came to be the most used typeface for the following decades. Other, later neo-grotesques include Unica,
Imago In biology, the imago (Latin for "image") is the last stage an insect attains during its metamorphosis, its process of growth and development; it is also called the imaginal stage, the stage in which the insect attains maturity. It follows the f ...
and
Rail Alphabet Rail Alphabet is a typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for signage on the British Rail network. First used at Liverpool Street station, it was then adopted by the Design Research Unit (DRU) as part of their comprehensive 1 ...
, and in the digital period
Arial Arial (also called Arial MT) is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software ap ...
, Acumin,
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and
Roboto Roboto () is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface family developed by Google as the system font for its mobile operating system Android, and released in 2011 for Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich". The entire font family has been licensed un ...
.


Geometric

Geometric sans-serif typefaces are based on geometric shapes, like near-perfect circles and squares. Common features are a nearly-circular capital 'O', sharp and pointed uppercase 'N' vertices, and a "single-storey" lowercase letter 'a'. The 'M' is often splayed and the capitals of varying width, following the classical model. The geometric sans originated in Germany in the 1920s. Two early efforts in designing geometric types were made by
Herbert Bayer Herbert Bayer (April 5, 1900 – September 30, 1985) was an Austrian and American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental and interior designer, and architect. He was instrumental in the development of the ...
and Jakob Erbar, who worked respectively on Universal Typeface (unreleased at the time but revived digitally as
Architype Bayer Architype Bayer is a geometric sans-serif typeface based upon the 1927 experimentation of Herbert Bayer. Bayer reacted to the Germanic use of capitalization for all nouns by abandoning uppercase. His new case combined characters based on the Carol ...
) and Erbar (circa 1925). In 1927 Futura, by
Paul Renner Paul Friedrich August Renner (9 August 1878 – 25 April 1956) was a German typeface designer, author, and founder of the Master School for Germany's Printers in Munich. In 1927, he designed the Futura typeface, which became one of the most ...
, was released to great acclaim and popularity. Geometric sans-serif typefaces were popular from the 1920s and 1930s due to their clean, modern design, and many new geometric designs and revivals have been developed since. Notable geometric types of the period include Kabel,
Semplicità Semplicità is a sans-serif typeface of the geometric style. It was published by the Nebiolo type foundry of Turin, Italy from around 1928. Semplicità, named for the Italian for "simplicity", is an example of the new wave of "geometric" sans-s ...
, Bernhard Gothic, Nobel and
Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...
; more recent designs in the style include ITC Avant Garde, Brandon Grotesque, Gotham, Avenir,
Product Sans Product Sans is a contemporary geometric sans-serif typeface created by Google for branding purposes. It replaced the old Google logo on September 1, 2015. As Google's branding was becoming more apparent on a multitude of kinds of devices, Googl ...
and Century Gothic. Many geometric sans-serif alphabets of the period, such as those authored by the
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
art school (1919–1933) and modernist poster artists, were hand-lettered and not cut into metal type at the time. A separate inspiration for many types described "geometric" in design has been the simplified shapes of letters engraved or stenciled on metal and plastic in industrial use, which often follow a simplified structure and are sometimes known as "rectilinear" for their use of straight vertical and horizontal lines. Designs which have been called geometric in principles but not descended from the Futura, Erbar and Kabel tradition include Bank Gothic,
DIN 1451 DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications. It was defined by the German standards body DIN (, 'German Institute for Standardisation', pronounced like the English word ''din'') i ...
,
Eurostile Eurostile is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Aldo Novarese in 1962. Novarese created Eurostile for one of the best-known Italian foundries, Nebiolo, in Turin. Novarese developed Eurostile to succeed the similar Microgramma, which ...
and
Handel Gothic Handel Gothic is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1965 by Donald J. Handel (1936–2002), who worked for the graphic designer Saul Bass. Handel Gothic was an instant success when first released. The typeface was originally distri ...
, along with many of the typefaces designed by
Ray Larabie Raymond Larabie (born 1970) is a Canadian designer of TrueType and OpenType computer fonts. He owns Typodermic Fonts, which distributes both commercially licensed and shareware/freeware fonts. Biography and career Larabie was born in Ottawa, ...
.


