Century type family

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Century Schoolbook
)
Not to be confused with Century Gothic.
Century
CategorySerif
ClassificationDidone, Scotch Modern
Designer(s)Linn Boyd and Morris Fuller Benton
FoundryAmerican Type Founders
Date released1894–1923
VariationsCentury Expanded, Century Schoolbook, Century Old Style, Century Catalogue
Shown hereCentury Schoolbook

Century is a family of serif type faces particularly intended for body text. The family originates from a first design, Century Roman, cut by American Type Founders designer Linn Boyd Benton in 1894 for master printer Theodore Low De Vinne, for use in The Century Magazine.[1] ATF rapidly expanded it into a very large family, first by Linn Boyd, and later by his son Morris.

Century is based on the "Scotch" genre, a style of type of British origin which had been popular in the United States from the early nineteenth century and is part of the "Didone" genre of type popular through the entire nineteenth century.[2][3] Its design emphasizes crispness and elegance, with strokes ending in fine tapers, ball terminals, and crisp, finely pointed serifs. However, compared to many earlier typefaces in the genre, stroke contrast is quite low, creating a less sharp and highly readable structure.[4] With ATF no longer operating, a wide variety of variants and revivals with varying features and quality are available.

Despite originating in the nineteenth century, use of the typeface remains strong for periodicals, textbooks, and literature. The Supreme Court of the United States requires that briefs be typeset in Century family type.[5][6] According to Charles Shaw, "The rugged simplicity of the Century family of types has made it an enduring favorite of American typographers for almost one hundred years. Beginning as foundry type, Century has withstood a series of technical transformations into Linotype, Monotype, Ludlow, phototype, transfer type, digital type, and Xerox-like 'toner type'."[7]

Distinctive characteristics

Century types from the ATF specimen book, 1912. Century Schoolbook had not yet been released at this time.

Characteristics of this typeface are:

lower case: curl ending in a ball terminal on top of letter c. Ball terminal on hook of f, ear of g, and tail of j.

upper case: curled tail on the capital R and reflexive curled tail on the capital Q. Prominent top spur on capital C.

figures: curl ending in a ball terminal on both tails of 3, and on single tail of 2, 5, 6 and 9.

Variations

Century Roman

Century Roman
Century Magazine

Century Magazine, wanted a more legible typeface for the magazine. He commissioned his friend Linn Boyd Benton from the newly formed American Type Founders to devise such a face. Over the course of the nineteenth century, largely because of the influence of Bodoni, common printing fonts had become thin, making a weak impression on the page. De Vinne and fellow printer William Morris decried this "growing effeminacy" and called for a reversion to sturdier faces.[7] The face L.B. Benton produced, Century Roman, had a larger x-height than most faces and thicker hair-lines than was common, giving the appearance of a condensed face because De Vinne believed this to be more legible.[8] This was made only in foundry type and later an accompanying face of normal width was produced by L.B. Benton, called variously Century Broad Face or Century No. 2.[9]
Despite being the original member of the Century family, it is not popular compared to the later members of the family with more normal proportions.

Century

Century
Monotype, Ludlow
Design based onCentury Roman + Bruce #16 Roman
Also known asCentury Expanded

With the merging of twenty-three foundries into

Bruce Type Foundry which A.T.F. had recently acquired. (And which, probably not coincidentally, had been introduced in the Bruce Foundry catalog of 1877 which had been printed by De Vinne.)[7] The result was Century Expanded, which proved hugely successful. By 1912 the A.T.F. catalog no longer offered the original Century Roman, while displaying 64 pages of samples of other members of the Century family.[10] Following the successful introduction of this type, M.F. Benton embarked upon the creation of the first planned type family, and it is this conception of "type families" that is probably Benton's single greatest achievement. The faces were issued over a period of ten years, all of which were designed by Benton and issued by A.T.F.:[9]

  • Century Expanded (1900)
  • Century Italic + Century Bold (1905)
  • Century Bold Condensed (1909)
  • Century Bold Extended (1910)

Hot metal copies

Century proved to be hugely popular and was either licensed or copied by all the makers of mechanical composition machines, including

Monotype. Barnhart Brothers & Spindler called their version Century Roman, while Ludlow called their 1953 version Century Modern. A few variants were even added:[9]

Cold type copies

Century's popularity and usefulness continued right through the cold type era and was made available for photocomposition by all the leading producers under the following names:[11]

  • Century Expanded –
    Varityper
    .
  • Century X – Alphatype
  • Century Light – Compugraphic
  • Censtar Expanded – Star/Photon
  • Cambridge Expanded –
    Graphic Systems Inc.
  • Digi-Antiqua – Hell AG
  • ITC Century - ITC: a less faithful version with increased x-height, but extremely popular, has also been digitised.

A Century typeface was also available for the

IBM Selectric Composer
.

