History of Serif Typefaces

he first half of 20th century is the end of the Modern era, the moment when revived typefaces were flooding the typography mainstream.  But it was also the time when a completely different font design was booming, called sans serif (which is French for "without serifs").  It wasn't an absolutely new idea at that time, since first sans serif faces had appeared in the beginning of 19th century; but never before this seemingly peripheral and exotic trend claimed so much importance as in 1920s and 30s.

Actually, it is amazing that the simple idea of dropping serifs at the ends of strokes didn't occur to the great many typographers who experimented with their shapes and sizes so much.  In part, it is due to the inertia of scribes' tradition who, with their quills, simply could not produce a reasonably clean cut of a stroke.  Undoubtedly, old typographers also knew the fact that was later confirmed by experiments: Serifs help the eye to stick to the line and thus facilitate reading.

But the biggest part of the serif persistence was, of course, due to plain habit.  When the first examples of sans serif fonts finally appeared, they seemed so controversial that the first name given to them was "grotesque," and they were very rarely used except in advertising.  And so it remained until the newest trends in art and industrial design, most notably the German Bauhaus movement of 1920s (influenced by earlier Russian constructivism), required adequate means of typographic expression.  These movements stressed utilitarian aspects in design, claiming that a thing becomes beautiful only when---and because---it serves a practical purpose, denying any attempts to artificially "adorn" it.

The most influential type design of that epoch, the Futura font created in Germany in 1928, displayed the core of the Bauhaus ideology: strictly geometric outline, lacking any embellishments and just barely conforming to the historical shapes of letters.  The resulting blend of geometric consistency and aesthetic awkwardness may be disputable, but it was at least something quite new, and therefore impressive, at that time.  Now we're much more accustomed to the look of Futura (and its many derivatives), but the inborn radicalism of the font still shows through. 

As any other radical movement, the "new sans serif" typography of the 1920s couldn't do without auguring an imminent death of all serif fonts whatsoever.  This didn't happen, of course.  Moreover, Futura itself didn't manage to become so neutral and familiar in the mass perception as to become a standard sans serif font for all occasions.  (Instead, this position was taken by Helvetica, a typical "no-nonsense," "no-big-deal" font that became ubiquitous almost to the point of being misused and nauseating.)  However, it cannot be denied that Futura played an important role in sans serif becoming a mainstream type style, an accepted contrasting pair for the time-proven serif fonts.

Of course, sans serif proliferation was also due to the higher demand for display typefaces in all media, the demand which is much more severe than at any time in the past.  The most natural use of a sans serif font is still for display purposes (ads, titles, logos, labels of all sorts), although it can be successfully used for body text as well.

It is interesting to note that the development of sans serif typefaces in this century went in a direction opposite to that of the serif type development of previous centuries.  Indeed, we've seen how serif faces have gone from arty and liberal Old Style, through neutral Transitional design, to the rigid, mannered Modern typefaces.  Conversely, sans serif fonts started from Futura with its artificial look, then were for a long time dominated by neutral "transitional" Helvetica, and recently a number of distinctively liberal (and, in some classifications, even termed "humanist") sans serif faces became popular.  Thus, the 20th century process of sans serif humanization is a negation, a mirror image, a contrasting parallel for the earlier process of serif dehumanization in 15th-19th centuries---just as sans serif itself is a contrasting match for serif. 

So what are the features of humanist sans serif faces? One of the first such designs was Frutiger (a.k.a. Freeset, developed in 1976); at first sight similar to Helvetica, this font reveals to a careful investigation some "anti-geometric" features, such as uneven width of strokes (especially in bold variants), non-perpendicular cuts, and slightly bent off tips of strokes (e.g. the bottom of the vertical stroke in "d").  All these subtleties were intended to smooth out the too harsh edges of the generic sans serif design and improve legibility of characters, and their net result is a relatively warm and friendly-looking typeface---especially if we compare it to the apathetic Helvetica or phrenetic Futura.