Humanist

Humanist sans-serif typefaces take inspiration from traditional letterforms, such as
Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called ''capitalis monumentalis'', inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and ''capitalis quadrata'', are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. Square capitals are characteriz ...
, traditional serif typefaces and calligraphy. Many have true italics rather than an
oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...
,
ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
s and even
swash Swash, or forewash in geography, is a turbulence, turbulent layer of water that washes up on the beach after an incoming ocean surface wave, wave has broken. The swash action can move beach materials up and down the beach, which results in the ...
es in italic. One of the earliest humanist designs was
Edward Johnston Edward Johnston, CBE (11 February 1872 – 26 November 1944) was a British craftsman who is regarded, with Rudolf Koch, as the father of modern calligraphy, in the particular form of the broad-edged pen as a writing tool. He is most fa ...
's Johnston typeface from 1916, and, a decade later, Gill Sans (
Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...
, 1928). Edward Johnston, a
calligrapher Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
by profession, was inspired by classic letter forms, especially the capital letters on the
Column of Trajan 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 Apo ...
. Humanist designs vary more than gothic or geometric designs. Some humanist designs have stroke modulation (strokes that clearly vary in width along their line) or alternating thick and thin strokes. These include most popularly Hermann Zapf's
Optima Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic s ...
(1958), a typeface expressly designed to be suitable for both display and body text. Some humanist designs may be more geometric, as in Gill Sans and Johnston (especially their capitals), which like Roman capitals are often based on perfect squares, half-squares and circles, with considerable variation in width. These somewhat architectural designs may feel too stiff for body text. Others such as Syntax,
Goudy Sans Goudy Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed by Frederic Goudy around 1929–1931 and published by Lanston Monotype. Unlike many sans-serifs, which often have an unadorned appearance with a geometric or industrial aesthetic, Goudy Sans has a more ...
and
Sassoon Sans Rosemary Sassoon (born 1931 and currently residing in Busselton, Western Australia) is an expert in handwriting, particularly that of children. She designed the Sassoon series of typefaces, produced in collaboration with Adrian Williams, which are ...
more resemble handwriting, serif typefaces or calligraphy. Frutiger, from 1976, has been particularly influential in the development of the modern humanist sans genre, especially designs intended to be particularly legible above all other design considerations. The category expanded greatly during the 1980s and 1990s, partly as a reaction against the overwhelming popularity of
Helvetica Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
and
Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such a ...
and also due to the need for legible
computer font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for print ...
s on low-resolution computer displays. Designs from this period intended for print use include
FF Meta FF Meta is a humanist sans-serif typeface family designed by Erik Spiekermann and released in 1991 through his FontFont library. According to Spiekermann, FF Meta was intended to be a "complete antithesis of Helvetica", which he found "boring an ...
, Myriad,
Thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
,
Charlotte Sans Charlotte Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Michael Gills in 1992 as part of a larger family called Charlotte, which includes a related serif text face. The face was designed for Letraset. Charlotte Sans bears comparison with Eric ...
,
Bliss BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known system language until C debuted a few years later. Since then, C b ...
, Skia and Scala Sans, while designs developed for computer use include Microsoft's Tahoma,
Trebuchet A trebuchet (french: trébuchet) is a type of catapult that uses a long arm to throw a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weight ...
,
Verdana Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typograph ...
, Calibri and Corbel, as well as
Lucida Grande Lucida Grande is a humanist sans-serif typeface. It is a member of the Lucida family of typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. It is best known for its implementation throughout the macOS user interface from 1999 to 2014, as ...
,
Fira Sans Fira Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Erik Spiekermann, Ralph du Carrois, Anja Meiners, Botio Nikoltchev of Carrois Type Design and Patryk Adamczyk of Mozilla Corporation. Originally commissioned by Telefónica and Mozilla Corpora ...
and Droid Sans. Humanist sans-serif designs can (if appropriately proportioned and spaced) be particularly suitable for use on screen or at distance, since their designs can be given wide
apertures In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An ...
or separation between strokes, which is not a conventional feature on grotesque and neo-grotesque designs.