Digital variants

A digital version named Benton Modern Text was first prepared by

Boston Globe and the Detroit Free Press. It was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones and is based on Century Expanded, but the accompanying italic and bold are based upon Century Schoolbook and were designed by Richard Lipton and Christian Schwartz. Benton Modern was released in two optical sizes: text for general use and display for large text sizes.[12] Font Bureau had already digitised as a separate project Century Bold Condensed on its own, intending it particularly for newspaper headlines.[13]

Century Oldstyle

Century Oldstyle
Monotype
Design based onCentury Roman + Caslon
Also known asOld Style No. 9 (Linotype)

Century Oldstyle was released at a time when heavier faces with bracketed serifs were returning to vogue. The faces, all of which were designed by Benton and issued by A.T.F., were issued over a period of six years.[9] Century Oldstyle is Linn Boyd Benton's and Morris Fuller Benton's renovation of Phemister's Miller & Richard Old Style for ATF (also known as Bookman Oldstyle) forty-five years later, using the Century name for marketing purposes.[14] Despite the name it is not purely an old-style serif font (the type of metal type used before around 1750), but retains many more modern characteristics such as its curling capital Q.

  • Century Oldstyle + italic + bold (1909)
  • Century Oldstyle Bold Italic (1910)
  • Century Oldstyle Bold Condensed (1915)

Hot metal copies

Century Oldstyle was not as popular as its predecessor, but the roman and italic were copied by

Monotype.[9]

Cold type copies

As oldstyle faces gained in popularity during the photo-comp era, Century Oldstyle was copied more widely then than during the hot type era. Copies were made under following names:[11]

Century Catalogue

Century Catalogue
CategorySerif
ClassificationModified Old Style
Designer(s)Morris Fuller Benton
Commissioned byAmerican Type Founders
FoundryAmerican Type Founders
Date created1917
Date released1917
Design based onCentury Expanded

Century Catalogue (as spelled in ATF specimen books) had a lower x-height than Century Expanded but, despite longer ascenders, adheres to the same general design. Century Catalogue Italic is basically a re-working of

Open Font License.[15]

Century Schoolbook

Century Schoolbook
Monotype, Ludlow
Design based onCentury Expanded
Also known asCentury Modern (Ludlow)

Century Schoolbook is a

Ginn & Co., a textbook publisher, which wanted an especially easy-to-read face for textbooks. Century Schoolbook has elements similar to the Didone
classification. Century Schoolbook is based on the earlier Century Roman.

Century Schoolbook is familiar to many in North America as being the typeface with which many first learned to read. Morris Fuller Benton utilized research done by

letterspacing. The faces were issued over a period of five years, all of which were designed by Benton and issued by A.T.F.:[9]

  • Century Schoolbook (1918)
  • Century Schoolbook Italic (1921)
  • Century Schoolbook Bold (1923)

A final member of the Century family was an oldstyle version called Schoolbook Oldstyle begun in 1920 and released in 1926, an italic following in 1928. This never achieved the popularity of its sister faces, was never adapted for machine composition (much less cold type or digital) and was eventually withdrawn.

Hot metal copies

Another immensely popular face for A.T.F. and Benton, Century Schoolbook was either licensed or copied by all the makers of mechanical composition machines, including

Primer
, which was intended to compete directly with Century Schoolbook for the text-book market.

Cold type copies

The popularity of Century Schoolbook outstripped that of Century in the cold type era, and it was offered by all manufacturers under the following names:[11]

Digital copies

The most common digital version is Monotype's, bundled with many Microsoft products.

URW++, DTP Types, Bitstream, Elsner+Flake and others.[17]

A very limited set of styles digitised by

weasel words
]

Confusingly, the Monotype version offered with Microsoft products is also called just 'Century', perhaps for backwards compatibility reasons from the period when file names had to be short. Modern Microsoft products include both this 'Century' (in roman style only but with Cyrillic characters) and the same design as 'Century Schoolbook', only the latter including the whole family with bold and italics.[20]

Digital variants

Grad is a variant by Phil Martin (digitized by Mark Simonson) based on the original ATF Century Schoolbook. It is an extensive digitisation with text figures and small caps, also adding unusual features such as asymmetric serifs.[21]

Century Schoolbook Infant

This is a single-story version of the typeface that is used to help children learn to read. It is very rare, but it can be found in the

Spot books by Eric Hill. As of 2020, a version of it can be purchased from DTP Types Limited
.

Cyrillic adaptations

The Century Schoolbook typeface was also adapted by Soviet typographies. The first Cyrillic adaptation, named Pioner (Russian for "pioneer"), was designed in 1939, and later in 1961 the second adaptation was made in the scientific research institute (NII) "Poligrafmash". The latter version acquired the name Shkol'naya (Russian for "of school") and since then it has been the standard and most widely used typeface for children publications and for school textbooks in the Soviet Union and later in Russia.[22]

Century Nova

Century Nova + Italic (1964) was designed by Charles E. Hughes with the stipulation from A.T.F. that it must be equally suited for both letterpress (hot type) and offset (cold type) reproduction.[23] The thin lines are substantial and the lower-case letters have a larger x-height, and (perhaps ironically) it returns to the condensed nature of the original Century Roman.[24] This was the second-to-last face cut by A.T.F. Scangraphic has released a digitisation.[25]

Related digital revivals

Comparison between Century Schoolbook (in Monotype's digitisation) and Old Standard by Alexey Kryukov, based on nineteenth-century printing especially from Russia. Both have the same basic letter structure but Old Standard is much more crisp with finer hairlines and serifs, especially in italic.

