tahare2000

[tahare2000]

lexicon, the worlds most expensive font

[tahare2000]

Designer

Bram de Does is one of the most celebrated Dutch type designers. He was born in Amsterdam in 1934. He was a very talented musician but decided to go into the family business of printing. De Does attended Amsterdamse Grafische School (The Amsterdam Printing Trade School) in the 1950s, but he was resistant to the design etiquette taught to him there.

[tahare2000]

[During typology classes] we were subtly invited to work in a ‘modern’ and ‘fresh’ manner, and by all means avoid symmetry. I soon rebelled against such a foolish principle imposed on us and started setting symmetrical texts with nicely spaced small capitals

Bram de Does

[tahare2000]

[tahare2000]

After leaving the school de Does was hired as the typographic caretaker at Joh. Enschedé en Zoden in Haarlem in 1958 and stayed there, with only a short break in employment, until 1988.

[tahare2000]

[tahare2000]

De Does himself has described his style as “sloppy” but his designs have and flowing elegance that works very well with any imperfections that might be present.

[tahare2000]

Trinité used in Gutenberg-Galaxie 1 by Jost Hochuli

[tahare2000]

Trinité was a typeface released in 1982 by Joh. Enschedé en Zoden in Haarlem. It was designed to be the new typeface for phototypesetting machines because the print company was making the transition from the traditional letter pressing method to phototypesetting. Letterpress is a relief printing method which involves cutting letterforms into wooden or metal blocks which would be used to stamp ink into the paper being printed on through a roller system. This method began to phase out in the late 60s and early 70s when phototypesetting was rising in popularity. The phototypesetting method involved strips of film, each with it own font, that rotated and exposed individual letters with light traveling through the negative film to photosensitive paper.

[tahare2000]

letterpress hot metal typesetting

[tahare2000]

phototypesetting plate

[tahare2000]

While making this transition, Joh. Enschedé was originally going to convert Jan van Krimpen’s Romanée, the typeface that they had already been using in letterpress, to work in prototype as well. However de Does, who at this point had been designing books for them for twenty years, was worried that the typeface would lose it’s detail and integrity during this conversion and wrote the company a letter expressing his concerns. In 1978, when he sent this letter, no new typeface had been made for Joh. Enschedé for decades, as they usually just received any type that they needed from the supplier of their hot metal printing machines, Monotype.  To his surprise, they not only took his advice to have a new typeface designed, but asked him specifically to design it.

[tahare2000]

Bram de Does typesetting using letterpress

[tahare2000]

Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam uses Trinité, pairing small capitols with italic characters

[tahare2000]

Type Design

When de Does began working on his typeface in 1978 he examined four main elements when beginning his design. He wanted to create something which considered functionality (legibility), harmony, originality, and practical economic ability (for the manufacturer). Because he had never designed a font before he began by enlarging his favorite typefaces and examining how they were designed and what made them so appealing. He was inspired by Bembo, Joanna, and Romanée, all of which he used frequently in his book designing career.

[tahare2000]

[tahare2000]

He also looked at very small bible types to get an idea about kerning, spacing, and proportions. He also took details and design ideas from lettering used during the Renaissance, elements which he referred to as “historical originality” because many of the components had been out of use for decades.