Other or mixed

Due to the diversity of sans-serif typefaces, many do not exactly fit into the above categories. For example,
Neuzeit S Neuzeit S is a sans-serif typeface designed by Arthur Ritzel in 1959 (as Neuzeit-Buch) and 1966 (as Neuzeit-Buch S) for Linotype and a corporate typeface for Siemens. The German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania ...
has both neo-grotesque and geometric influences, as does Hermann Zapf's
URW Grotesk URW Grotesk is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Hermann Zapf for URW in the mid-1980s. URW Grotesk is a sans-serif of mixed design, with influences both of geometric sans-serifs of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Futura and Erbar, as ...
.
Whitney Whitney may refer to: Film and television * ''Whitney'' (2015 film), a Whitney Houston biopic starring Yaya DaCosta * ''Whitney'' (2018 film), a documentary about Whitney Houston * ''Whitney'' (TV series), an American sitcom that premiered i ...
blends humanist and grotesque influences, while
Klavika Klavika is a family of sans-serif fonts designed by Eric Olson and released by Process Type Foundry in 2004. It contains four weights: light, regular, medium, and bold (with corresponding italics) and variations of numerals. The family of typef ...
is a geometric design not based on the circle. Sans-serif typefaces intended for signage, such as
Transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...
and
Highway Gothic Highway Gothic (formally known as the FHWA Series fonts or the Standard Alphabets for Highway Signs) is a sans-serif typeface developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and used for road signage in the Americas, includin ...
(both used on road signs), may have unusual features to enhance legibility and differentiate characters, such as a lower-case 'L' with a curl or 'i' with serif under the dot.


Modulated sans-serifs

A particular subgenre of sans-serifs is those such as Rothbury,
Britannic Britannic means 'of Britain' or 'British', from the Roman name for the British. Britannic may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Britannic'' (film), a 2000 film based on the story of HMHS ''Britannic'' * SS ''Britannic'', a fictional ...
, Radiant, and
National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
with obvious variation in stroke width. These have been called 'modulated' or 'stressed' sans-serifs. They are nowadays often placed within the humanist genre, although they predate Johnston which started the modern humanist genre. These may take inspiration from sources outside printing such as brush lettering or calligraphy.


History

Letters without serifs have been common in writing across history, for example in casual, non-monumental epigraphy of the classical period. However,
Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called ''capitalis monumentalis'', inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and ''capitalis quadrata'', are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. Square capitals are characteriz ...
, the inspiration for much Latin-alphabet lettering throughout history, had prominent serifs. While simple sans-serif letters have always been common in "uncultured" writing and sometimes even in epigraphy, such as basic handwriting, most artistically-authored letters in the Latin alphabet, both sculpted and printed, since the Middle Ages have been inspired by fine calligraphy,
blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
writing and
Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called ''capitalis monumentalis'', inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and ''capitalis quadrata'', are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. Square capitals are characteriz ...
. As a result, printing done in the Latin alphabet for the first three hundred and fifty years of printing was "serif" in style, whether in
blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
, roman type, italic or occasionally
script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...
. The earliest printing typefaces which omitted serifs were not intended to render contemporary texts, but to represent inscriptions in Ancient Greek and
Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...
. Thus,
Thomas Dempster Thomas Dempster (23 August 1579 – 6 September 1625) was a Scottish scholar and historian. Born into the aristocracy in Aberdeenshire, which comprises regions of both the Scottish highlands and the Scottish lowlands, he was sent abroad as a yo ...
's ''De Etruria regali libri VII'' (1723), used special types intended for the representation of Etruscan epigraphy, and in c. 1745, the Caslon foundry made Etruscan types for pamphlets written by Etruscan scholar John Swinton. Another niche used of a printed sans-serif letterform from 1786 onwards was a rounded sans-serif script typeface developed by
Valentin Haüy Valentin Haüy (pronounced ; 13 November 1745 – 19 March 1822) was the founder, in 1785, of the first school for the blind, the Institute for Blind Youth in Paris (now Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, or the ''National Institute for th ...
for the use of the blind to read with their fingers.


