MoMA: Digital Fonts #5
MoMA: Digital Fonts
December 2011
MoMA has acquired 23 digital typefaces for its Architecture and Design Collection.
Some are of everyday use, like Verdana; others are familiar characters in our world, like Gotham, which was used in President Obama’s election campaign, or OCR-A, which we can find at the bottom of any product’s bar code; and others are still less common, but exquisitely resonant, like Walker or Template Gothic.
Helped by a panel of expert advisors that included graphic design critics, designers, and historians, we based our decisions on the same criteria—ranging from aesthetics to historical relevancy, from functionality to social significance, from technological ingenuity to economy—that we use when evaluating objects. We paid particular attention to the synthesis of goals, means, and elegance that we always seek in modern design.
This first selection of 23 typefaces represent a new branch in our collection tree. They are all digital or designed with a foresight of the scope of the digital revolution, and they all significantly respond to the technological advancements occurring in the second half of the twentieth century.
Each is a milestone in the history of typography.
The digital fonts, like most objects in the design collection, are commercially available design products. As such, they can be purchased from the original producers—aptly called foundries. The fonts are akin to, say, an iPod, a Braun clock, or a Konstantin Grcic chair. MoMA has either purchased them or obtained them as gifts, but the copyright and the right to sell a user’s license remain with the original manufacturer.
Type Design and MoMA’s Collection
Type design follows the history of object and building design throughout the centuries; it similarly reflects social developments, advances in materials and means of production, cultural biases, and technological progress. Just like the design of artifacts and buildings, in the past two centuries type design has grappled with the industrial revolution first, and the digital revolution later. Just like architecture and object design, type design has had Modernist and postmodernist phases; like other designers, type designers have felt the need to find new inspiration in traditional examples, in the vernacular, and in popular culture.
Type is a design universe unto itself, an essential dimension in the history of modern art and design. Typefaces—the building blocks of information printed or displayed onscreen—are design in and of themselves, even before they are used.
And yet, aside from a very important example—the 36-point Helvetica Bold lead type designed by Max Miedinger in 1956—previously there were no typefaces in MoMA’s collection.
According to the criteria outlined in the January 24, 2011 MoMA press release, the chosen fonts fall into four groups: functional, technological, historical, and cultural/aesthetic. “We chose some of these typefaces because they are sublimely elegant responses to the issues of specific media,” it says.
In other words, some fonts were selected because they were designed to accomplish a specific typographic function: OCR-A for optical character readers, Bell Centennial for telephone directories, Verdana for computer screens, and Retina for stock listings.
The press release continues, “We have tried to form a comprehensive collection of the most elegant solutions to typography design in the midst of the digital revolution….” Thus, some fonts qualify for inclusion on technological grounds: New Alphabet, Oakland (one of the inaugural bitmapped fonts by Zuzana Licko), Beowolf (the random font by LettError) and again, OCR-A and Verdana.
Other fonts were selected because they “visually reflect the time and place in which they were made.” Hence the inclusion of Template Gothic, Dead History, Keedy Sans, FF Blur, Mason, Meta and Walker — typefaces which exemplify the upheaval in the small world of type design (and the larger world of graphic design) in the 1990s. These are fonts that were notable for their aesthetic experimentation.
Finally, the new MoMA collection includes a number of fonts that bear no visual signs that they are digital or even that they were designed in the last forty years. These fonts are ushered into the modernist temple on the grounds that they “most inventively distill the essence of historical examples to give it new, contemporary life”. This historical rationale embraces three groups of fonts: revivals of metal typefaces (ITC Galliard, HTF Didot, CC Big Caslon, Miller, Mercury, FF DIN and Interstate), revivals of past lettering (Mantinia and Gotham), and parodies (Dead History, Keedy Sans and Mason).
www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/01/24/digital-fonts-...
MoMA: Digital Fonts #5
MoMA: Digital Fonts
December 2011
MoMA has acquired 23 digital typefaces for its Architecture and Design Collection.
Some are of everyday use, like Verdana; others are familiar characters in our world, like Gotham, which was used in President Obama’s election campaign, or OCR-A, which we can find at the bottom of any product’s bar code; and others are still less common, but exquisitely resonant, like Walker or Template Gothic.
Helped by a panel of expert advisors that included graphic design critics, designers, and historians, we based our decisions on the same criteria—ranging from aesthetics to historical relevancy, from functionality to social significance, from technological ingenuity to economy—that we use when evaluating objects. We paid particular attention to the synthesis of goals, means, and elegance that we always seek in modern design.
This first selection of 23 typefaces represent a new branch in our collection tree. They are all digital or designed with a foresight of the scope of the digital revolution, and they all significantly respond to the technological advancements occurring in the second half of the twentieth century.
Each is a milestone in the history of typography.
The digital fonts, like most objects in the design collection, are commercially available design products. As such, they can be purchased from the original producers—aptly called foundries. The fonts are akin to, say, an iPod, a Braun clock, or a Konstantin Grcic chair. MoMA has either purchased them or obtained them as gifts, but the copyright and the right to sell a user’s license remain with the original manufacturer.
Type Design and MoMA’s Collection
Type design follows the history of object and building design throughout the centuries; it similarly reflects social developments, advances in materials and means of production, cultural biases, and technological progress. Just like the design of artifacts and buildings, in the past two centuries type design has grappled with the industrial revolution first, and the digital revolution later. Just like architecture and object design, type design has had Modernist and postmodernist phases; like other designers, type designers have felt the need to find new inspiration in traditional examples, in the vernacular, and in popular culture.
Type is a design universe unto itself, an essential dimension in the history of modern art and design. Typefaces—the building blocks of information printed or displayed onscreen—are design in and of themselves, even before they are used.
And yet, aside from a very important example—the 36-point Helvetica Bold lead type designed by Max Miedinger in 1956—previously there were no typefaces in MoMA’s collection.
According to the criteria outlined in the January 24, 2011 MoMA press release, the chosen fonts fall into four groups: functional, technological, historical, and cultural/aesthetic. “We chose some of these typefaces because they are sublimely elegant responses to the issues of specific media,” it says.
In other words, some fonts were selected because they were designed to accomplish a specific typographic function: OCR-A for optical character readers, Bell Centennial for telephone directories, Verdana for computer screens, and Retina for stock listings.
The press release continues, “We have tried to form a comprehensive collection of the most elegant solutions to typography design in the midst of the digital revolution….” Thus, some fonts qualify for inclusion on technological grounds: New Alphabet, Oakland (one of the inaugural bitmapped fonts by Zuzana Licko), Beowolf (the random font by LettError) and again, OCR-A and Verdana.
Other fonts were selected because they “visually reflect the time and place in which they were made.” Hence the inclusion of Template Gothic, Dead History, Keedy Sans, FF Blur, Mason, Meta and Walker — typefaces which exemplify the upheaval in the small world of type design (and the larger world of graphic design) in the 1990s. These are fonts that were notable for their aesthetic experimentation.
Finally, the new MoMA collection includes a number of fonts that bear no visual signs that they are digital or even that they were designed in the last forty years. These fonts are ushered into the modernist temple on the grounds that they “most inventively distill the essence of historical examples to give it new, contemporary life”. This historical rationale embraces three groups of fonts: revivals of metal typefaces (ITC Galliard, HTF Didot, CC Big Caslon, Miller, Mercury, FF DIN and Interstate), revivals of past lettering (Mantinia and Gotham), and parodies (Dead History, Keedy Sans and Mason).
www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/01/24/digital-fonts-...