Category | Serif |
---|---|
Classification | Mixed Transitional Old-style |
Designer(s) | Stanley Morison Victor Lardent |
Commissioned by | The Times |
Foundry | Monotype |
Date released | 1932 |
License | Proprietary |
Design based on | Plantin |
The consensus appears to be that not only the wrong-fount a in the cases at Antwerp but also the italic that Monotype adapted for their Plantin (which can be seen on that first page of the 1905 specimen) may be the work of Johann Michael Schmidt (died 1750), also known as J. M. Smit or Smid.
Times looks like Plantin on a diet.
Plantin was a recreation of one of the old types held at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, of which a specimen, printed in 1905, had been acquired by Pierpont on a visit. The type from which the specimen was printed was not only centuries old and worn almost beyond use, but it was contaminated with wrong-font letters (notably the letter ‘a’) and the italic did not even belong to the roman. The revival, derived by Monotype from an indirect and confused original, is [nonetheless] as sound a piece of type-making as was ever created in the 20th century…behind the foggy image of the roman type lies the...'Gros Cicero' Roman of Robert Granjon, acquired by the Plantin printing office after the death of its founder.
One of the distinctive things about French calligraphy of [the 1680s] is that the lead-in stroke of letters like i, m, n and so on have flat, rather ‘roman’, serifs, making them look a bit like a ‘sloped roman’…Fournier used it fifty years later in his ‘new style’ italics, and later so did Firmin Didot. And that French flat serif also turns up in…the italic to Times New Roman.
[Shown are] overlays from the article 'The Evolution of Times New Roman’ by John Dreyfus. He writes: ‘These drawings demonstrate how severely the bowl of “p” has been reduced in the bold version, because mainstrokes have been thickened without drawing the bold version any wider.'
[Writing on cold type rereleases of Times New Roman by Berthold]: To me, the sources for both Monotype and Linotype digital versions…really suffer from the condensed bold…in fact, many Bold letters are actually narrower, resulting in counters reduced to mere slits in some cases. Times 421 [an alternative release in the 1970s by Berthold] is not compromised in this way and the result is much more clear and confident. Yes, it takes up more space; but this style needs to — especially for text. [It] also maintains the angled stress of the regular (327), while Times New Roman Bold is forced into an unrelated vertical stress…I don’t know if this design originated at Monotype or if it’s a Berthold invention. It isn’t a match, but it does seem similar to the variant used by Stanley Morison in his essay on Times for A Tally of Types(1953), which he describes as “a wide version, more suited for longer lines.” Jaspert, Berry and Johnson show that in Encyclopaedia of Typefaces as “Times Wide” (Series 427). Another possible link to this Berthold design is mentioned by Tracy in Letters of Credit: “This disparity in style between the roman and bold was evidently something the German Linotype company thought should be eliminated. In the version of Times Roman they issued in 1935, first called Neue Romanisch but then named Toscana, the bold lowercase was redesigned in the ‘old style’ mode. The idea of harmonising the bold with the roman was logical; the actual execution, especially the character spacing, was not well done. The type soon disappeared.'
Some types look larger, size for size, than others, because they have unusually short descenders and ascenders. This allows more room for the 'x' or the middle part of the lower-case [but] a 'large x' is bound to waste space horizontally...the imperceptible condensation of Monotype Times New Roman puts it in a class by itself as a news face. In the wider book measure, however, condensation is no asset.
The original STIX fonts were based on a Times New Roman clone. The new #STIX2 faces are redesigned, inspired by 10pt metal Times fonts.
The new design is fantastic — it can be described as “the better Times New Roman”. It’s somewhat similar to Times, but with a touch of Fleischmann. Its lower contrast, enlarged x-height and less inclined italic all contribute to superb(!) readability, in both web and print. STIX Text is a neutral, non-invasive text face for continuous reading.
integrated into Mandriva Linux 2008
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Times New Roman. |