Antonio "Tony" DiSpigna (born 1943) is an American type designer and graphic designer.
DiSpigna was born in Forio d'Ischia, Italy. After emigrating to the United States with his family, he studied at the Pratt Institute, graduating in 1964. [1]
DiSpigna worked alongside Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, and has worked independently from his studio since 1973. [2]
DiSpigna is known for his contribution to the design of several typefaces, most famously ITC Serif Gothic [3] and ITC Lubalin Graph; [4] [5] but also many others. [6]
DiSpigna is also known for his hand-drafted Spencerian lettering, a collection of which he published in his book Love Letters. [7]
His career and design work are the subject of the Emmy-winning documentary film Imported from Brooklyn. [8] [9]
DiSpigna has taught at The School of Visual Arts and continues to teach at New York Institute of Technology and Pratt Institute. [10]
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.
Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, Germany in 1958.
Matthew Carter is a British type designer. A 2005 New Yorker profile described him as 'the most widely read man in the world' by considering the amount of text set in his commonly used fonts.
Bodoni is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Bodoni followed the ideas of John Baskerville, as found in the printing type Baskerville—increased stroke contrast reflecting developing printing technology and a more vertical axis—but he took them to a more extreme conclusion. Bodoni had a long career and his designs changed and varied, ending with a typeface of a slightly condensed underlying structure with flat, unbracketed serifs, extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and an overall geometric construction.
Adrian Johann Frutiger was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of type design in the second half of the 20th century. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting and digital typesetting eras. Until his death, he lived in Bremgarten bei Bern.
William Addison Dwiggins, was an American type designer, calligrapher, and book designer. He attained prominence as an illustrator and commercial artist, and he brought to the designing of type and books some of the boldness that he displayed in his advertising work. His work can be described as ornamented and geometric, similar to the Art Moderne and Art Deco styles of the period, using Oriental influences and breaking from the more antiquarian styles of his colleagues and mentors Updike, Cleland and Goudy.
Ephram Edward Benguiat was an American typographer and lettering artist. He crafted over 600 typeface designs including Tiffany, Bookman, Panache, Souvenir, Edwardian Script, and the eponymous Benguiat and Benguiat Gothic.
A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monotype, for letterpress printers. Today's digital type foundries accumulate and distribute typefaces created by type designers, who may either be freelancers operating their own independent foundry, or employed by a foundry. Type foundries may also provide custom type design services.
Aldo Novarese was an Italian type designer who lived and worked mostly in Turin.
Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work.
Century Gothic is a sans-serif typeface in the geometric style, released by Monotype Imaging in 1991. It is strongly influenced by the font Futura, but with a larger x-height. Its design also derives from two other typefaces that were designed to compete with Futura. It is an exclusively digital typeface that has never been manufactured as metal type.
Bookman or Bookman Old Style, is a serif typeface. A wide, legible design that is slightly bolder than most body text faces, Bookman has been used for both display typography and for printing at small sizes such as in trade printing, and less commonly for body text. In advertising use it is particularly associated with the graphic design of the 1960s and 1970s, when revivals of it were very popular.
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.
The International Typeface Corporation (ITC) was a type manufacturer founded in New York in 1970 by Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin and Edward Rondthaler. The company was one of the world's first type foundries to have no history in the production of metal type. It is now a wholly owned brand or subsidiary of Monotype Imaging.
ITC Avant Garde Gothic is a geometric sans serif font family based on the logo font used in the Avant Garde magazine. Herb Lubalin devised the logo concept and its companion headline typeface, and then he and Tom Carnase, a partner in Lubalin's design firm, worked together to transform the idea into a full-fledged typeface.
Ilene Strizver is a noted typographic educator, author, designer and founder of The Type Studio in Westport, Connecticut. Her book, Type Rules! The designer’s guide to professional typography, is now in its 4th edition.
Josef Týfa was a Czech type designer. He significantly contributed to the cultivation of corporate style and the development of book design and advertising in the 1950s and 60s. Typefaces he designed include: Kolektiv, Tyfa, Juvenis, Amos and Academia, many of which he digitized with František Štorm, founder of Storm Type Foundry. He has indicated that his influences include Jaroslav Benda, Pier Luigi Nervi, and modern graphic design and architecture including functionalism.
Jovica Veljović is a Serbian type designer and calligrapher. He is professor for type design at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.
The Legibility Group is a series of serif typefaces created by the American Mergenthaler Linotype Company and intended for use in newspapers on Linotype's hot metal typesetting system. They were developed in-house by Linotype's design team, led by Chauncey H. Griffith, and released from 1922, when the first member, Ionic No. 5, appeared.
Phill Grimshaw was an English typeface designer and calligrapher who designed dozens of fonts for Letraset and the International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in the 1980s and 1990s.