Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (88 page)

Times New Roman (1932)

Stanley Morison (1889–1967) was among the 20th century’s most influential typographers. Employed by the Monotype Corporation, he was responsible for the resurgence of several nearly obsolete fonts—including
Bodoni
, Garamond, Baskerville, and Bembo. In 1931, while serving as a consultant to
The Times of London
, he criticized the newspaper’s outdated typeface. So
Times
bosses commissioned him to come up with a better one. Morison based his design on the roman serif font
Plantin
, sometimes referred to as Times Old Roman, but he made it much easier to read. A year after its 1932 debut,
The Times
gave up its ownership rights to the typeface, making it freely available to any newspaper that wanted to use it. However, because Times New Roman prints best on white paper, few other newspapers used it. Why? Because most newspapers used a darker grayish stock. Instead, Times New Roman became the preferred typeface for books and magazines. A close derivation of Times New Roman is used for the title font of
TIME
magazine. But don’t go looking for that font online; the title was created by a graphic artist by hand. And he only created the word
Time
.

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Goudy (1915)

Frederic William Goudy (1865–1947) was an American artist, publisher, teacher, and typographer. He designed more than 100 typefaces, the most lasting of which bears his name. Its main benefit: The small
descenders
(the part of a letter that falls below the baseline) allow for more lines per printed page. Goudy spent much of his career creating scripts for advertising purposes, but that pursuit felt hollow to him, so he spent his later years working as an instructor; he mentored some of the 20th century’s most influential typographers. But what Goudy really wanted to do was create the “perfect” roman script, so he built a foundry at his New York home to experiment with new designs. Sadly, it was destroyed by a fire before he could finish.

BRI history note:
In 1988, when Uncle John was putting together the first
Bathroom Reader
, he asked the BRI’s go-to designer, Michael Brunsfeld, to suggest a font for the book’s title. One of Michael’s picks was Goudy. Uncle John liked it so much that we decided to use it for both the title and the text you see on our pages. This is Goudy!

Courier (1956)

Technically, Courier is a “monospaced slab serif” typeface (each letter takes up the same amount of horizontal space), but it’s commonly known as the “typewriter font.” That’s what Howard Kettler had in mind when he designed it for IBM in 1956. Because of IBM’s dominance in the typewriter market, Courier (and dozens of subsequent imitations) became very popular. One place you may recognize it—on de-classified government documents with blocks of text blacked out. The U.S. State Department used Courier because it was monospaced, making it more difficult for snooping eyes to identify the blacked-out letters. In 2004 the State Department switched to Times New Roman, which has consistent spacing and is much more readable (except the blacked-out parts).

Palatino (1948)

German typographer Hermann Zapf, born in 1918, is one of the most prolific (and copied) type designers in modern history. His most famous typeface is Palatino, which he designed in 1948. He named it for the Italian writing master Giovanni Battista Palatino, a contemporary of Michelangelo and Claude Garamond. Zapf didn’t just copy a Renaissance script, though; he used it as inspiration for a roman serif font that’s legible and attractive—suitable for both title and body text. In the 1990s, Monotype released a Palatino-look-alike for computers called Book Antiqua. Here’s that same name in Palatino: Book Antiqua. Notice the subtle differences? Probably not. (Palatino has thinner strokes.) But Zapf noticed. He was bothered by this and other derivations of his work, so in 1999 he created a new,
official
version of Palatino licensed especially for use in Microsoft’s computer systems.

The average New Zealand woman has her first child at the age of about 30. In the US: 25.

Since writing began, scribes have used “non-letterform glyphs” to add visual pizzazz to their work: stars, flowers, scrolls, borders, toilet paper rolls, etc. By the 1800s, these glyphs were known by so many different names—including
ornamentals
and
fleurons
—that printers simply called them
dingbats
, the 19th-century equivalent to “thingamajigs” or “whatchamacallits.” Today, there are hundreds of symbol fonts to choose from, the most famous of which (printed above) is Zapf Dingbats, created by Hermann Zapf in 1978.

Futura (1928)

The French word
sans
means “without”; hence,
sans serif
letters lack notches and hooks. (This
T
has serifs; this
T
does not.) Although the sans serif style dates back to ancient Greece, it didn’t really catch on among designers and printers until the 19th century. And even then, most European typographers thought letters without serifs were ugly (which may explain why they’re also called
grotesque
fonts). The style got a big boost in the 1920s thanks to the German Bauhaus movement of modern art, which stressed function over style—no unnecessary elements. The most famous sans serif typeface to come out of this movement is Futura, created in 1928 by German typographer Paul Renner. His goal was to combine the strength of gothic type with the elegance of roman type, all while staying within the strict boundaries of the Bauhaus movement. Futura was revolutionary for its time: Advertisers used it to show that their products were clean and refined (as a contrast to the dirty coal-burning technology of the day). Futura and the other sans serif typefaces that followed were mainly used in titles and headlines. Aptly, the commemorative plaque that Apollo astronauts left on the Moon in 1969 is set in Futura. Also, the floating title of the TV show
LOST
is set in the type-face. And if you spend a lot of time browsing the Internet, you’ll see that Futura is used for the body text on many websites because of its readability.

