Bliss (typeface)

Last updated
Bliss on the University of Worcester logo. University of Worcester - Worcester Business School - Infirmary Walk, Worcester (20280455330).jpg
Bliss on the University of Worcester logo.
Bliss on the London G20 summit logo. 2009 G-20 London Summit - 4342568178.jpg
Bliss on the London G20 summit logo.

Bliss is a humanist sans-serif typeface family designed by Jeremy Tankard. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Bliss is a design in the British humanist style, based on the Johnston typeface of London Underground as well as Gill Sans and Syntax, but with a more uniform style with greater evenness and similarity between weights. [5] [6] [7] [8] Tankard added some asymmetries to break from a purely geometric structure, such as sheared cuts on the capital 'E' and 'T'. [9]

Describing it, Tankard wrote that "forms were chosen for their simplicity, legibility, and ‘Englishness’, and that his goal was to create "the first commercial typeface with an English feel since Gill Sans." [10] [11]

As of 2018, Bliss is used as a corporate font by the universities of Worcester, Bath Spa and Solent, United World Colleges, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Dignity Health, and the HADOPI institute, and by Edexcel. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] In Canada, this font is also used in the logo of WestJet [19] and Scouts Canada. [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verdana</span> Humanist sans-serif font

Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group and commissioned by Steve Ballmer. The name "Verdana" is derived from "verdant" (green) and "Ana".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sans-serif</span> Typeface classification for letterforms without serifs

In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: § Grotesque and § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist and § Other or mixed.

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 sans-serif. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" or "Gothic", and serif typefaces as "roman".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frutiger (typeface)</span> Typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger

Frutiger is a series of typefaces named after its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at small text sizes. A popular design worldwide, type designer Steve Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann named it as "the best general typeface ever".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gill Sans</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface family developed by Monotype

Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnston (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface

Johnston is a sans-serif typeface designed by and named after Edward Johnston. The typeface was commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, commercial manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, as part of his plan to strengthen the company's corporate identity. Johnston was originally created for printing, but it rapidly became used for the enamel station signs of the Underground system as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myriad (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface family

Myriad is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems. Myriad was intended as a neutral, general-purpose typeface that could fulfill a range of uses and have a form easily expandable by computer-aided design to a large range of weights and widths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corbel (typeface)</span> Typeface

Corbel is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Jeremy Tankard for Microsoft and released to consumers in 2007. It is part of the ClearType Font Collection, a suite of fonts from various designers released with Windows Vista. All start with the letter C to reflect that they were designed to work well with Microsoft's ClearType text rendering system, a text rendering engine designed to make text clearer to read on LCD monitors. The other fonts in the same group are Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas and Constantia.

Oblique type is a form of type that slants slightly to the right, used for the same purposes as italic type. Unlike italic type, however, it does not use different glyph shapes; it uses the same glyphs as roman type, except slanted. Oblique and italic type are technical terms to distinguish between the two ways of creating slanted font styles; oblique designs may be labelled italic by companies selling fonts or by computer programs. Oblique designs may also be called slanted or sloped roman styles. Oblique fonts, as supplied by a font designer, may be simply slanted, but this is often not the case: many have slight corrections made to them to give curves more consistent widths, so they retain the proportions of counters and the thick-and-thin quality of strokes from the regular design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotis</span> Typeface

Rotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In Rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif. The four basic Rotis variants are:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thesis (typeface)</span> Font superfamily

Thesis is a large typeface family designed by Luc(as) de Groot. The typefaces were designed between 1994 and 1999 to provide a modern humanist family. Each typeface is available in a variety of weights as well as in italic. Originally released by FontFont in 1994, it has been sold by de Groot through his imprint LucasFonts since 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gotham (typeface)</span> Geometric sans-serif typeface

Gotham is a geometric sans-serif typeface family designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones with Jesse Ragan and released through the Hoefler & Frere-Jones foundry from 2000. Gotham's letterforms were inspired by examples of architectural signs of the mid-twentieth century. Gotham has a relatively broad design with a reasonably high x-height and wide apertures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Scala Sans</span> Typeface

