Random Origin Stories of Various Fonts (12 items)

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  (#7) Frederic Goudy

  • Dec. at 82 (1865-1947)

  The creator of over a hundred fonts, Goudy was self-taught in printmaking and design. He didn't design his first font until he was in his thirties, and didn't work professionally in design until he was almost 40. After that, he worked for a variety of firms and printing presses, and was also a teacher and author on font design. His most prominent creations were Californian, used by the University of California Press for decades; Goudy Old Style, used by a number of colleges; and Copperplate Gothic, found in stationary and books around the world.
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  (#6) Victor Lardent

  • Dec. at 63 (1905-1968)

  Where are our font-heads at? Get ready because it's Times New Roman time! Everyone who has ever seen a computer (which we literally has to assume includes you) is familiar with Times New Roman (or TNR as it is referred to by no one).

  Now one of the most widely used typefaces in the world, Times New Roman was created in 1931 as a commission from the British newspaper The Times. Victor Lardent was the Times designer and draftsman tasked with developing the new font, but recent research by font guru Mike Parker shows that it might not have been Lardent, but aircraft and yacht designer William Starling Burgess who designed the iconic font. It seems like a lot of people are clamoring to take credit for this incredibly popular but also incredibly boring font.
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  (#3) Claude Garamond

  • Dec. at 81 (1480-1561)

  Born sometime between 1480 and 1510, Frenchman Claude Garamond was one of the first independent engravers, making printed materials for customers on demand, rather than working for a printing company. As such, he was possibly the most important figure in the birth of commercial printing as an industry (except, ya know, bookmaking). The distinctive font that bears his name was born when he was commissioned by the King of France to print a series of books, based on the handwriting of the King's librarian.

  The extremely ornate font fell out of favor after his death, but a cleaner version of it was revived in the early 20th century, and is one of the most popular typefaces in the world today.
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  (#8) Paul Renner

  • Dec. at 78 (1878-1956)

  German typographer and designer Paul Renner created the clean, classic Futura font in the late 1920s as a reaction to what he found to be the degeneracy of modern design and music. Renner was a prominent anti-Nazi, condemning their cultural policy in a self-produced 1932 booklet. Renner was soon dismissed from his teaching post, arrested, and blackballed in the design industry.  He fled to Switzerland, and died in 1956. 

  Futura ended up achieving iconic status by being the go-to font for director Wes Anderson. He uses it in all of his films and it fits is clean, symmetrical, visual style so well. And as far as we know, Wes Anderson is also anti-Nazi, so it looks like the font is in good hands.
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  (#11) Courier (Howard "Bud" Kettler)

  We have a soft spot for Courier and Courier New, because if you had a college paper that needed to reach a minimum page count, Courier New took up just a teensy bit more space, and we needed all the space we could get to pad out the page length.

  Designed to mimic the letters left by a strike-on typewriter, Courier was designed in 1955 by Howard Kettler for IBM. But IBM intentionally didn't trademark it, putting the font in the public domain, available for almost anyone to use. Because of its low cost, Courier became the State Department's font of choice until 2004, and is the industry standard for screenplays and computer code. Despite the success of Courier, Kettler continued working as a staff designer at IBM until he retired, and he died in 1999. We thank him for his service.
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  (#5) Edward Johnston

  • Dec. at 72 (1872-1944)

  The iconic font used on the London Underground was created by Edward Johnson (evidently who went to the same school of font-naming as Garamond), during the throes of the World War I. Johnston created the font as a commission from the London Underground's parent company, which asked for a font that had "the bold simplicity of the authentic lettering of the finest periods" and wouldn't be mistaken for advertisements. The font was redesigned in 1979 to add thickness to the letters.

   

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