Random Origin Stories of Various Fonts (12 items)

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  (#1) Vincent Connare

  • 58

  It's rare for something as common as a font to evoke hatred, but designer Vincent Connare's creation of Comic Sans has inspired an almost universal revulsion. The intentionally casual font was meant to match the lettering used in popular comic books, to serve as fun alternative to the more formal fonts most people were familiar with. 

  By now it's a walking (typing?) punchline, the go-to font choice of out-of-touch parents sending an e-card, your least favorite coworkers' emails and amateur graphic designers creating a flier for an event you will NOT be attending. The controversy came when people started using the (again, intentionally casual) font in serious documents including blog posts for a law firm and a Dutch war memorial.  People were so angry when the informal font was used on important documents that they asked for a ban on the font in 1999 (it was a simpler time, when font choice was worthy of protest).

  But Connare the designer didn't set out to create an object of derision when he developed the childlike font in 1994 (who would?). He just wanted to make something fun and cute looking, a font that brand new computer users could look at that looked less intimidating than Times New Roman.

  He's proud of his creation, even if nobody else likes it, telling the Wall Street Journal, "If you love it, you don't know much about typography. If you hate it, you really don't know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby."
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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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  (#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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  (#4) R. Hunter Middleton

  • Dec. at 87 (1898-1985)

   

  Middleton was born in Scotland, but moved to Chicago to study at the Art Institute. He later served as the director of typography at the prestigious Ludlow Typographic Company for almost 40 years. You've likely never heard his name, but everyone knows his iconic Stencil font, the the go-to design for military-themed TV shows and toys, including MASH and The A-Team. He also designed Coronet, which wasn't as influential but was still very popular and can be seen in the signature on the Velvet Underground's first album and the credits for Star Trek.

   
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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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  (#12) Adrian Frutiger

  • 90

  Swiss-born Frutiger was among the most prominent font designers of the 20th century, creating sans-serif fonts that bridge the post-war and modern eras. His most popular creations were Univers, which was inspired by the clean lines of the Periodic Table; and his own namesake font, a clean and heavily spaced design used for wayfinding signs around the world, due to its legibility at distances.
  

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