The trends that were hinted at in Frutiger were later fully developed in a family of fonts now extremely popular both on the Web and in print design.  The original typeface of this family, called Meta, was developed in 1984 by German designer Erik Spiekermann.  In Meta and its offsprings, strokes have slightly varying width (the creator's goal was that in small sizes, thinner strokes should not "drop out" but, on the contrary, become undistinguishable from the thicker ones) and, in compensation for the missing serifs, vigorously bent-off tips of vertical strokes in letters like "d" or "n."  Both uppercase and lowercase characters are narrower than in most other sans serif fonts (i.e. letters are inscribed into rectangles, not squares).  Perhaps here we have an example showing how far can we go in "humanizing" sans serifs and borrowing serif-specific features, while remaining within the sans serif paradigm. 

Interestingly, the problems that the designer tried to resolve with the new typeface were purely practical---Spiekermann's goal was to create an economic font readable in a wide variety of sizes and conditions.  Here's what the designer himself writes in his article: Meta has been hailed as "the typeface for the nineties"; young designers seem to appreciate its rugged charm, which owes a lot to the detailed requirements of small type on bad paper.  It was never designed to be a trendy typeface, rather it was designed to solve specific problems.  Maybe it is that honest, unpretentious background which appeals to graphic designers and typographers around the world.

Here's a truly enlightening comparison: Note how the two approaches to a "purely utilitarian" font design, differing only by the fact that one was rather theoretic and the other driven by practical needs, resulted in two fonts as different as Futura and Meta.

Eric Gill

A wood engraver, sculptor, typographer, and draughtsman, Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was born in Brighton. He studied in Chichester at the Theological College, and then at the Technical and Art School before moving to London and attending the Central School.
Gill’s early training there under the calligrapher and stonemason, Edward Johnston, is reflected within the purity and severity of his work; his forms lose all extraneous and superfluous detail in favour of a more austere and abstract method of representation, which has come to be recognised as neo-Byzantine and anti-naturalistic. An equal importance laid upon lettering and the compatibility of the engraving with any accompanying text is also indicative of his early pupillage.

Gill lived in Ditchling, Sussex 1907-24 and around him sprung up a community of artists. Gill’s Roman Catholic views were influential upon the community and in 1917 a religious order of artists was conceived, and in 1921 members of the community formed the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic (which exists today). Among the artists surrounding him at Ditchling were David Jones, Hagreen, Pepler, and Johnston. In 1924 he moved to Capel-y-ffin, near Hay-on Wye and over the next four years produced much of his best engraved work.

Gill’s often radical approaches set him apart from other contemporaneous engravers: he did not stick solely to the white-line method, nor was he afraid to experiment with the inclusion of large areas of white in his engravings through the cutting away of the equivalent areas from the block.

Gill never strayed far from the religious roots which inform his work. Eroticism also forms an important part of it. Gill was not afraid to combine these two elements. Among his many and varied achievements are the numerous books he designed, both type and illustration, The Canterbury Tales and The Four Gospels being among the greatest book productions between the Wars.

He held a number of teaching jobs, including gilding at the Central School and lettering at the LCC Paddington Institute. He was a founder member of the SWE and an associate of the RA. In 1937 he was awarded an honorary associateship of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.

Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. He is a controversial figure, with his well-known religious views and subject matter being seen as at odds with his sexual and paraphiliac behaviour and erotic art.

Gill Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill.

The original design appeared in 1926 when Douglas Cleverdon opened a bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where Eric Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif capitals that would be later be known as Gill Sans. In addition, Gill had sketched a design for Cleverdon, intended as a guide for him to make future notices and announcements.

Gill further developed it into a complete font family after Stanley Morison commissioned the development of Gill Sans to combat the families of Erbar, Futura and Kabel which were being launched in Germany during the latter 1920s. Gill Sans was later released in 1928 by Monotype Corporation.

Gill Sans became popular when in 1929 Cecil Dandridge commissioned Eric Gill to produce Gill Sans to be used on the London and North Eastern Railway for a unique typeface for all the LNER's posters and publicity material