Font history - Georgia and Helvetica
By Alice Rawsthorn International Herald Tribune
Published: July 9, 2006
-------------------
LONDON Log on to The New York Times's Web site, and you'll see it there. Just as you'll spot it on the Web sites of London's Frieze Art Fair, the architecture magazine Metropolis, the artist Damien Hirst, and on blog, after blog, after blog.
All of these Web sites use the same typeface - Georgia. Typefaces slip in and out of fashion like every other area of design, but right now Georgia is the most fashionable one on the Internet. "A few designers have mentioned that there seems to be a 'Georgia revival' going on," says Matthew Carter, the British-born, Boston-based designer who developed Georgia for Microsoft in 1996. "It seems a bit young to have died and been revived already."
Whatever its age, Georgia is an elegant, quietly idiosyncratic typeface, which is a pleasure to read on screen, even though it is not designed in the minimalist style of lettering that we associate with the Internet. Instead it is one of the serif fonts with decorative squiggles at the ends of the characters that we are accustomed to seeing in print. Georgia's growing popularity is partly the product of typographic fashion, but also reflects deeper changes in our relationship with the screen as our primary source of information.
Before the digital era, typography was an obscure, though highly skilled craft in which letter shapes were literally carved out of metal. This was how Carter, now 68, trained in the 1950s when he gave up a place at Oxford University for an internship at a traditional Dutch type foundry. The development process was so time-consuming that new typefaces were relatively rare. Many of the most commonly used ones were centuries-old, such as Bodoni and Baskerville, both designed in the 1700s. Even supposedly modern fonts dated back decades, like Times New Roman of 1931 and the popular sans serif typeface (that's one without squiggles), Helvetica of 1951.
All this changed in the 1980s when computers became cheaper, and desktop publishing exploded. Carter, by then an acclaimed designer of print typefaces - including Bell Centennial, which is used in United States telephone directories - co-founded Bitstream, one of the first companies to develop type for use on screen. As design software became more sophisticated, it was so easy for graphic designers to create digital fonts that the market was flooded with new ones. The rest of us became savvier about type, often unconsciously, as we learned how to pick our favorites from the list of fonts on our computers.
By the mid-1990s, as more and more people were using Internet and e-mail, we were spending so long reading information on screen that legibility became a critical issue. Concerned that none of the existing digital fonts were easily readable, Microsoft commissioned a collection of screen-friendly typefaces to be given away free with its Windows software. Carter was asked to produce two, a serif and sans serif.
As the most popular digital fonts at the time were sans serifs, he began with that. He started by analyzing why existing typefaces were so hard to read on screen, and worked out how to rectify the problem by focusing on the characters that are most easily confused - i, j, l and the number 1. Stylistically he made each one as clear as possible, by designing them in simple shapes with no superfluous details. He paid particular attention to the spacing between characters, having realized that this often caused confusion in other computer fonts.
The result was Verdana, which was launched by Microsoft in 1996 and given away free to millions of people with Windows. Soon it became the digital equivalent of Scala, the curvy sans-serif typeface created by the Dutch designer Martin Majoor, which was then emerging as a fashionably "soft modernist" successor to Helvetica in print. "The big issue was whether text on screen would ever be as readable as the printed page," notes the graphic design historian Emily King. "Verdana was a solution to a genuine problem."
Carter then concentrated on the serif font, Georgia. Many of the same legibility issues applied, but he faced other problems too. One was that the serifs looked heavy, as they were the same width - that of a pixel, the minimum possible - as the upright strokes. Another difficulty was that the numbers looked confusing, so he differentiated them with slight variations in height. "The variations were so slight that it looked like a mistake," recalls Carter. "Late in the day we decided to exaggerate the differences by making them 'old style figures' in which the 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 drop below the line, and the 6 and 8 stand proud."
Georgia was well-received, but initially proved less popular than Verdana, which was hailed throughout the late 1990s as the defining typeface of the new digital era. By the early 2000s taste was changing. Just as fashion buffs were rummaging around vintage stores and product design was embracing romanticism, type designers were dusting down their history books. Among the most popular new fonts was the elaborate Mrs Eaves, created by the Californian designer Zuzana Licko and inspired by the glorious swirls of the 18th-century Baskerville. Mrs Eaves became so popular, even in junk mail, that typography blogs grumbled about it being over-exposed.
Designers continue to reinvent historic typefaces, but in a more restrained style. Again this reflects broader changes in visual culture. The typographic equivalent of the trend for fashion houses, like Lanvin and Balenciaga, to reinterpret vintage looks with advanced materials and technologies, is the development of computerized reinterpretations of elegant old serif typefaces, like Bodoni and the 15th century Bembo, for use in print. Among them are Farnham, developed for the art magazine frieze by the New York designer Christian Schwartz, and Guardian Egyptian, which he devised for the redesign of the British newspaper The Guardian, with the London-based designer Paul Barnes.
These smart new print serif typefaces have encouraged designers to experiment with similar styles on screen. Georgia is one of the few freely accessible serif fonts that is legible online.
The Georgia revival then accelerated, as other designers adopted it as an alternative to Verdana. It is featured on several graphic design Web sites, including those of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Dutch type foundry Typotheque. At the other end of the spectrum, it is popular on blog design templates, which is why so many bloggers are using it.
Georgia's popularity also reflects our growing ease with computers. Improvements in screen quality have made it easier to read more sophisticated fonts online, but we have also become more practiced at interpreting visual imagery on our computers by dint of spending so long using them.
That is why we felt ready to forsake Verdana's clarity for Georgia's quirky serifs - at least until the next newly fashionable typeface comes along.