Nick Shinn's Scotch Modern revival is a digitisation in three optical sizes of the Scotch Modern types that inspired Century.[4] Described by reviewer Mark Simonson as 'insanely complete', it has a stronger level of contrast and sharper Didone serifs than Century designs, in a release featuring small caps and a range of matching figure designs.[26][27] Shinn based the revival on that used in an 1873 book on New York State wildlife.

The Old Standard web font by Alexey Kryukov is loosely based on the similar styles of type that were used in Europe during the early 20th century. It includes Cyrillic and polytonic Greek glyphs for classical studies use.[28]

Hoefler & Frere-Jones are another large Scotch Roman-inspired family with optical sizes intended for newspaper and professional use.[30]

Eames Century Modern is a digitisation inspired by the family's use by furniture designers Charles and Ray Eames.[31] It is used by Comedy Central, among others.[32]

Century 751 from

Bitstream Inc is actually a digital revival of Rudolph Ruzicka's Primer.[33]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9781567922868
    .
  2. ISBN 9781568984278.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  3. ISBN 978-1-933360-42-3
    .
  4. ^ a b Shinn, Nick. "Modern Suite specimen" (PDF). Shinntype. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  5. ^ "Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States" (PDF). Supreme Court of the United States. 2013. p. 42. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2017. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  6. ^ "Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States" (PDF). Supreme Court of the United States. p. 47. Retrieved 2022-08-29. The text of every booklet-format document, including any appendix thereto, shall be typeset in a Century family (e. g., Century Expanded, New Century Schoolbook, or Century Schoolbook) 12-point type with 2-point or more leading between lines.
  7. ^
    ISBN 0-9607290-1-1
    , p. 46–9.
  8. ^ De Vinne, Theodore Low. The Practice of Typography, Plain Printing Types. New York, NY: The Century Co., 1902. p. 359.
  9. ^
    ISBN 0-938768-34-4
    , pp. 76–81.
  10. ^ American Specimen Book of Type Styles. Jersey City: American Type Founders Company, 1912. p. 359. Archived: https://archive.org/stream/americanspecimen00amerrich#page/n15/mode/2up
  11. ^ a b c Lawson, Alexander, Archie Provan, and Frank Romano. Primer Metal Typeface Identification. Arlington, Virginia: Printing Industries of America: National Composition Association 1976, pp. 34–35.
  12. ^ Berlow, David and Roger Black. "New Fonts: Benton Modern Display, Rocky & ITC Franklin" from The Font Bureau, Inc. Blog. 15 September 2008. http://www.fontbureau.com/news/2008-09-15 Archived 2010-04-19 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ "Century FB". Font Bureau. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  14. ^ "Font Family Page".
  15. ^ OFL Fonts (section: Century Catalogue). 14 March 2007. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
  16. ^ "Century Schoolbook". Microsoft. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  17. ^ Stephen Coles, Chris Jordan, Henrique Gusso, Rainer Joswig, and Sarah Jenkins. Identifont. http://www.identifont.com/show?EIE
  18. ^ "URW font ttf conversions". Ghostscript. Archived from the original on 2015-09-19. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
  19. ^ "TeX Gyre Schola (alternative Century Schoolbook otf conversion)". FontSquirrel. GUST. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  20. ^ "'Century'". Microsoft. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  21. ^ Simonson, Mark. "Grad (with PDF specimen)". Mark Simonson Studio. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  22. ISBN 9785931651965
    .
  23. ^ "Century Nova, New Typeface, Shown at Premiere in Milwaukee," Inland Printer, November 1965, p. 176.
  24. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X
    , p.43.
  25. ^ "Century Nova". MyFonts. Scangraphic. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  26. ^ Simonson, Mark. "Modern Suite review". Typographica. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  27. ^ Shaw, Paul (June 2008). "Scotch Modern review". Print magazine. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  28. ^ Kryukov, Alexey. Old Standard TT accessed through Google Fonts website. https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Old+Standard+TT
  29. ^ Carter, Matthew. "Miller Text". Font Bureau. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  30. Hoefler & Frere-Jones
    . Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  31. ^ "Eames Century Modern". House Industries. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  32. ^ "Fonts in Use: Comedy Central". Fonts in Use. 6 January 2012. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
  33. ^ "Century 751". MyFonts. Bitstream. Retrieved 4 November 2015.

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Century_type_family&oldid=1200028300#Century_Schoolbook"