Developing popularity

Towards the end of the eighteenth century neoclassicism led to architects increasingly incorporating ancient Greek and Roman designs in contemporary structures. Historian
James Mosley James Mosley (born 1935) is a retired librarian and historian whose work has specialised in the history of printing and letter design. The main part of Mosley's career has been 42 years as Librarian of the St Bride Printing Library in London, whe ...
, the leading expert on early revival of sans-serif letters, has found that architect
John Soane Sir John Soane (; né Soan; 10 September 1753 – 20 January 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professor of architecture at the R ...
commonly used sans-serif letters on his drawings and architectural designs. Soane's inspiration was apparently the inscriptions dedicating the
Temple of Vesta The Temple of Vesta, or the aedes (Latin ''Aedes Vestae''; Italian: ''Tempio di Vesta''), is an ancient edifice in Rome, Italy. The temple is located in the Roman Forum near the Regia and the House of the Vestal Virgins. The Temple of Vesta hou ...
in
Tivoli, Italy Tivoli ( , ; la, Tibur) is a town and in Lazio, central Italy, north-east of Rome, at the falls of the Aniene river where it issues from the Sabine hills. The city offers a wide view over the Roman Campagna. History Gaius Julius Solinu ...
, with minimal serifs. These were then copied by other artists, and in London sans-serif capitals became popular for advertising, apparently because of the "astonishing" effect the unusual style had on the public. The lettering style apparently became referred to as "old Roman" or "Egyptian" characters, referencing the classical past and a contemporary interest in Ancient Egypt and its blocky, geometric architecture. Mosley writes that "in 1805 Egyptian letters were happening in the streets of London, being plastered over shops and on walls by signwriters, and they were astonishing the public, who had never seen letters like them and were not sure they wanted to". A depiction of the style (as an engraving, rather than printed from type) was shown in the ''
European Magazine ''The European Magazine'' (sometimes referred to as ''European Magazine'') was a monthly magazine published in London. Eighty-nine semi-annual volumes were published from 1782 until 1826. It was launched as the ''European Magazine, and London Re ...
'' of 1805, described as "old Roman" characters. However, the style did not become used in printing for some more years. (Early sans-serif signage was not printed from type but hand-painted or carved, since at the time it was not possible to print in large sizes. This makes tracing the descent of sans-serif styles hard, since a trend can arrive in the dated, printed record from a signpainting tradition which has left less of a record or at least no dates.) The inappropriateness of the name was not lost on the poet
Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...
, in his satirical ''Letters from England'' written in the character of a Spanish aristocrat. It commented: "The very shopboards must be... painted in Egyptian letters, which, as the Egyptians had no letters, you will doubtless conceive must be curious. They are simply the common characters, deprived of all beauty and all proportion by having all the strokes of equal thickness, so that those which should be thin look as if they had the elephantiasis." Similarly, the painter Joseph Farington wrote in his diary on September 13, 1805 of seeing a memorial engraved "in what is called ''Egyptian Characters''". Around 1816, the Ordnance Survey began to use 'Egyptian' lettering, monoline sans-serif capitals, to mark ancient Roman sites. This lettering was printed from copper plate engraving.


