Allegro (typeface)

Last updated
Allegro
Allegro.svg
Category Display
Serif
Didone
Designer(s) Hans Bohn
Foundry Ludwig & Mayer

Allegro is a serif typeface intended for display use. It was designed by Hans Bohn for the Ludwig & Mayer type foundry of Frankfurt, and released in 1936. [1] [2]

In typography, a serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface, and a typeface that does not include them is a sans-serif one. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" or "Gothic", and serif typefaces as "roman".

Typeface set of characters that share common design features

In typography, a typeface is a set of one or more fonts each composed of glyphs that share common design features. Each font of a typeface has a specific weight, style, condensation, width, slant, italicization, ornamentation, and designer or foundry. For example, "ITC Garamond Bold Condensed Italic" means the bold, condensed-width, italic version of ITC Garamond. It is a different font from "ITC Garamond Condensed Italic" and "ITC Garamond Bold Condensed", but all are fonts within the same typeface, "ITC Garamond". ITC Garamond is a different typeface from "Adobe Garamond" or "Monotype Garamond". There are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly.

Display typeface typeface intended for use at large sizes for headings

A display typeface is a typeface that is intended for use at large sizes for headings, rather than for extended passages of body text.

Contents

Allegro is inspired by the Didone style dating from around the start of the nineteenth century onwards, that emphasised alternation of very thick and very thin strokes. However, it emphasises this through breaks in the letter where thin strokes would normally be found, producing an effect similar to stencilled lettering, with a slight inclination suggesting handwriting and ball terminals and swashes suggesting music. Allegro is particularly used for decorative purposes, such as on book jackets.

Didone (typography)

Didone is a genre of serif typeface that emerged in the late 18th century and was the standard style of general-purpose printing during the nineteenth. It is characterized by:

Stencil usually a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, wood or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material

Stencilling produces an image or pattern by applying pigment to a surface over an intermediate object with designed gaps in it which create the pattern or image by only allowing the pigment to reach some parts of the surface. The stencil is both the resulting image or pattern and the intermediate object; the context in which stencil is used makes clear which meaning is intended. In practice, the (object) stencil is usually a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, wood or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material.

Ball terminal a rounded end to a letter, instead of a serif, such as at the top of a lowercase C or G in some fonts

A ball terminal is a design feature of a typeface or glyph where the end of a stroke takes a roughly circular shape, as opposed to a serif or a square end.

Allegro has been digitised and is sold by Bitstream. Its description of Allegro writes that it blends:

Bitstream Inc. typeface foundry

Bitstream Inc. was a type foundry that produced digital typefaces. Founded in 1981 by Matthew Carter and Mike Parker among others, it claims to be the oldest such company. It was located in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The font business, including MyFonts, was acquired by Monotype Imaging in March 2012. The remainder of the business, responsible for Pageflex and Bolt Browser, was spun off to a new entity named Marlborough Software Development Holdings Inc. It was later renamed Pageflex, Inc following a successful management buyout in December 2013.

characteristics of roman and italic, fat face and stencil, modern and script. [3]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Hans Bohn" (PDF). Klingspor Museum . Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  2. ↑ "Ludwig & Mayer" (PDF). Klingspor Museum . Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  3. ↑ "Bitstream Allegro". MyFonts . Retrieved 12 July 2016.
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