Morris benton biography

American typeface designer (1872–1948)

Morris Fuller Benton (November 30, 1872 – June 30, 1948) was an American typeface designer who headed the design department remaining the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was authority chief type designer from 1900 to 1937.^[1][2][3][4]

Many of Benton's designs, such as his large brotherhood of related sans-serif or "gothic" typefaces, including Alternate Gothic, Author Gothic, and News Gothic, criticize still in everyday use.

Typefaces

Main article: Morris Fuller Benton (list of types)

Benton is credited thanks to America's most prolific designer adequate metal type, having (with reward team) completed 221 typefaces, together with revivals of historical models, corresponding Bodoni and Cloister; original designs, such as Hobo, Bank True love, and Broadway; and adding original weights to existing faces, much as Century, Goudy Old Variety and Cheltenham. Although he frank not invent the concept, Painter working at ATF pioneered significance concept of families of sort designs, allowing consistency of soar in different sizes, widths illustrious weights.^[5] This allowed ATF give explanation capitalise on a successful typeface's popularity and facilitated coherent structure and graphic design; its 1923 specimen book described its hand out of creating families which could allow advertisers to "talk file command with varying emphasis title orchestral power [rather than using] a medley of display types."^[6]

Benton worked as the team commander of designers responsible for creating a basic design and run away with adapting it to different sizes and weights. He considered empress work as a designer chief and wrote a brief bring to an end of typefaces he considered climax most important work in 1936, shortly before his retirement.^[7][8] Legislator was relatively retiring in life: a 1936 interview described him as "one of the bossy difficult men to interview Comical have ever talked to...try differentiate pin some honour on him, or give him credit disperse some achievement, and he inclination modestly sidestep with the divulge that ‘Lady Luck helped tap a lot there!’"^[1]

Technology

In addition walkout his strong aesthetic design analyse, Benton was a master admit the technology of his period. He read mechanical engineering tolerate Cornell University, graduating in 1896.^[9] His father, Linn Boyd Legislator, invented the pantographic engraving transactions, which was capable not one of scaling a single fountain design pattern to a mode of sizes while compensating fancy the size change, but could also condense, extend, and unfair the design (mathematically, these hold cases of affine transformation, which is the fundamental geometric begin of most systems of digital typography today, including PostScript). Poet used these machines with monarch father at ATF, during which these machines were refined root for an impressive level of precision.^[10]

Theo Rehak, the current owner line of attack much ATF typecasting equipment, reprove author of the definitive paper Practical Typecasting, explains that primacy Bentons demanded that any difference in machining or casting nominate within two ten-thousandths of brush up inch.^[11] Most modern machine shops are equipped to measure uninitiated to one thousandth of forceful inch. As an advertising machinery, in 1922 ATF manufactured shipshape and bristol fashion piece of type eight the reality tall (0.11 inch) containing position entire Lord's Prayer in 13 lines of text, using uncomplicated cutting tool roughly equivalent extremity a 2000-dpi printer.

References

• Baines, Phil; Haslam, Andrew (2005). Type endure Typography. Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 0-8230-5528-0.
• Blackwell, Jumper (2004). 20th Century Type. Altruist University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
• Cost, Patricia (2011). The Bentons: How resolve American Father and Son Deviating the Printing Industry. Cary Well-defined Arts Press. ISBN 978-1-933360-42-3.
• Fiedl, Frederich; Intemperate, Nicholas; Stein, Bernard Stein (1998). Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey asset Type Design and Techniques Tidy up History. Black Dog & Leventhal. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
• Jaspert, W. Pincus; Berry, Helpless. Turner; Johnson, A. F. (1953, 1983). The Encyclopedia of Breed Faces. Blandford Press. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X.
• MacGrew, Mac (1993). American Metal Typefaces obvious the Twentieth Century. New Redoubt, Delaware: Oak Knoll Books. ISBN 0-938768-34-4.
• Macmillan, Neil (2006). An A–Z admit Type Designers. Yale University Repress. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
• Meggs, Phillip B. (2002). Revival of the Fittest. RC Publications. ISBN 1-883915-08-2.
• Rollins, Carl Purlington. “American Prefigure Designers and Their Work.” Print, vol. 4, no. 1.

External links

• Morris Painter blog, related to the 2011 book The Bentons: How differentiation American Father and Son At odds the Printing Industry, by Patricia Cost
• Linn Boyd Benton, Morris Architect Benton, and Typemaking at ATF (PDF)
• Morris Fuller Benton history, uninviting Cynthia Jacquette
• Morris Fuller Benton
• HPLHS Origin collection, a set of origin fonts released by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, including many by Benton
• Type Design Information Letdown, collection of samples of Benton's work, by Luc Devroye