Entry into printing

Around 1816, William Caslon IV produced the first sans-serif printing type in England for the Latin alphabet, a capitals-only face under the title Caslon Egyptian, 'Two Lines English Egyptian', where 'Two Lines English' referred to the typeface's body size, which equals to about 28 points. Although it is known from its appearances in the firm's specimen books, no uses of it from the period have been found; Mosley speculates that it may have been commissioned by a specific client. A second hiatus in interest in sans-serif appears to have lasted for about twelve years, until Vincent Figgins' foundry of London issued a new sans-serif in 1828. David Ryan felt that the design was "cruder but much larger" than its predecessor, making it a success. Thereafter sans-serif capitals rapidly began to be issued from London typefounders. Much imitated was the Thorowgood "grotesque" face of the early 1830s. This was arrestingly bold and highly condensed, quite unlike the classical proportions of Caslon's design, but very suitable for poster typography and similar in aesthetic effect to the (generally wider) slab serif and Fat face typefaces, "fat faces" of the period. It also added a lower-case. The term "grotesque" comes from the Italian word for ''cave'', and was often used to describe Roman decorative styles found by excavation, but had long become applied in the modern sense for objects that appeared "malformed or monstrous". The term "grotesque" became commonly used to describe sans-serifs. Similar condensed sans-serif display typefaces, often capitals-only, became very successful. Sans-serif printing types began to appear thereafter in France and Germany. A few theories about early sans-serifs now known to be incorrect may be mentioned here. One is that sans-serifs are based on either "fat face typefaces" or slab-serifs with the serifs removed. Also Printed in Motif as "Letters Without Serifs" It is now known that the inspiration was more classical antiquity, and sans-serifs appeared before the first dated appearance of slab-serif letterforms in 1810. The Schelter & Giesecke foundry also claimed during the 1920s to have been offering a sans-serif with lower-case by 1825. Wolfgang Homola dated it in 2004 to 1882 based on a study of Schelter & Giesecke specimens; Mosley describes this as "thoroughly discredited"; even in 1986 Walter Tracy described the claimed dates as "on stylistic grounds... about forty years too early". Sans-serif lettering and typefaces were popular due to their clarity and legibility at distance in advertising and display use, when printed very large or small. Because sans-serif type was often used for headings and commercial printing, many early sans-serif designs did not feature lower-case letters. Simple sans-serif capitals, without use of lower-case, became very common in uses such as tombstones of the Victorian period in Britain. The first use of sans-serif as a running text has been proposed to be the short booklet ''Feste des Lebens und der Kunst: eine Betrachtung des Theaters als höchsten Kultursymbols'' (Celebration of Life and Art: A Consideration of the Theater as the Highest Symbol of a Culture), by Peter Behrens, in 1900.


Twentieth-century sans-serifs

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sans-serif types were viewed with suspicion by many printers, especially those of Fine press, fine book printing, as being fit only for advertisements (if that), and to this day most books remain printed in serif typefaces as body text. This impression would not have been helped by the standard of common sans-serif types of the period, many of which now seem somewhat lumpy and eccentrically-shaped. In 1922, master printer Daniel Berkeley Updike described sans-serif typefaces as having "no place in any artistically respectable composing-room." By 1937 he stated that he saw no need to change this opinion in general, though he felt that Gill Sans and Futura were the best choices if sans-serifs had to be used. Through the early twentieth century, an increase in popularity of sans-serif typefaces took place as more artistic sans-serif designs were released. While he disliked sans-serif typefaces in general, the American printer J.L. Frazier wrote of Copperplate Gothic in 1925 that "a certain dignity of effect accompanies... due to the absence of anything in the way of frills", making it a popular choice for the stationery of professionals such as lawyers and doctors. As Updike's comments suggest, the new, more constructed humanist and geometric sans-serif designs were viewed as increasingly respectable, and were shrewdly marketed in Europe and America as embodying classic proportions (with influences of Roman capitals) while presenting a spare, modern image. Futura in particular was extensively marketed by Bauer and its American distribution arm by brochure as capturing the spirit of modernity, using the German slogan ''"die Schrift unserer Zeit"'' ("the typeface of our time") and in English ''"the typeface of today and tomorrow"''; many typefaces were released under its influence as direct clones, or at least offered with alternate characters allowing them to imitate it if desired.


