 | |
| Category | Sans Serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Geometric |
| Designer(s) | Wim Crouwel |
| Foundry | The Foundry |
Gridnik is a geometrical typeface designed by Dutch graphic designer Wim Crouwel, in 1974. It is the digital version of the typewriter typeface Olivetti Politene.
Around 1974, Crouwel was commissioned by typewriter manufacturer Olivetti to design a typeface for their new electric typewriters. The result was a sans serif monoline (all lines are of equal thickness) typeface. Olivetti called it Politene. All characters are based on a square grid, with the 45-degree corners. Before Crouwel could finish the design, the interest for electric typewriters declined, so much so that they did not need the type design anymore. As a consequence, the copyrights of the design went back to Crouwel. At the same time they commissioned Crouwel, they asked Josef Müller-Brockmann to design a typeface as well. [1]
The most notable use of Gridnik was on a series of Number Postage Stamps for the Dutch PTT, designed in the same period as the Olivetti commission. He drew a special version of Politene, consisting of the word nederland and the numerals. These stamps were in circulation from 1976 to 2002. [2]
The digital version of Gridnik was digitized from the original drawings by the type foundry The Foundry in London. [3] Originally, it only consisted of one font – as part of the Architype 3 Crouwel collection – but it was later expanded with a light a medium and a bold. This version is called Foundry Gridnik. The name Gridnik was chosen by The Foundry because of the nickname given to Crouwel by his friends, Mr. Gridnik, for his frequent use of grids in his designs. Other typefaces in the Architype 3 Crouwel collection are Architype Fodor, Architype New Alphabet, Architype Stedelijk and Architype Catalogue.
Willem Hendrik "Wim" Crouwel was a Dutch graphic designer, type designer, and typographer.
Typotheque is a type foundry and design studio from The Hague, Netherlands that develops and markets original typefaces. In October 2009, Typotheque became the first type foundry to introduce the concept of webfonts. The typefaces sold under the Typotheque foundry label are mostly designed by Peter Biľak, including the popular Fedra Sans and Fedra Serif font families. Typotheque specializes in creation of Latin and non-Latin fonts and publishes books, such as We Want You To Love Type, bi-annual independent art/design publication Dot Dot Dot, or the magazine of unexpected creativity Works That Work.
Janson is the name given to a set of old-style serif typefaces from the Dutch Baroque period, and modern revivals from the twentieth century. Janson is a crisp, relatively high-contrast serif design, most popular for body text.
Bart van der Leck was a Dutch painter, designer, and ceramicist. With Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian he founded the De Stijl art movement.
DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.
Architype Renner is a geometric sans-serif typeface reproducing the experimental alternate characters of Paul Renner's 1927–29 typeface Futura for the Bauer foundry. Renner's original design for Futura shows the influence of Herbert Bayer's experimental "Universal" alphabet. The alternate characters Renner proposed for Futura were mostly deleted from the face's character set, resulting in a more conventional, and perhaps more economically successful typeface.
Architype Bayer is a geometric sans-serif typeface based upon the 1927 experimentation of Herbert Bayer. Bayer reacted to the Germanic use of capitalization for all nouns by abandoning uppercase. His new case combined characters based on the Carolingian minuscule with uppercase K rescaled to top-align on the mean line. The Bayer Architype typeface is one of a collection of several revivals of early twentieth century typographic experimentation designed by Freda Sack and David Quay of The Foundry.
Architype van der Leck is a geometric sans-serif typeface based upon the 1941 typeface designed by Bart van der Leck for the Dutch magazine Flax, a journal of the De Stijl art movement.
Architype Van Doesburg is a geometric sans-serif typeface based upon a 1919 alphabet designed by Theo van Doesburg, a cofounder of the De Stijl art movement. The digital revival shown at right was produced by Freda Sack and David Quay of The Foundry.
Architype Schwitters is a geometric sans-serif typeface based upon a 1927 phonetic alphabet designed by Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948). The digital revival, shown at right, was produced by Freda Sack and David Quay of The Foundry.
Architype Albers is a modular stencil sans-serif typeface based upon a series of experiments between 1926 and 1931 by Josef Albers, German designer, educator and typographer, (1888–1976). The Architype Albers typeface is one of a collection of several revivals of early twentieth century typographic experimentation designed by Freda Sack and David Quay of The Foundry.
Jan van Krimpen was a Dutch typographer, book designer and type designer. He worked for the printing house Koninklijke Joh. Enschedé. He also worked with Monotype in England, who issued or reissued many of his designs outside the Netherlands.
Nobel is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Sjoerd Henrik de Roos (1877–1962) and Dick Dooijes (1909–1998) in the period 1929–1935 for the Amsterdam Type foundry). Capitalizing upon Lettergieterij Amsterdam's substantial financial interest in the Berlin typefoundry H. Berthold AG, de Roos decided as a Dutch competitor to Futura to license the Berthold foundry's geometric Berthold Grotesk, change some characters and sell it in the Netherlands under this name. The resulting face became very popular in Dutch printing.
Martin Majoor is a Dutch type designer and graphic designer.
Fred Smeijers is a Dutch graphic, type designer and writer. He studied at the ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem in the early 1980s.
Lexicon is a serif typeface designed by Dutch type designer Bram de Does between the years 1989 and 1992. The typeface was specially designed for use at very small point sizes in Van Dale's Dictionary of the Dutch Language.
New Alphabet is a parametric typeface designed by Wim Crouwel, released in 1967. It embraced the limitations of the display technology that it was displayed on by only using horizontal and vertical strokes. This meant that some of the letters had little resemblance to the letters they were supposed to represent. New Alphabet was notably used on the cover of Joy Division's 1988 compilation album Substance.
Fodor is a geometrical typeface designed by Dutch graphic designer and type designer Wim Crouwel, around 1973.
Trinité is a serif typeface designed by Dutch type designer Bram de Does. He worked on the design from 1979 to 1982. In 1991, he received the H.N. Werkman Prize for the design.
Evert Bloemsma (1958–2005) was a Dutch type designer and graphic designer. In 1981 he graduated from the Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem. He taught typography at the Breda academy AKV St. Joost and at ArtEZ.