The term comes from the french word sans, meaning without and serif from the dutch word schreef meaning line sans serif typefaces have been used since the 18th century, but became most used in the twentieth century as the modern art movement developed. Pages in category slab serif typefaces the following 25 pages are in this category, out of 25 total. Slab serif typefaces became popular in the 19th century for advertising display. We have 381 free slabserif fonts to offer for direct downloading 1001 fonts is your favorite site for free fonts since 2001. Slab serifs slab serif typefaces became popular in the 19th century for advertising display. My favorite book text faces, more or less in order. In typography, a slab serif also called mechanistic, square serif or egyptian. Sans serif simple english wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. They are sometimes curved as with clarendon, but most often unbracketed like rockwell. Theyre sometimes thought of as typewriter fonts but were used much more extensively throughout the 20th century. New sansserif designs stripped away the handwritten characteristics completely to create modern typefaces that were easier to read at longer distances.
In 1931, morris fuller benton created the stymie typeface, a reworking of a slab serif type popular in europe at that time. These sturdy, fullbodied designs, with their thick, squared off, slablike serifs, can be seen anywhere from magazines, newspapers and book covers to posters, logos, packaging and branding, web sites, and much more. Englishman vincent figgins created a slabserif type 181517 called antique. The project was supervised by monotypes engineering manager frank hinman pierpont. This font works well for logos, posters, signage, packaging, branding, etc. Its clear to see the development of serif typeface styles over hundreds of years, but the 19th20th century saw an explosion of type design where many of the fonts we use today were. Slabs in the clarendon style can bring to mind the old west, while other slabs based on neogrotesque and geometric models can take on a more contemporary feel. Its clear to see the development of serif typeface styles over hundreds of years, but the 19th20th century saw an explosion of type design where many of the fonts we use today were made. Monospaced text is often considered to be slab serif.
Postersize types began to be developed that were not merely magnified forms of book type, but very different and bolder. Take a modern style typeface, give its thicker strokes even more weight, triangulate some of those serifs, and you have a fat face. These typefaces have very heavy serifs with minimal or no bracketing. Slab serifs are one of the hottest typestyles in use today. These are seven basic classifications for typefaces, roughly in order of inventioninitial wave of popularity. Sentinel is a slab serif typeface designed by jonathan hoefler and tobias frerejones. While in the early 20th century it was reactive, standing in opposition to traditional typefaces, with time and with broader application in continuous text, it began to embrace the past. Garamondstyle typefaces are popular and often used, particularly for printing body text and books. Nov 29, 2010 jan tschichold published 2 radical books in the 1920s claiming book layouts should be asymmetrical and typefaces should nondecorative sans serif designs mclean 2010. The world was transfixed by cartouches, papyrus and the pyramids.
Ive tried quite a few so far, and its pretty clear that the sansserif needs to have a cap height to xheight ratio similar to. This was the start of what we now consider sans serif typefaces. Clarendonthis famous british typeface has more varied serifs than the usual slab serif typeface. He described it as a book face free from all fancy business. As the printing of advertising material began to expand in the early nineteenth century, new and notionally more attentiongrabbing letterforms became popular. Sep 23, 2014 the typeface can also be found on the cover of the anticipacion scifi book series. Corporative slab is the perfect choice for largescale display use and it is also suitable for use at small sizes. Slab serif lettering and typefaces appeared rapidly in the early nineteenth century, having little in common with previous letterforms. Im looking for a sansserif font that i can pair with bembo book. The most common, of course, is good old courier, but typefaces like american typewriter, probably the most graceful typewriterstyle square serif, are also derived this way.
Welcome to the early 1800s and the birth of the slab serif, otherwise. At the end of the 19 th century, there has been a considerable disuse and unpopularity towards the use of egyptian slab serif. The ibm logo is one of the most famous slab serif marks. Squareserif fonts pack a typographic punch the book designer. The anatomy of a thousand typefaces florian schulz medium.
You might be familiar with it from signs like this in the national parks. This new typeface caught on quickly and began to appear all over. Chaparral history chaparral pro takes us back to the 16th century to the book lettering fonts that were popular in the days when mass printing was in its relative infancy. Here is a survey of seven of the most useful and welldesigned slab serifs. A special typeface was designed for the worlds first printed book the gutenberg bible based. Uniquely, these serifs took the world by storm all of a sudden back in the early part of the 19 th century, when more and more typographers and designers began to use them. Bebop slab face comes in regular and inline with a vintage letterpress textured version of each. Another important old typeface is garamond, which is a group of many oldstyle serif typefaces, named for sixteenthcentury parisian engraver claude garamond generally spelled as garamont in his lifetime. The guardian uses the typeface throughout the paper and within its body typography 1. The serifs have a nearly constant width along their length. Clarendon typefaces, unlike other slab serifs, actually have some bracketing and some contrast in size in the actual serif. Designed by tomi haaparanta in 2009 up to 12 typefaces 1 value packs supports at least 21 languages std ot cff. Slab serif typefaces include rockwell and clarendon, among others. The name comes from the roman typeface serif which has is the opposite of sans serif typeface.
