Serifa Research

Serifa and Slab Serif (1000 words)

Serifa is a slab-serif design, based on the forms of Univers. Frutiger designed the font in 1967 to be used in a large variety of sizes.  The slab serif is a genre of letterforms that has been in use for almost 200 years. Throughout this time, many different sub-styles and groups have come in and out of use.  Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular (Rockwell), or rounded (Courier). Slab serif typefaces generally have no bracket (feature connecting the strokes to the serifs). Some consider slab serifs to be a subset of modern serif typefaces.  Because of their bold appearance, they are most commonly used in large headlines and advertisements but are seldom used in body text.  Serifa is different in this aspect as Frutiger designed it to be more legible.

As printed material began to branch out from the familiar realm of books, new typefaces were needed for use in advertising, posters, and flyers.  Vincent Figgins first commercially introduced slab serif printing type under the name Antique, with copies of specimen dated 1815 and 1817.  During the early 19th century, especially in Britain, letter drawers began creating thicker versions of letterforms common in European printing during the 18th century, e.g., the types of the Fourniers, Giambattista Bodoni, or the Didots. These new letter styles began to appear throughout British society. Artists, artisans, printers, and typefounders … they all would come to embrace these new ideas. In the realm of typefounding, these faces came to represent the age of industrialization, and also the beginnings of advertising. This also marked the birth hour for typefaces that would be marketed by their makers for “display” use. Quite common today!

As far as the typefaces go, the first examples seem to have been all-caps alphabets; faces with lowercase letters would come a bit later. In the UK, many of these early slab serifs were called “Egyptians,” even though they had very little to do with Egypt. Enthusiasm in Western Europe was quite high during this time period; Napoleon and his army had faced off against the British there, and hieroglyphics were in the process of decipherment. Perhaps the naming of typefaces as “Egyptian” had something to do with this popularity.  The following are some slab serifs fonts and how they came to be:

The first Clarendon was introduced in 1845 by R. Besley & Co, The Fan Street Foundry, as a general-purpose bold face for use in conjunction with other serif text faces in works such as dictionaries. In some respects, Clarendon can be regarded as a refined version of the Egyptian style and as such can be used for text settings, although headline and display work is more usual.  Clarendon styles have seen many revivals, especially during the 1950s and 1980s.  One of the first “contemporary” slab serifs for text in the Linotype library is probably PMN Caecilia™, which was designed during the 1980s by Dutch typeface designer Peter Matthias Noordzij. More recent releases include Diverda™ Serif, Aptifer™ Slab, and Generis™ Slab!  Many newspaper typefaces designed for the Linotype linecasting machines seem to have some Clarendon DNA in them, e.g. Excelsior™, Ionic™, or Impressum®. While close examination of many of the serifs in this category will reveal brackets, we believe that these typefaces may occasionally fall under the slab serif banner as well. In any case, they may be used superbly as text companions for display cousins whose slabs are more apparent, e.g., one could use Excelsior for body copy, and Memphis™ for the headline.

Two other families from this category worth extra attention are Egyptienne F™, by Adrian Frutiger, and Egyptian™ 505, by André Gürtler. Each of these families may be used to set both small as well as large point sizes.  A new wave of slab serifs hit the typographic world during the 1930s. Their style became very popular, and is still with us today. These letterforms appear to follow a “constructed” principle. Many of them have base forms similar to popular early 20th Century typefaces, but with slab serifs simply added on, i.e., Venus® and Venus® Egyptienne.

The groundwork for this sort of slab serif was laid in Frankfurt, Germany, when Rudolf Wolf designed the Memphis™ typeface at the D. Stempel AG foundry in 1929. After 1931, Linotype began to distribute Memphis matrices for its linecasting machines, bringing the face a worldwide audience. Memphis has a sans serif companion, DIN Neuzeit™.  Another popular German slab serif is Beton®, from Heinrich Jost. Beton has a geometric nature, and may be seen as a match for Futura®.  Adrian Frutiger’s Glypha™ and Serifa®, both designed during the 1960s, have also enjoyed widespread popularity. Both of these typefaces harmonize with Univers™.  This category includes display designs that are all dark and heavy, like Aachen™, or optimized rather for larger than for smaller sizes, like Lubalin Graph (which matches ITC Avant Garde Gothic™).  Many of the typefaces in this category are based on woodtype faces that were popular in the Wild West. One example of this “western” style is Neo Contact™, a typeface popularized by the way it is used by Marlboro.

This category of typeface has even stroke weights and heavy serifs.  Slab serifs can, as a rule, take quite a lot of wear and tear, even as far as paper is concerned.  But also here one must be careful with very light weights (danger of flooding) or very heavy weights (danger of sparkling).  While slab serifs are typically classified within serifs, their different visual attitude – defined by their thick, square-ended serifs – begs for its own category.  Also a popular style during the mid-nineteenth century, slabs have evolved into a combination of structures, like the Clarendons and Egyptians, which are constructed more like serifs, and the Geometrics, which are based on sans serifs designed to sport slabs.  And not all slabs are created equal: Geometrics and Egyptians lack brackets, the curvy connectors that segue stems and arms with the serifs like the Clarendons.

