 |
Martin Majoor | |
|---|---|
 Majoor in 2018 | |
| Born | 14 October 1960 Baarn, Utrecht, Netherlands |
| Education | Academy of Fine Arts, Arnhem, Netherlands (1980 to 1986) |
| Known for |
|
| Notable work | |
| Website | martinmajoor.com |
Martin Majoor (born 14 October 1960) [1] [ failed verification ] is a Dutch type designer and graphic designer. [2] As of 2006, he had worked since 1997 in both Arnhem, Netherlands, and Warsaw, Poland. [3]
Majoor was born in 1960 in the town of Baarn, in the Dutch province of Utrecht. [1]
Majoor enrolled at the then Academie voor Beeldende Kunst Arnhem (Academy of Fine Arts, Arnhem), now part of ArtEZ University of the Arts, in 1980. He graduated in 1986.
For a student placement, Majoor went to URW Type Foundry in 1984. He used their Ikarus system to design a typeface named Serré , which was never released.
In 1986, Majoor joined the research department of Océ and investigated fonts for use on computer monitors. He also researched fonts for laser printing for Bitstream.
In 1988, Majoor became a graphic designer for the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, where he designed concert programmes. Frustration with limited availability of professional fonts on the institution's Macintosh computers led him to develop his own font, Scala.
 | |
| Category | Serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Old-style |
| Designer(s) | Martin Majoor |
| Foundry | FontFont |
In 1991, FontShop International released Scala as FF Scala, the first ‘serious’ text face in its FontFont library. Scala expanded to a superfamily providing both serif and sans-serif faces with FF Scala Sans, released in 1993. Both have sold well since their introduction.
 | |
| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Humanist |
| Designer(s) | Martin Majoor |
| Foundry | FontFont |
FF Scala Sans was expanded with new weights and condensed versions in 1998. The family was supplemented with decorative capitals (FF Scala Jewels) in 1996. Several index symbols were also added[ when? ] as FF Scala Hands, from a 1933 design by Bruce Rogers.
In 1994, Majoor redesigned the Dutch telephone directory for PTT Telecom (now KPN) alongside Jan Kees Schelvis. For this he created a new typeface named Telefont, with digitization assistance by Fred Smeijers. Telefont List was designed for computer-generated listings, while Telefont Text provides small caps and text figures for use in the directory's introductory material.
FF Seria is Majoor's second superfamily, released in 2000. [4] Seria is a book face with irregular details. [5]
In 2001 the FF Seria family was awarded a Certificate of Excellence from the ISTD International TypoGraphic Awards 2001 in London and a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the ATypI Type Design Competition ‘Bukva:raz!’ in Moscow.[ citation needed ]
FF Seria Arabic (2009), a complimentary Naskh-style Arabic font in four weights for display and text use, was designed by Pascal Zoghbi. It was based on Sada (2007), designed by Zoghbi with Majoor as part of the Typographic Matchmaking project. [6]
Majoor started on an alternative version of Seria, but this became a larger project. The result was released in 2004 as FF Nexus , Majoor's third superfamily and FontFont's first OpenType product. It has serif, sans-serif, slab serif (‘Mix’), and monospaced variants. OpenType feature support includes small caps in all weights, text figures, tabular figures, ligatures, and two sets of swash characters. [7]
In 2006 the FF Nexus family won the first prize at the Creative Review Type Design Awards, in the category Text Families.
In 2014, Majoor released Questa, a Didone font and sans-serif derivative[ clarification needed ] in collaboration with Jos Buivenga. [8]
Besides working as a type designer Martin Majoor has always worked as a book typographer and graphic designer. "It is my conviction that you cannot be a good type designer if you are not a book typographer." [9]
He designed several books for Dutch publishers such as Bunge, Nijgh & Van Ditmar, L.J. Veen, Vrij Geestesleven and Elsevier.[ citation needed ] Three times his book designs were chosen among the Best Dutch Book Designs, especially for its inside book typography, rather than for its covers.[ citation needed ]
These books included Adieu Aesthetics & Beautiful Pages! (Adieu æsthetica & mooie pagina's!’), published in 1995 as the catalogue for the exhibition ‘The Aesthetic World of Jan van Krimpen, Book Designer and Typographer’ in the Museum of the Book/Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum in The Hague and in the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) in New York (1995).[ citation needed ] For this book Majoor was the first to use the digital version of Jan van Krimpen’s typeface Romanée (originally cut in 1928 for the Joh. Enschedé typefoundry), which in 1991 had been digitized by Peter Mattias Noordzij and Fred Smeijers for incorporation into the Enschedé Font Foundry (TEFF). [10]
In 2010, together with the French teacher[ clarification needed ] Sebastien Morlighem, he wrote a book on the works of the French type designer José Mendoza y Almeida. [11]
From 1999 until 2010 Majoor was the graphic designer for the Warsaw Autumn Festival, the largest international Polish festival of contemporary music. The programme books were set in Majoor’s own typeface Seria.[ citation needed ]
From 1990 to 1995, Majoor taught typography at the Schools of Fine Arts in Arnhem and Breda.
He wrote articles for magazines like Items, Eye magazine, 2+3D and tpG tipoGráfica.
He lectured at ATypI/Typelab conferences in Budapest, Antwerp, Paris, San Francisco, Barcelona, The Hague and Prague;[ when? ] at TypoBerlin (2002 and 2005); and during other type events in Lure-en-Provence (Rencontres internationales de Lure 1996), Leipzig (TypoTage 2004), Warsaw, Katowice, Stockholm, Hamburg, Caen, Vienna and Dortmund.
He gave workshops in Amsterdam (Gerrit Rietveld Academie), Stuttgart (Merz Akademie) and Warsaw.[ when? ]
His type designs were exhibited in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, New York (Cooper Union), Paris, London, Manchester, Berlin, Helsinki and Barcelona. [ when? ]
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.
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".
In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Along with blackletter and roman type, it served as one of the major typefaces in the history of Western typography.
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.
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 19th century. It is characterized by:
A swash is a typographical flourish, such as an exaggerated serif, terminal, tail, entry stroke, etc., on a glyph. The use of swash characters dates back to at least the 16th century, as they can be seen in Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi's La Operina, which is dated 1522. As with italic type in general, they were inspired by the conventions of period handwriting. Arrighi's designs influenced designers in Italy and particularly in France.
DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.
FF Scala is an old-style serif typeface designed by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor in 1991 for the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The FF Scala font family was named for the Teatro alla Scala (1776–78) in Milan, Italy. Like many contemporary Dutch serif faces, FF Scala is not an academic revival of a single historic typeface but shows influences of several historic models. Similarities can be seen with William Addison Dwiggins' 1935 design for the typeface Electra in its clarity of form, and rhythmic, highly calligraphic italics. Eric Gill's 1931 typeface Joanna, with its old style armature but nearly square serifs, is also similar in its nearly mono-weighted stroke width.
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.
Joanna is a serif typeface designed by Eric Gill (1882–1940) from 1930 to 1931 that was 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.
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.
Bitstream Charter is a serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter in 1987 for Bitstream Inc. Charter is based on Pierre-Simon Fournier’s characters, originating from the 18th century. Classified by Bitstream as a transitional-serif typeface, it also has features of a slab-serif typeface and is often classified as such.
FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries.
Evert Bloemsma was a Dutch photographer, graphic designer, type designer, and art school educator.
In typography, a font superfamily or typeface superfamily is a font family containing fonts that fall into multiple classifications.
Petr van Blokland is a Dutch graphic designer, software author and typeface designer who lives in Delft.
Cyrus Highsmith is an American typeface designer, illustrator, and author.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