Grotesque sans-serif revival and the International Typographic Style

In the post-war period, an increase of interest took place in "grotesque" sans-serifs. Writing in ''The Typography of Press Advertisement'' (1956), printer Kenneth Day commented that Stephenson Blake's eccentric Grotesque (Stephenson Blake typefaces), Grotesque series had returned to popularity for having "a personality sometimes lacking in the condensed forms of the contemporary sans cuttings of the last thirty years." Leading type designer Adrian Frutiger wrote in 1961 on designing a new face,
Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such a ...
, on the nineteenth-century model: "Some of these old sans-serifs have had a real renaissance within the last twenty years, once the reaction of the 'New Objectivity' had been overcome. A purely geometrical form of type is unsustainable." Of this period in Britain, Mosley has commented that in 1960 "orders unexpectedly revived" for Monotype Imaging, Monotype's eccentric
Monotype Grotesque Monotype Grotesque is a family of sans-serif typefaces released by the Monotype Corporation for its hot metal typesetting system. It belongs to the grotesque or industrial genre of early sans-serif designs. Like many early sans-serifs, it forms ...
design: "[it] represents, even more evocatively than Univers, the fresh revolutionary breeze that began to blow through typography in the early sixties" and "its rather clumsy design seems to have been one of the chief attractions to iconoclastic designers tired of the... prettiness of Gill Sans". By the 1960s, neo-grotesque typefaces such as
Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such a ...
and
Helvetica Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
had become popular through reviving the nineteenth-century grotesques while offering a more unified range of styles than on previous designs, allowing a wider range of text to be set artistically through setting headings and body text in a single family. The style of design using asymmetric layouts, Helvetica and a grid layout extensively has been called the Swiss or
International Typographic Style The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style that emerged in Russia, the Netherlands, and Germany in the 1920s and was further developed by designers in Switzerland during the 1950s. The Internati ...
.


Other names


Early

*Egyptian: The name of Caslon's first general-purpose sans-serif printing type; also documented as being used by Joseph Farington to describe seeing the sans-serif inscription on John Flaxman's memorial to Isaac Hawkins Browne (poet), Isaac Hawkins Brown in 1805, though today the term is commonly used to refer to slab serif, not sans-serif. *Antique: Particularly popular in France; some families such as Antique Olive, still carry the name. *Grotesque: Popularised by William Thorowgood of Fann Street Foundry from around 1830. The name came from the Italian word 'grottesco', meaning 'belonging to the cave'. In Germany, the name became ''Grotesk''. *Doric: Used by the Caslon foundry in London *Gothic: Popular with American type founders. Perhaps the first use of the term was due to the Boston Type and Stereotype Foundry, which in 1837 published a set of sans-serif typefaces under that name. It is believed that those were the first sans-serif designs to be introduced in America. The term probably derived from the architectural definition, which is neither Greek nor Roman, and from the extended adjective term of "Germany", which was the place where sans-serif typefaces became popular in the 19th to 20th centuries. Early adopters for the term includes Miller & Richard (1863), J. & R. M. Wood (1865), Lothian, Conner, Bruce McKellar. Although the usage is now rare in the English-speaking world, the term is commonly used in Japan and South Korea; in China they are known by the term East Asian gothic typeface, ''heiti'' (Chinese: ), literally meaning "black type", which is probably derived from the mistranslation of Gothic as blackletter typeface, even though actual blackletter typefaces have serifs.


Recents

*Lineale, or linear: The term was defined by Maximilien Vox in the VOX-ATypI classification to describe sans-serif types. Later, in British Standards Classification of Typefaces (BS 2961:1967), lineale replaced sans-serif as classification name. *Simplices: In Jean Alessandrini's ''désignations préliminaries'' (preliminary designations), ''simplices'' (plain typefaces) is used to describe sans-serif on the basis that the name 'lineal' refers to lines, whereas, in reality, all typefaces are made of lines, including those that are not lineals. *Swiss: It is used as a synonym to sans-serif, as opposed to ''roman'' (serif). The OpenDocument format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) and Rich Text Format can use it to specify the sans-serif generic typeface ("font family") name for the font files used in a document. Presumably refers to the popularity of sans-serif grotesque and neo-grotesque types in Switzerland. *Industrial: Used to refer to grotesque and neo-grotesque sans-serifs that are not based on "artistic" principles, as humanist, geometric and decorative designs normally are.