1967 History (311 words)

In 1967 the continued presence of American troops increased further and a total of 475,000 were serving in Vietnam and the peace rallies were multiplying as the number of protesters against the war increased. The Boxer Muhammad Ali was stripped of his boxing world championship for refusing to be inducted into the US Army. In the Middle East, Israel also went to war with Syria, Egypt and Jordan in the six-day war.  When it was over Israel controlled and occupied a lot more territory than before the war. Once again in the summer, cities throughout America exploded in rioting and looting — the worst being in Detroit on July 23rd where 7000 national Guard were bought in to restore law and order on the streets. In England a new type of model became a fashion sensation by the name of Twiggy and mini skirts continued to get shorter and even more popular with a short lived fashion being paper clothing. Also during this year, new Discotheques and singles bars appeared across cities around the world.  The Beatles continued to reign supreme with the release of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" album, and this year was also coined the summer of love when young teenagers got friendly and smoked pot and grooved to the music of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and The Byrds. The movie industry moved with the times and produced movies that would appeal to this younger audience including The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde and Cool Hand Luke. TV shows included The Fugitive and The Monkeys. Color television sets become popular as the price came down and more programs were made in color.

            Frutiger’s Serifa does not appear to be a reflection of the times but perhaps a counter to the movements.  It is more geometric and structured than many of the “groovy” typefaces coming out of the decade.

Font Designer (525 words)

Adrian Frutiger is a well-known typeface designer born in Switzerland in 1928.  He is still alive and currently lives near Bern, Switzerland.  He is a prolific type designer with many typefaces to his name including: Frutiger, Univers, President, Apollo, Serifa, Avenir, OCR-B, Glyfia and Vectora.  At the age of 16 he started working as a printer’s apprentice.  From there he moved to Zurich and studied at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts.

                 In 1952 Frutiger began his working career at Deberny and Peignot in Paris after being persuaded by type-founder Charles Peignot.  In 1962 Adrian Frutiger joined André Gürtler and Bruno Pfäffli in establishing a graphic design studio in Arcueil, a suburb of Paris. As a freelance typographer, Adrian Frutiger designed logos, fonts, and the corporate image of numerous companies. Adrian Frutiger gave top priority to legibility, the efficient transmission of content, as well as beauty in designing all his typefaces. "When I put my pen to a blank sheet, black isn't added but rather the white sheet is deprived of light. [...] Thus I also grasped that the empty spaces are the most important aspect of a typeface."  Frutiger was always interested in embracing new technology and applying it during his design process.  Besides solely designing original fonts, he would also interpret other type including Didot and Courier.  He has also produced numerous books on type, font and design.  He is still alive and has been working on revising his typefaces with Linotype.  One of his most famous typefaces, Univers, was the first family to use numbers as a naming system for its various weights (21 variations when first released).  The system was built around its Roman version — Univers 55.

            Frutiger still occasionally works with linotype and wrote the following on the companies web site:

I first experienced the power of type to make the whole intellectual world readable with the same letters in the days of metal. This awakened in me the urge to develop the best possible legibility. The time soon came when texts were no longer set in metal types but by means of a beam of light. The task of adapting the typefaces of the old masters from relief type to flat film was my best school. When we came to the “Grotesk” style of sanserif, however, I had my own ideas which led to the Univers® family. Technological progress was rapid. Electronic transfer of images brought the stepping, followed by my feelings for form. But today, with curve programs and laser exposure, it seems to me that the way through the desert has been completed.

From all these experiences the most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together and that type design, in its restraint, should be only felt but not perceived by the reader. In the course of my professional life I have acquired knowledge and manual skill. To pass on what I had learned and achieved to the next generation became a necessity.

            He has developed more than one hundred and seventy typefaces, of which many have become standard fonts, are now in daily use, and shape our reading habits.

           

Some Typefaces Frutiger Designed:

President (1952)

Phoebus (1953)

Ondine (1954)

Méridien (1955)

Egyptienne (1956)

Univers (1956)

Apollo (1962)

Serifa (1967)

OCR-B (1968)

Iridium (1975)

Frutiger (1975)

Glypha (1979)

Icone (1980)

Breughel (1982)

Versailles (1982)

Avenir (1988)

Vectora (1990)

Bibliography:

Gomez-Palacio, Bryony and Armin Vit.  Graphic Design Referenced. Beverly, Mass: Rockport Publishers, 2009. Print.

Linotype. “Font Designer Adrian Frutiger” and “Slab Serif Fonts.” Linotype. Monotype Imaging, 2011. Web. 24 October 2011.

Squire, Victoria. Getting it Right with Type. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2006. Print.

Typophile. “Adrian Frutiger.” Typophile, 2011. Web. 24 October 2011.