FF Scala Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Dutch designer Martin Majoor in 1993 for the Vredenburg Music Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It was designed as a companion to Majoor's earlier serif old style typeface FF Scala, designed in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syntax (typeface)</span> Typeface

Syntax comprises a family of fonts designed by Swiss typeface designer Hans Eduard Meier. Originally just a sans-serif font, it was extended with additional serif designs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avenir (typeface)</span> 1988 typeface by Adrian Frutiger

Avenir is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1987 and released in 1988 by Linotype GmbH.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephenson Blake</span> English engineering company

Stephenson Blake is an engineering company based in Sheffield, England. The company was active from the early 19th century as a type founder, remaining until the 1990s as the last active type foundry in Britain, since when it has diversified into specialist engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitney (typeface)</span> Family of sans-serif typefaces

Whitney is a family of humanist sans-serif digital typefaces, designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones. It was originally created for New York’s Whitney Museum as its institutional typeface. Two key requirements were flexibility for editorial requirements and a design consistency with the Whitney Museum's existing public signage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Granby (typeface)</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface

Granby is a sans-serif typeface designed and released by the Stephenson Blake type foundry of Sheffield from 1930.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Tankard</span> British type designer

Jeremy Tankard is a British type designer. Tankard has designed retail fonts independently and for FontShop and Adobe. Corbel was designed for Microsoft and has been included in Microsoft Office and Windows since 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grotesque (Stephenson Blake typefaces)</span> Family of sans-serif typefaces

The Stephenson Blake Grotesque fonts are a series of sans-serif typefaces created by the type foundry Stephenson Blake of Sheffield, England, mostly around the beginning of the twentieth century.

References

  1. Palmieri, Chris. "Facetime 2: Type Designer Jeremy Tankard on Bliss". AQ Works. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  2. Coles, Stephen. "Questioning Gill Sans". Typographica. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  3. "The Disturbing World of Jeremy Tankard". Kingston Publishing. Retrieved 31 July 2016.
  4. King, Emily. "Digital Type Decade". Eye magazine. Retrieved 1 August 2016. Tankard's most visible face is the sans serif Bliss (British Midland Airways, Foxton's estate agent). The Bliss typeface is the outcome of the assessment of five sans serif faces: Gill Sans; Syntax; Frutiger; Edward Johnston's Underground typeface and Kinneir and Calvert's Transport typeface (see Eye no. 34 vol. 9). The result is a design that answered the current quest for 'a new simplicity'. It is a face that seems straightforward because it is imbued with so much that we already know.
  5. Archer, Ben. "Eric Gill got it wrong; a re-evaluation of Gill Sans". Typotheque. Retrieved 7 January 2011.
  6. Alastair Campbell; Alistair Dabbs (1 February 2014). Pocket Essentials: Typography: The History and Principles of the Art. Octopus. p. 387. ISBN   978-1-78157-155-2.
  7. Berry, John. "A small book of typefaces". CreativePro. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  8. Hill, Will (2005). The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Person Prentice Hall. ISBN   9780131344457.
  9. Tankard, Jeremy. "Originals – Bliss". Studiotype. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
  10. Tankard, Jeremy. "Bliss Pro". Jeremy Tankard Typography. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  11. Neil Macmillan (2006). An A-Z of Type Designers. Laurence King Publishing. pp. 26–7. ISBN   978-1-85669-395-0.
  12. "Typography". Bath Spa University . Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  13. "Logo". Arts & Humanities Research Council . Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  14. "Identity Guidelines for the University of Worcester" (PDF). University of Worcester . Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  15. "Think London campaign". Fonts in Use. Retrieved 31 July 2016.
  16. "With Copyright Protectors Like These, who Needs Enemies?". Brand New. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  17. "Branding Toolkit" (PDF). United World Colleges. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 August 2016. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  18. "We Change Worlds: Brand Guidelines" (PDF). Solent University . Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  19. "Canadian Airline WestJet Unveils New Logo and Livery Design". Logo Designer. 31 May 2018. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
  20. "Brand Guidelines". www.scouts.ca. Scouts Canada . Retrieved 18 October 2020.