Times new roman font history
Times New Roman
Serif typeface
Times New Roman is a seriftypeface commissioned for use by the British newspaper The Times in 1931. It has become one of the most popular typefaces of all time and is installed on most personal computers. The typeface was conceived by Stanley Morison, the artistic adviser to the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype, in collaboration with Victor Lardent, a lettering artist in The Times's advertising department.
Asked to advise on a redesign, Morison recommended that The Times change their body text typeface from a spindly nineteenth-century face to a more robust, solid design, returning to traditions of printing from the eighteenth century and before. This matched a common trend in printing tastes of the period. Morison proposed an older Monotype typeface named Plantin as a basis for the design, and Times New Roman mostly matches Plantin's dimensions. The main change was that the contrast between strokes was enhanced to give a crisper image. The new design made its debut in The Times on 3 October 1932. After one year, the design was released for commercial sale. In Times New Roman's name, Roman is a reference to the regular or roman style (sometimes also called Antiqua), the first part of the Times New Roman typeface family to be designed. Roman type has roots in Italian printing of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, but Times New Roman's design has no connection to Rome or to the Romans.
The Times stayed with the original Times New Roman for 40 years. The paper subsequently has switched typefaces five times between 1972 and 2007 to different variants of the original due to new production techniques and a format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004.
Design
Times New Roman has a robust colour on the page and influences of European early modern and Baroque printing. As a typeface designed for newspaper printing, Times New Roman has a high x-height, shor
Times New Roman gets its name from the Times of London, the British newspaper. In 1929, the Times hired typographer Stanley Morison to create a new text font. Morison led the project, supervising Victor Lardent, an advertising artist for the Times, who drew the letterforms.
Even when new, Times New Roman had its critics. In his typographic memoir, , Morison good-naturedly imagined what William Morris (responsible for the opening illustration in page layout) might have said about it: a new face it should, by the grace of God and the art of man, have been broad and open, generous and ample; instead, by the vice of Mammon and the misery of the machine, it is bigoted and narrow, mean and puritan.”
Because it was used in a daily newspaper, the new font quickly became popular among printers of the day. In the decades since, typesetting devices have evolved, but Times New Roman has always been one of the first fonts available for each new device (including personal computers). This, in turn, has only increased its reach.
Objectively, there’s nothing wrong with Times New Roman. It was designed for a newspaper, so it’s a bit narrower than most text fonts—especially the bold style. (Newspapers prefer narrow fonts because they fit more text per line.) The italic is mediocre. But those aren’t fatal flaws. Times New Roman is a workhorse font that’s been successful for a reason.
Yet it’s an open question whether its longevity is attributable to its quality or merely its ubiquity. Helvetica still inspires enough affection to have been the subject of a 2007 documentary feature. Times New Roman, meanwhile, has not attracted similar acts of homage.
Why not? Fame has a dark side. When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, submitted to the font of least resistance.” Times New Roman is not a font Not quite unusual for computer fonts, Times New Roman has been around since before computers became a thing. The British newspaper The Times commissioned it in 1931 as a retro update from a regular 19th-century font to something more solid with a strong 18th-century vibe. Old broom sure knows the corners (or so the saying goes), but you can see how the font may feel outdated in the 2020s. It would not be a stretch to say Times New Roman looks ancient, as we already know it was designed this way. Even Roman in the name is a nod to the Italian school of printing from (15th century!). Seeing old-fashioned characters on a groundbreaking visual device, CRT screen, was weird enough. Now that we have modern LCD screens with much higher resolution and fidelity, a font capturing aesthetics from 300 years ago feels crystal odd. Fonts classification is usually much more objective than old-fashioned or modern. One reason why Times New Roman may give an archaic vibe is that it is a serif font. All letters (or other characters) come with decorative lines, which range from very subtle to indeed something you would see in an 18th-century newspaper. Note how you can’t see any tails on the letters in this article—or almost any website created in the last 10 years. Serif and Sans serif versions of Inria font from Black[Foundry] Times New Roman, much like a lot of newspaper fonts, is rather narrow. It is a mostly business decision: you gotta fit in as much text on a page as possible—even during the times (ha-ha!) when the ratio of ads to stories was much lower. At the end of the day, all publications did that and it’s not like many people would’ve changed morning newspapers just because one is a bit easier to read than the rest. Computers, however, do not have the same limitation. You don’t pay more for publishing an article or sending a document with much more reason Times New Roman is a seriftypeface. It was made for legibility (easy reading) in body text. It was created by the BritishnewspaperThe Times in 1931. It was made by Stanley Morison, the artistic advisor to the British part of the newspaper. Victor Lardent, a lettering artist at Timesadvertising department, helped him make it. The font is no longer used by the Times newspaper. It is used mostly in books and general printing. It has become a regular typeface used on most computers. As a typeface used for newspapers, Times New Roman allows tight line-spacing and a smaller appearance. It was first seen in the Times on 3 October 1932. Times New Roman pronunciation (help·info) is packed together, with tall lowercaseletters. These things make it easier to read. Why using Times New Roman is a sin?
History corner
Aesthetics
Practicality vs Usability
Times New Roman
Design
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