Gallery

File:Irish national balloon and parachute jump in 1848 (cropped).jpg, Dublin 1848, caps-only heading with crossed V-form 'W' File:GoodSenseCorsetWaists1886page153.gif, Corset advertisement using multiple grotesque typefaces, United States, 1886 File:Nationaler Frauendienst.JPG, Light sans-serif being used for text, Germany, 1914 File:Weihnachten im Feld 1914 Liebesgaben für Krieger cropped.jpg, German propaganda poster, 1914 File:Patriotischer Landes-Hilfsverein vom Roten Kreuze - Laibach 1916.jpg, Small art-nouveau flourishes on 'v' and 'e'. Ljubljana, 1916. File:Time (Ireland) Act 1916.jpg, Italic, Dublin, 1916 File:3-2 Sammlung Eybl (Slg.Nr. 2268) Plakat 4. Kriegsanleihe 1916.jpg, Nearly monoline and stroke-modulated sans; Austrian war bond poster, 1916 File:Sátori Lipót Odette 1918.jpg, Broad block capitals. Hungarian film poster, 1918. File:1920 poster 12000 Jewish soldiers KIA for the fatherland.jpg, Monoline sans-serif with art-nouveau influenced tilted 'e' and 'a'. Embedded umlaut at top left for tighter linespacing. File:Affiche CM Font-Romeu Roux.jpg, Art Deco thick block inline sans-serif capitals, inner details kept very thin. France, 1920s. File:Votation Kursaals 1928.jpg, Block (typeface), Berthold Block, a thick German sans-serif with shortened descenders, allowing tight linespacing. Switzerland, 1928. File:Cartazlamp.jpg, Artistic sans-serif keeping curves to a minimum (the line 'O Governo do Estado'), Brazil, 1930 File:Imperial Airway Switzerland Poster (19471597542).jpg, Lightly modulated sans-serif lettering on a 1930s poster, pointed stroke endings suggesting a brush File:Airace.jpg, Geometric sans-serif capitals, with sharp points on 'A' and 'N'. Australia, 1934. File:Metrolite and Metroblack.jpg, Dwiggins' Metrolite and Metroblack typefaces, geometric types of the style popular in the 1930s File:Posters and art processes LCCN98507145.jpg, Stencilled lettering apparently based on Futura Black, 1937 File:"Cancer Danger Signals" - NARA - 514028.jpg, A 1940s American poster. The curve of the 'r' is a common feature in grotesque typefaces, but the 'single-storey' 'a' is a classic feature of geometric typefaces from the 1920s onwards. File:1952 Jersey holiday events brochure.jpg, 1952 Jersey holiday events brochure, using the popular Gill Sans-led British style of the period File:Hans Michel 1964, Nr.1, Die Teuflischen.jpg, Swiss-style poster using Helvetica, 1964. Tight spacing characteristic of the period. File:KAS-Berlin-Bild-33085-2.jpg, Ultra-condensed industrial sans-serif in the style of the 1960s; Berlin, 1966 File:Initiative armement 1972.jpg, Neo-grotesque type, Switzerland, 1972: Helvetica or a close copy. Irregular baseline may be due to using Dry transfer, transfers. File:Wenn die Hoffnung stirbt Filmplakat.jpg, Tightly-spaced ITC Avant Garde; 1976 File:Veterans Day Poster 1980.jpg, Governmental poster using
Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such a ...
, 1980 File:Pamphlet; The medical consequences of nuclear war Wellcome L0075369.jpg, Anti-nuclear poster, 1982 File:9. AUFF.jpg, 1997 film festival poster, Ankara File:14. AUFF.jpg, Distorted sans-serif in the "grunge typography" style, Ankara, 2002 File:Alan Kitching on Press at The Guardian.jpg, Letterpress poster by Alan Kitching (typographic artist), Alan Kitching, 2015


See also

* East Asian sans-serif typeface * Emphasis (typography) * List of sans serif typefaces * San Serriffe, an April Fools' joke by the newspaper ''The Guardian''


Explanatory notes


References

* * * * * * * *


External links


The sanserif: the search for examples
(lecture by James Mosley)
The true source of the sans
(lecture to ATypI by Jon Melton)
The Sans Serif in France: The Early Years (1834–44)
(lecture by :fr:Sébastien Morlighem)
Panorama: A reassesment of 19th century poster type
(presentation by Pierre Pané-Farré to Ésad Amiens)
Grotesque: The Birth of The Modern Sans Serif in The Types of The Nineteenth Century
(Lecture at Cooper Union by Sara Soskolne) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sans-Serif Typography Sans-serif typefaces, *