Its a typography variant that has been used widely for digital as well as print purposes, and devices such as amazon kindle even use a slab serif as their default font. May 04, 2011 four varieties of square serif typefaces. In the middles ages books were hand lettered in the gothic style that. They lack the strokes that distinguish a serif typeface, hence the use of the french word, sans which means without. This experimental period also introduced lowcontrast typefaces with equally thick and square slab serifs, along with ionics, or clarendons, whose serifs were smoothly bracketed. Postersize types began to be developed that were not merely magnified forms of book type, but very. The slab serif or egyptian is also home to further subsets of typeface styles, like the fat faces which are fundamentally didones or moderns on steroids.
For loos, as heller and anderson note in their book on new ornamental type. The slab serif typeface in their classic form, wood types made for largescale posters, ads, and newspapersmay not be as allpurpose as the gothic or sans serif, but it is equal, if not more powerful, in graphic appeal. A great book if you want to learn about the history and design details of popular typefaces. In the early 1800s, when napoleon returned from his three year expedition of egypt all things egyptian became the rage. This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course. A brief history of sans serif typefaces by peter bilak typotheque. Egyptienne typeface a typographic research do epic chic. Whether in a magazine article or an advertisement, on a book cover or signage, slab serif often called square serif or egyptian designs, with their geometric. Caledonia is a 1938 transitional serif typeface designed by william addison dwiggins in 1938 for the mergenthaler linotype company and commonly used in book design.
All three of these font categories cover fonts that are described as serif typefaces. Their first appearance was in egiptienne typeface with its iconic square serifs. Bembo caslon garamond minion pro baskerville janson sabon. This new typeface caught on quickly and began to appear all over europe and the u. Part of the serif family of typefaces, slab serifs feature those oneofakind feet or little attachments at the ends of the strokes of individual characters in a typeface. This list may not reflect recent changes learn more.
The sans model is the youngest model of letterform construction, coming after the serif and slab, and perhaps also the most selfconscious. Learn more about this versatile typeface thats in vogue. A hybrid slabserif text face that mixes the legibility of 19th century designs with 16th century panache. The first sans serif font to appear in a type sample book was by william caslon iv in 1816. History of roman typefaces the educational blog quora. We love these chunky monkeys and use them regularly for attention seeking headers and when we really, really just need to make a statement. Hi there, this is a model developed by typographers that may help you get a big picture view of typeface development. Sans serif sans serif typefaces are considered more modern than serif typefaces. The origins of slab serifs as far as typefaces are concerned, these serifs are relative newcomers to typography and design in general, especially when we compare them to serifs in general. History and evolution of typography fontfabric blog. Slab serif typefaces typography 1 city tech openlab. Itc lubalin graph the itc lubalin graph typeface family was designed by herb lubalin and drawn by tony dispigna and joe sundwall in 1974. Serifs have really been around since roman timesthey initially came out of the latin alphabet and inscriptional lettering. Gill chose joanna for setting an essay on typography, a book by gill on his thoughts on typography, typesetting, and page design.
The rockwell font family is a slab serif typeface originally modeled after a 1910 font called litho antique. Valentin hauy, the founder of the school, developed a tactile book system along with a typeface called the hauy system, which was essentially an early sans serif. The first sans serif from the linotype essay by adrian frutiger. Sans serif typefaces were being introduced at that time, including futura by paul renner in 1927. Their features include short extenders, higher stroke contrast, narrowing of round letters and flattened serif on the baseline and the decenders. Our type history primer on futura, the geometric sans serif that started it all. This new typeface began to grow quickly in popularity all over the us and europe. The 25 most admired typefaces of all time by those in the. Joanna sans joanna is a serif typeface designed by eric gill 18821940 in the period 193031, and named for one of his daughters. Calligraphic glyphic script graphic gaelic blackletter. Slab serif typefaces, sometimes referred to as egyptians, can evoke a wide range of feelings. Slab serifs have thick block lines at the end of their stokes. Understanding the nuances of typeface classification toptal. Dec 03, 2019 the typeface gets its name from the bebop jazz movement of the mid1940s and like this movement it aims to present a new take on slab serif typefaces.
