Usually I don’t stick with only one typeface. I think that a designer should not fall for only one font, but experiment and discover different typefaces all the time. There are fonts suitable for everything, and sticking to only one can become dangerously too much. As I tried to decide which one is my favorite type of font I realized, that I like Art Deco styled typefaces most.
1.Verlag
"Verlag” is the German word for “publisher” or “publishing house”. The font is inspired by the Guggenheim façade designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and it’s iconic Art Deco lettering and is a part of the Sans-Serif family. In 1996, when designing the magazine for the museum, Abbott Miller (Pentagram) approched Jonathan Hoefler (Hoefler & Frere-Jones) to create a custom typeface for the publication. Hoefler referenced Wright's iconic lettering and designed the custom typeface in 30 various weights and italic and bold versions for exclusive use in the magazine.
“Because the fonts would ultimately represent a range of individual artistic voices — from Cézanne to Kandinsky to Matthew Barney — Verlag was carefully planned so that its distinct personality would be checked by a sense of objectivity.
From the rationalist geometric designs of the Bauhaus school, such as Futura (1927) and Erbar (1929), Verlag gets its crispness and its meticulous planning. Verlag’s “fairminded” quality is rooted in the newsier sans serifs designed for linecasting machines, such as Ludlow Tempo and Intertype Vogue (both 1930), both staples of the Midwestern newsroom for much of the century. But unlike any of its forbears, Verlag includes a comprehensive and complete range of styles: five weights, each in three different widths, each including the often-neglected companion italic. ”
What I like about VERLAG is the strong and yet light appearance. I like the letters V and A and how they are almost geometrical. I also like the fact, that it doesn’t look sterile, but a bit playful, because of the curves of the letters, without too much details. I think, that this font is suitable for transformation into graphic elements, without losing it’s identity. I think, that it is readable in all of it's variations, and that's why it is suitable for multiple use.
2. Centaur
Centaur is a type originally drawn by Bruce Rogers for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it was created in titling capitals. It was released for general use in 1929. The font is inspired by several Renaissance models, and Nicholas Jenson’s Eusebius (1469), that was the foundation for the modern Roman alphabet. Centaur is referred to as a “Venetian” font. An interesting fact is, that the italic is another type itself called Arrighi based upon Ludovico Arrighi’s 1520 typeface and designed by Frederic Warde. The 1929 typeface Bembo, is based primarily upon that typeface and also Garamond and Aldus. Centaur is humanistic typeface, that recreates the handwriting in the manuscripts from the XV-th century. It is rather round, and is an opposition to the gothic examples from the Middle Ages. It is characterized as a serif with distinctive lowercase letter “e” and lack of contrast between horizontal and vertical lines.
When Rogers was twelve, a cousin gave him a copy of John Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing. It was then, Rogers recalled, that
“ I became aware of letters as something more that mere units in a word. ”
Gary Munch says about Centaur:
“ For all-time most beautiful face, I nominate Bruce Rogers' Centaur. It's not a general-purpose face at all, like the usual Times or Helvetica (the latter still has a beauty that is underappreciated); but Centaur lives nobly on a page and yet invites its readers to honor both it and its message with their own intelligence and understanding. ”
Despite a brief revival during the early twentieth century, the relatively dark colour and small x-heights have fallen out of favour. However, Centaur has earned it’s place in history as a great grandparent of today fonts.
References:
Simon Garfield 2011, Profile books, "Just My Type"
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