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Helvetica (1957)

In 1957 Swiss typographers Max Miedinger and Edüard Hoffmann set out to create a typeface that was simple, elegant, and modern. Based on a German sans serif font called Akzidenz-Grotesks, they called their design Neue Haas Grotesk (it was created and formed at the famous Haas foundry in Switzerland). In 1960 the typeface was refined and renamed Helvetica, based on the Latin
Helvetia
, which means “Swiss.” Helvetica was an instant hit: Corporations liked it for its neutral tone; advertisers, for its readability. It became one of the most popular fonts of the 20th century, especially for transportation: New York City
Subway
signs, the logos for
Jeep
and
TOYOTA
, and millions of road signs.

Arial (1982)

You don’t see Helvetica used on most computers. Instead, you see its look-alike, Arial. Why are these two typefaces almost identical? In the 1980s, Helvetica became a standard system font in Apple Macintosh computers, but a battle (that’s still being waged today) was brewing: Adobe Software Systems purchased the Helvetica family of typefaces directly from Haas for use in its TrueType system. Result: Adobe won the respect of the typography industry by purchasing the rights directly from Haas, as opposed to going with some cheap knockoff...but only Adobe had the coding required to display it clearly on a computer screen. When it came time for Microsoft to choose its own default system font, instead of using Helvetica and being at the mercy of Adobe’s software, the computer giant went with a cheap knockoff, Arial, designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype. (Want to know how close they are? Look at the subtle difference in the tails on Helvetica’s “
a
” and Arial’s “
a
”.)

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Century Gothic (1991)

Why is this typeface—based on Twentieth Century, a 1930s design by Sol Hess for Monotype—called Century Gothic, when it seemingly has little in common with Germanic texts still referred to as
Gothic Blackletter
? Because “gothic” is an outmoded typographic term for sans-serif, so named because the type color of early sans-serif typefaces was similar to that of blackletter script. Also, unlike roman typefaces like Garamond or Goudy, both are sans serif (the spikes and adornments on old gothic faces aren’t considered true serifs). This script kept the strength of gothic-style letters, but featured a large
x-height
(a typographer term, referring to the height of a lowercase “x” in any particular font). Century Gothic proved great for advertisements, which is where you’ll see it used the most.

Film note:
A similar typeface called News Gothic (designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1908) is familiar to any movie buff:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

TR AJ AN (

In 113 A.D., a 100-foot-tall column was erected in Rome to celebrate Emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars. Etched into the base is a dedication set in classic Roman script. Ever since the Renaissance, typographers have attempted to create typefaces based on this script, including Frederic Goudy and Hermann Zapf. In 1989 a modern version of Trajan was created by Carol Twomby, a type designer working for Adobe. Like the true Roman alphabet, Trajan has no lowercase letters. As was the case with Helvetica and Times New Roman before it, many graphic designers condemn Trajan for committing the greatest sin of any typeface: overuse. Who overuses it? Hollywood movie poster designers, as evidenced by the posters for AP OL L O 13, TI TANI C, THE DA VI NCI CODE, SEX AND THE CI TY, B L ACK SWAN... and so on.

Comic Sans (1994)

In 1994 Microsoft typographer Vincent Connare opened a test version of a welcome screen for kids that featured a cartoon dog speaking with a text bubble. Connare immediately saw that the words were set in Times New Roman. “That’s not a good font for kids,” he told his bosses. So they told him to create one that would be. Connare drew inspiration from 1980s
Batman
and
Watchmen
comic books and came up with Comic Sans. It has since become one of the typefaces most reviled by designers. Why? Although Comic Sans was designed for kids, Microsoft added it to its font menu on home computers. And within a few years, Comic Sans was showing up all over the place. From church bulletins to restaurant signs, amateur designers frequently chose Comic Sans for their projects. It grew even more common when it became the default font in many instant-messaging programs. It’s become so hated that there’s a “Ban Comic Sans” movement online, initiated by designers Holly and David Combs in 1999. Their manifesto reads in part:

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Like the tone of a spoken voice, the characteristics of a typeface convey meaning. The design of the typeface is, in itself, its voice. Often this voice speaks louder than the text itself. Thus when designing a
Do Not Enter
sign, the use of a heavy-stroked, attention-commanding font such as Impact is appropriate. Typesetting such a message in Comic Sans—Do Not Enter—would be ludicrous.

So far, they’ve gathered about 5,000 signatures for a petition to “eradicate” the font. They even have a favorite joke: “Comic Sans walks into a bar, the bartender says, ‘We don’t serve your type!’”