Courier, also have slabserifs to prevent damage to the type stems during printing. A friendly slab serif thats more contemporary in its structure. Because of its monoweighted stroke, rockwell is used primarily for display or at small sizes rather than. It was first used in 1816 in a type sample book by william caslon. Once viewed as uncivilized, sans serif typefaces somehow became the. Oct 16, 2009 over the past few weeks ive put up posts about old style, modern and slab serif typefaces. Vincent figgins created egyptian, or slab serif the first time a typeface had serifs that were squares or boxes. Poster design layout typography poster design book layout typography inspiration typography letters lettering print design graphic design typo poster. While the earliest known example of a slab serif dates from an 1810 london ad, the initial impetus was provided roughly a decade earlier during napoleons famed. In typography, a slab serif typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. As you would expect from latinotype, this typeface comes with a standard set of 350 characters that support over 200 latinbased languages.
While serifs were the first typefaces to evolve after the original blackletters, sans serif typefaces largely came on to the design scene in the early 20th century. Generally, changes in stroke weight are imperceptible. This poster was designed to show the history and best uses of the slab serif font rockwell. One exception to the lack of the use of slab serif in body text is the guardian egyptian, a typeface that was designed for the guardian newspaper in the uk. Typewriteryep, the plain old typewriters that are still in use almost always use slabserif typefaces, which are highly legible and generally simple letterforms. Traditionally, slab serifs have been used for display text, however, some slab serifs can work well for setting body textthe amazon kindle. Using serif, sans serif, and slab serif, part of typography. During the early 20 th century especially the 1920s, sans serif became the typeface for its nononsense, utilitarian appeal. The meaning behind your chosen typeface pluralsight. The bold weighted letterforms could be seen on every kind of pamphlet, poster and billboardso much so that when designers want to make a poster that looks vintage today they often choose a big slab serif. The development of the grotesque font style really began with a later caslon, william caslon iv. Serif terminals exist in several different forms angular, blunt or rounded. Type in history is a monthly article series where we explore how typography has been used through the ages. With the abundant availability of slab serif typeface families in digital form, it can be daunting to select just the right one.
It was until the 1930s when slab serif would become visible again. In 1785, another sans serif was developed for a school for blind children. The first sansserif typefaces were known as grotesque as in ugly. Sentinel was created to address the shortcomings of classical slab serifs such as clarendon, such as the lack of italics and insufficient weights.
Slab serif typefaces are characterized by their geometrical, thick, blockline serifs. Its large, flexible, family that always sets a really nice approachable tone whenever i use it. The serifs were often exaggerated so they would not result in simply beautiful letterforms but would be functionally superior to other faces. Download otf offsite z y m m eponymous paulo goode 2 styles. Regardless, the slab serif became quite popular, first in england, where it was the defacto type choice in advertising.
Join ina saltz for an indepth discussion in this video the rule of three typefaces. The slab serif was no accidental design addition of the day. Rockwell is a slab serif typeface designed by the monotype corporation and released in 1934. Slab serif fonts can be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from general body text to headlines, to display copy. Top 10 most popular slab serif fonts of 2020 typewolf. I love typography ilt fonts, typefaces, the the lettering arts. There was a time when slabs were a subset of serif typefaces, but that has changed, and slab fonts refer to almost any style of typeface with super thick stroke weights for all of the letters. Then, of course, come the geometric slab serifs that look like the early sans serif types with the serifs broken off. This list of samples of serif typefaces details standard serif fonts used in printing, classical typesetting and printing. Popular slab serif typefaces are courier and rockwell. There are four distinct varieties of these typefaces, each with a different origin. Jul 27, 2015 the first typeface carved by gutenberg was based on the hand writing style of the time and was used to print the first books in europe, including the bible.
The slab serif style, with its eyecatching features, is a common choice of poster designers. Mar 11, 2019 the sans model is the youngest model of letterform construction, coming after the serif and slab, and perhaps also the most selfconscious. Of course this very article couldnt be written without type. This typeface is distinguished by a serif at the apex of the uppercase a, while the lowercase a has two storeys. May 29, 20 my favorite book text faces, more or less in order. Blackletter aka gothic 1400s theres a whole series of subcategories of blackletter typefaces each with its own characteristics, but theyre all based on the original calligraphic style with tall, narrow letters and sharp angular lines. Since being introduced in the nineteenth century, slabs have become ubiquitous and are today as popular as ever. Egyptian slate the egyptian slate typeface family is a recent addition to the slate family, both designed by rod mcdonald. Revived by morris fuller benton in the 1920s, the font was redesigned and published in 1934 by monotype in a project spearheaded by frank hinman pierpont. In typography, a sans serif typeface is one that does not have the tiny feet called serifs at the end of strokes. Some two decades later, a very heavy serifless font appeared under the name that we use today, sans serif, in the vincent figgins specimen book. These fonts are not new in the true sense of the word their history can be traced back almost 200 years.