Typografy and types : Famous types : Times New Roman

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fontreview The Times New Roman appeared for the first time on october 3rd 1932 in the Times. Only fourty years later, while the conditions of printing had completely changed, it was replaced by an other.

Even though it originally was created for the printing of newspapers with stereotype-plates, it became also very fast the leading type for books on Monotype-, Linotype and Intertype-setting-machines after its release in 1932.

Stanley Morison (1889–1967) was, both in designing types and in studying their history, a pushing force, especially during the moved time between the wars. His publications and his authority inspired type-artists like Eric Gill and Jan van Krimpen. But he is most popular for initiating some historical redesigns of types that were published by Monotype. After Morison did privately criticize the typography of the Times, they asked him for propositions to improve it.

They started trials with Linotype-Newspaper-types and several Monotype-types, but soon they concentrated on a »modern« Monotype-Plantin with more sharp serifs. According to Morison's own notes, the Times finally bases on Robert Granjon's Gros Cicero, cut in Paris about 1569.

This was one of the first printing types with a generous x-height and the model for the Plantin. But the proportions of the upper and downer lengths and several letter-forms of the Times keep closer to the Monotype-recut.

Victor Lardent, a designer of the Times, needed only two months to draw and correct the typeface for the Monotype. Monotype put on the rework during the production. Finally, this font-typus was extended to greek, kyrillic, mathematic und phonetic characters, chemical formulas and a wide spectrum of special sorts, so nearly every kind of text could be set.

This variety and the fact, that virtually every producer delivers it, have made the Times to the most spread printing type of our days. fontreview