Published: July 9, 2006
-------------------
LONDON Log on to The New York Times's Web site, and you'll see it there. Just as you'll spot it on the Web sites of London's Frieze Art Fair, the architecture magazine Metropolis, the artist Damien Hirst, and on blog, after blog, after blog.
All of these Web sites use the same typeface - Georgia. Typefaces slip in and out of fashion like every other area of design, but right now Georgia is the most fashionable one on the Internet. "A few designers have mentioned that there seems to be a 'Georgia revival' going on," says Matthew Carter, the British-born, Boston-based designer who developed Georgia for Microsoft in 1996. "It seems a bit young to have died and been revived already."
Whatever its age, Georgia is an elegant, quietly idiosyncratic typeface, which is a pleasure to read on screen, even though it is not designed in the minimalist style of lettering that we associate with the Internet. Instead it is one of the serif fonts with decorative squiggles at the ends of the characters that we are accustomed to seeing in print. Georgia's growing popularity is partly the product of typographic fashion, but also reflects deeper changes in our relationship with the screen as our primary source of information.
Before the digital era, typography was an obscure, though highly skilled craft in which letter shapes were literally carved out of metal. This was how Carter, now 68, trained in the 1950s when he gave up a place at Oxford University for an internship at a traditional Dutch type foundry. The development process was so time-consuming that new typefaces were relatively rare. Many of the most commonly used ones were centuries-old, such as Bodoni and Baskerville, both designed in the 1700s. Even supposedly modern fonts dated back decades, like Times New Roman of 1931 and the popular sans serif typeface (that's one without squiggles), Helvetica of 1951.
All this changed in the 1980s when computers became cheaper, and desktop publishing exploded. Carter, by then an acclaimed designer of print typefaces - including Bell Centennial, which is used in United States telephone directories - co-founded Bitstream, one of the first companies to develop type for use on screen. As design software became more sophisticated, it was so easy for graphic designers to create digital fonts that the market was flooded with new ones. The rest of us became savvier about type, often unconsciously, as we learned how to pick our favorites from the list of fonts on our computers.
By the mid-1990s, as more and more people were using Internet and e-mail, we were spending so long reading information on screen that legibility became a critical issue. Concerned that none of the existing digital fonts were easily readable, Microsoft commissioned a collection of screen-friendly typefaces to be given away free with its Windows software. Carter was asked to produce two, a serif and sans serif.
As the most popular digital fonts at the time were sans serifs, he began with that. He started by analyzing why existing typefaces were so hard to read on screen, and worked out how to rectify the problem by focusing on the characters that are most easily confused - i, j, l and the number 1. Stylistically he made each one as clear as possible, by designing them in simple shapes with no superfluous details. He paid particular attention to the spacing between characters, having realized that this often caused confusion in other computer fonts.
The result was Verdana, which was launched by Microsoft in 1996 and given away free to millions of people with Windows. Soon it became the digital equivalent of Scala, the curvy sans-serif typeface created by the Dutch designer Martin Majoor, which was then emerging as a fashionably "soft modernist" successor to Helvetica in print. "The big issue was whether text on screen would ever be as readable as the printed page," notes the graphic design historian Emily King. "Verdana was a solution to a genuine problem."
Carter then concentrated on the serif font, Georgia. Many of the same legibility issues applied, but he faced other problems too. One was that the serifs looked heavy, as they were the same width - that of a pixel, the minimum possible - as the upright strokes. Another difficulty was that the numbers looked confusing, so he differentiated them with slight variations in height. "The variations were so slight that it looked like a mistake," recalls Carter. "Late in the day we decided to exaggerate the differences by making them 'old style figures' in which the 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 drop below the line, and the 6 and 8 stand proud."
Georgia was well-received, but initially proved less popular than Verdana, which was hailed throughout the late 1990s as the defining typeface of the new digital era. By the early 2000s taste was changing. Just as fashion buffs were rummaging around vintage stores and product design was embracing romanticism, type designers were dusting down their history books. Among the most popular new fonts was the elaborate Mrs Eaves, created by the Californian designer Zuzana Licko and inspired by the glorious swirls of the 18th-century Baskerville. Mrs Eaves became so popular, even in junk mail, that typography blogs grumbled about it being over-exposed.
Designers continue to reinvent historic typefaces, but in a more restrained style. Again this reflects broader changes in visual culture. The typographic equivalent of the trend for fashion houses, like Lanvin and Balenciaga, to reinterpret vintage looks with advanced materials and technologies, is the development of computerized reinterpretations of elegant old serif typefaces, like Bodoni and the 15th century Bembo, for use in print. Among them are Farnham, developed for the art magazine frieze by the New York designer Christian Schwartz, and Guardian Egyptian, which he devised for the redesign of the British newspaper The Guardian, with the London-based designer Paul Barnes.
These smart new print serif typefaces have encouraged designers to experiment with similar styles on screen. Georgia is one of the few freely accessible serif fonts that is legible online.
The Georgia revival then accelerated, as other designers adopted it as an alternative to Verdana. It is featured on several graphic design Web sites, including those of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Dutch type foundry Typotheque. At the other end of the spectrum, it is popular on blog design templates, which is why so many bloggers are using it.
Georgia's popularity also reflects our growing ease with computers. Improvements in screen quality have made it easier to read more sophisticated fonts online, but we have also become more practiced at interpreting visual imagery on our computers by dint of spending so long using them.
That is why we felt ready to forsake Verdana's clarity for Georgia's quirky serifs - at least until the next newly fashionable typeface comes along.
posted by BofYonkers at 10:56 AM
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