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Design studio focused on book design, illustration, and environment design


Sans-serif

I use this space to gather notes and samples of typefaces. My purpose here is not to be exhaustive, but to learn and be useful in the process.


Serif   Sans-serif   Italic   Script

First released in 1898 by the Berthold Foundry of Berlin. Akzidenz Grotesk is said to be “the immediate ancestor” of both Franklin Gothic and Helvetica.

Developed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1903, Franklin Gothic was named after the American statesman Benjamin Franklin.

Designed by Paul Renner between 1924 and 1926, Futura was released commercially in 1927 by the Bauer Type Foundry in Frankfurt, Germany.

    Akzidenz Grotesk is said to be “the immediate ancestor” of both Franklin Gothic and Helvetica.

Sans-serif letterforms have a long history, but are relatively recent arrivals in typographic terms.

Notes and sources:

Alexander Lawson, Anatomy of a Typeface
Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
Ellen Lupton, Thinking With Type
Phillip B. Meggs, A History of Graphic Design
Alan Bartram, Five Hundred Years of Book Design
Wikipedia, among others. Some images from Wikipedia are used under the Creative Commons license, and have been resized.