 | |
| Category | Sans-serif–serif hybrid |
|---|---|
| Classification | Geometric sans-serif Didone Postmodern |
| Designer(s) | P. Scott Makela |
| Foundry | Emigre |
| Date released | 1990 |
Dead History is a typeface which explores combining structural elements of both geometric sans-serif and Didone serif typefaces.
The Dead history typeface was designed in 1990 by P. Scott Makela and is licensed by Emigre. While Makela studied in the design program at Cranbook, he used a digital process to create Dead History as opposed to Phototypesetting. With his computer, he combined elements of both the VAG Rounded and Bell Centennial to create Dead History. The typeface went through a few more edits before being licensed by Emigre in 1994. In 2011, The Museum of Modern Art in New York added Dead History to its architecture and design collection.
Dead History’s strokes transition from unbracketed serifs and contrasting stroke width on the left side of characters to a mono-weighted sans-serif with soft, rounded terminals on the right. This typeface is most often associated with postmodern ideals from the time.
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and letter-spacing (tracking), as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.
Palatino is the name of an old-style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf, initially released in 1949 by the Stempel foundry and later by other companies, most notably the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.
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.
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".
A typeface is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
Arial is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software applications, Apple's macOS and many PostScript 3 computer printers. The typeface was designed in 1982, by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, for Monotype Typography. Each of its characters has the same width as that character in the popular typeface Helvetica; the purpose of this design is to allow a document designed in Helvetica to be displayed and printed with the intended line-breaks and page-breaks without a Helvetica license. Because of their almost identical appearances, both Arial and Helvetica have commonly been mistaken for each other.
Emigre, Inc., doing business as Emigre Fonts, is a digital type foundry based in Berkeley, California, that was founded in 1985 by husband-and-wife team Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko. The type foundry grew out of Emigre magazine, a publication founded by VanderLans and two Dutch friends who met in San Francisco, CA in 1984. Note that unlike the word émigré, Emigre is officially spelled without accents.
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Zuzana Licko is a Slovak-born American type designer and visual artist known for co-founding Emigre Fonts, a digital type foundry in Berkeley, CA. She has designed and produced numerous digital typefaces including the popular Mrs Eaves, Modula, Filosofia, and Matrix. As a corresponding interest she also creates ceramic sculptures, textile prints and jacquard weavings.
Kabel is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by German designer Rudolf Koch, and released by the Klingspor foundry from 1927 onwards.
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:
Mrs Eaves is a transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996. It is a variant of Baskerville, which was designed in Birmingham, England, in the 1750s. Mrs Eaves adapts Baskerville for use in display contexts, such as headings and book blurbs, through the use of a low x-height and a range of unusual combined characters or ligatures.
Joanna is a serif typeface designed by Eric Gill (1882–1940) in the period 1930–31, and named for one of his daughters. Gill chose Joanna for setting An Essay on Typography, a book by Gill on his thoughts on typography, typesetting, and page design. He described it as "a book face free from all fancy business".
In typography, the Vox-ATypI classification makes it possible to classify typefaces into general classes. Devised by Maximilien Vox in 1954, it was adopted in 1962 by the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) and in 1967 as a British Standard, as British Standards Classification of Typefaces, which is a very basic interpretation and adaptation/modification of the earlier Vox-ATypI classification. On April 27, 2021, ATypI announced that they had de-adopted the system, and that they were establishing a working group building towards a new, larger system incorporating the different scripts of the world.
Cholla Slab is a geometric slab-serif variant of a larger typeface family called Cholla designed by Sibylle Hagmann in the period 1998–1999 for the Art Center College of Design. Cholla is licensed by the Emigre foundry. The typeface is named for a group of cactus species indigenous to the Mojave Desert.
Paul Scott Makela was a graphic designer, multimedia designer and type designer. Among other work, he was especially noted for the design of Dead History, a postmodern typeface that combined features of a rounded sans serif typeface and a crisp neo-classical serif typeface. With the emergence of the personal computer in the mid-1980s, Makela was among the first to explore digital programs such as Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. As a result, he created an idiosyncratic, original and highly controversial design aesthetic. In particular, his disregard for clean, modernist, problem-solving design agendas—synonymous with contemporary corporate graphic design—caused much debate among powerful, old-guard designers such as Massimo Vignelli, Paul Rand, and Henry Wolf.
Evert Bloemsma was a Dutch photographer, graphic designer, type designer, and art school educator.
Typeface anatomy describes the graphic elements that make up letters in a typeface.
John Downer is an American sign painter, typeface and logo designer. Downer began his career as a painter of signs. Among his best-known digital fonts are Iowan Old Style, Roxy, Triplex Italic, and Brothers.