Plantin (typeface)
Monotype | |
Date created | 1913 |
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Plantin is an
The intention behind the design of Plantin was to create a font with thicker letterforms than were often used at the time: early printing on absorbent book paper led to ink spread, but by 1913 innovations in smoothing and coated paper had led to reduced ink spread and made old types often look skeletal on paper.[3] Monotype engineering manager Frank Hinman Pierpont visited the Plantin-Moretus Museum, where he acquired a printed specimen of historic types.[4]
Plantin was one of the first Monotype Corporation revivals that was not simply a copy of a typeface already popular in British printing; it has proved popular since its release and has been digitised. Monotype followed it with revivals of many other classic typefaces in the 1920s and 30s.[1] Plantin would later also be used as one of the main models for the creation of Times New Roman in the 1930s.[5] The Plantin family includes regular, light and bold weights, along with corresponding italics.
Inspiration
At the time Plantin was released, Monotype's
James Moran and John Dreyfus suggested that an inspiration for the design may have been a c. 1910 family from the Shanks foundry known as "Plantin Old Style", advertised as highly legible.[6] This was actually a bold design based on Caslon, with no connection to Christophe Plantin or Granjon, but Dreyfus suggests it may have prompted Monotype to research Christophe Plantin and the collection of the Plantin-Moretus Museum.[7]
The Plantin-Moretus Museum was created in 1876 from Plantin's collection which had been preserved and added to by his successors in business. It is notable as the world's largest collection of sixteenth century typefaces.
Plantin was designed and engraved into metal at the Monotype factory in Salfords, Surrey, which was led by Pierpont and draughtsman Fritz Stelzer. Both were recruits to Monotype from the German printing industry.
The choice to revive a French Renaissance design was unusual for the time, since most British fine printers of the period preferred either
Design
The design for Plantin preserved the large x-height of Granjon's designs, but shortened the ascenders and descenders and enlarged the counters of the lowercase 'a' and 'e'.[4] Not all the letters were Granjon's: the letters 'J', 'U' and 'W', not used in French in the sixteenth century, were not his, and a different 'a' in an eighteenth-century style had been substituted into the font by the time the specimen sheet was printed.[9][11][12][13]
The 1742 specimen of Claude Lamesle (notable for its printing quality) provides a specimen of the Granjon type in its original state.[14][9] Mosley has close-up images of some characters of the face.[12][a]
Reception and usage
With its relatively robust, solid design compared to the
During the
The font was used as the signature font for
cards is also set in Plantin.Designs inspired by Plantin
Plantin was the basis for the general layout of Monotype's most successful typeface of all, Times New Roman.[27][28] Times is similar to Plantin but "sharpened" or "modernised", with increased contrast (particularly resembling designs from the eighteenth and nineteenth century) and greater "sparkle".[29][30][31] Allan Haley commented that Times New Roman "looks like Plantin on a diet."[32]
As the Plantin design is in the public domain, adaptations and unofficial digitisations (including simple knock-offs) have been released. Galaxie Copernicus by Chester Jenkins and
Aldine 721 is Bitstream's version of Plantin[43][44] and Francisco Serial is a version by Softmaker.[45]
References
- ^ Carter, Sebastian; Southall, Richard. History of the Monotype Corporation. pp. 202–3 etc.
- ^ Schuster, Brigitte (2010). "Monotype Plantin: A Digital Revival by Brigitte Schuster" (PDF). Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (M.A. thesis). Retrieved 23 May 2014.
- ^ a b Carter, Sebastian (1995), Twentieth Century Type Designers, W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 28–29.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-09786-4.
- ISBN 978-0-471-28429-1.
- ^ "Plantin Old Style : typeface synopsis issued by P M Shanks & Co Ltd., typefounders, London, c1910 (image: Mike Ashworth)". 16 April 2019. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
- ISBN 9781567920451.
- ^ Mosley, James. "The materials of typefounding". Type Foundry. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-90-04-16982-1.
- ^ Mann, Meredith. "Where Did Times New Roman Come From?". New York Public Library. Retrieved 2 February 2016.
- ISBN 9781568984278., acquired by the Plantin printing office after the death of its founder.
Plantin was a recreation of one of the old types held at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, of which a specimen, printed in 1905, had been acquired by Pierpont on a visit. The type from which the specimen was printed was not only centuries old and worn almost beyond use, but it was contaminated with wrong-font letters (notably the letter 'a') and the italic did not even belong to the roman. The revival, derived by Monotype from an indirect and confused original, is as sound a piece of type-making as was ever created in the 20th century…behind the foggy image of the roman type lies the...'Gros Cicero' Roman of Robert Granjon
- ^ a b Mosley, James. "Comments on Typophile thread". Typophile (archived). Archived from the original on 2011-10-13. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
The consensus appears to be that not only the wrong-fount a in the cases at Antwerp but also the italic that Monotype adapted for their Plantin (which can be seen on that first page of the 1905 specimen) may be the work of Johann Michael Schmidt (died 1750), also known as J. M. Smit or Smid.
- .
Most of these sixteenth-century types were originally cut without the letters J, U, and W, which were added in the seventeenth century.
- ^ Lamesle, Claude (1742). Épreuves générales des caracteres. p. 55.
- ^ Lamesle, Claude (1742). Épreuves générales des caracteres.
- ^ "Monotype (advert)". Modern Publicity: 187. 1930. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
- ^ Warde, Beatrice (1932). "Twenty Years of Advertising Typography". Advertiser's Weekly: 130. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
- ^ Hackney, Fiona Anne Seaton. ""They Opened Up a Whole New World": Feminine Modernity and the Feminine Imagination in Women's Magazines, 1919-1939" (PDF). Goldsmith's College (PhD thesis). Retrieved 15 March 2017.
- ISBN 978-1-4088-3407-7.
- ^ Williamson, Hugh (1956). Methods of Book Design. Oxford University Press. p. 81.
- ^ Steeves, Andrew (14 April 2011). "Poetry Books for the Trala". Gaspereau Press. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
- ^ Tracy, Walter. Letters of Credit. pp. 50–1.
- ISBN 978-0-8108-3009-7.
- ^ Luna, Paul (1986). "Small Print". Designer.
The first national to install a Lasercomp, it overcame the lack of suitable text faces by commissioning its own, a slightly condensed version of Plantin.
- ^ "Plantin Infant Font". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- FSI FontShop International. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
- ^ Rhatigan, Dan. "Time and Times again". Monotype. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
- ^ Hutt, Allen (1970). "Times Roman: a re-assessment". Journal of Typographic Research. 4 (3): 259–270. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
- ISBN 9780879233334. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
- ^ Morison, Stanley. "Changing the Times". Eye. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
- ISBN 978-0-471-28894-7.
- ISBN 9780823000531.
- ^ Heck, Bethany (11 August 2017). "Galaxie Copernicus review". Font Review Journal. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
- ^ "Village: Galaxie Copernicus about". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ^ Sowersby, Kris. "Tiempos Design Information". Klim Type Foundry. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
- ^ Thomson, Mark; Sowersby, Kris. "Reputations: Kris Sowersby". Eye. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
- ^ Sowersby, Kris. "Martina Plantijn Design Information". Klim Type Foundry. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
- ^ "Fabric Serif in use - Fonts In Use". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ^ "Monokrom Skriftforlag". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ^ "Musee". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ^ "Erato Font". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2024-03-24.
- ^ "Aldine 721 in use". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ^ "Aldine 721 Font". Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ^ "Francisco Serial Font". Retrieved 14 January 2022.