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Century Roman Font4/26/2021
As of 2020, a version of it can be purchased from DTP Types Limited.However, compared to many earlier typefaces in the genre, stroke contrast is quite low, creating a less sharp and highly readable structure.
With ATF no longer operating, a wide variety of variants and revivals with varying features and quality are available. The Supreme Court of the United States requires that briefs be typeset in Century family type. According to Charles Shaw, The rugged simplicity of the Century family of types has made it an enduring favorite of American typographers for almost one hundred years. Century Roman Font Series Of TechnicalBeginning as foundry type, Century has withstood a series of technical transformations into Linotype, Monotype, Ludlow, phototype, transfer type, digital type, and Xerox-like toner type. He commissioned his friend Linn Boyd Benton from the newly formed American Type Founders to devise such a face. Over the course of the nineteenth century, largely because of the influence of Bodoni, common printing fonts had become thin, making a weak impression on the page. Following this, he was given the task of adapting Century No. Typographical Union standards of the time. By 1912 the A.T.F. Century Roman, while displaying 64 pages of samples of other members of the Century family. Following the successful introduction of this type, M.F. Benton embarked upon the creation of the first planned type family, and it is this conception of type families that is probably Bentons single greatest achievement. The faces were issued over a period of ten years, all of which were designed by Benton and issued by A.T.F.: 8. Barnhart Brothers Spindler called their version Century Roman, while Ludlow called their 1953 version Century Modern. It was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones and is based on Century Expanded, but the accompanying italic and bold are based upon Century Schoolbook and were designed by Richard Lipton and Christian Schwartz. Benton Modern was released in two optical sizes: text for general use and display for large text sizes. Font Bureau had already digitised as a separate project Century Bold Condensed on its own, intending it particularly for newspaper headlines. The faces, all of which were designed by Benton and issued by A.T.F., were issued over a period of six years. Century Oldstyle is Linn Boyd Bentons and Morris Fuller Bentons renovation of Phemisters Miller Richard Old Style for ATF (also known as Bookman Oldstyle) forty-five years later, using the Century name for marketing purposes. Despite the name it is not purely an old-style serif font (the type of metal type used before around 1750), but retains many more modern characteristics such as its curling capital Q. Both were designed by M.F. Benton and released by A.T.F. As far as is known, Century Catalogue was never copied by other foundries, for machine composition, or as cold type. Raph Levien has produced a nearly complete (but largely abandoned for the past decade) digitization of Century Catalogue under the terms of the Open Font License. Century Schoolbook has elements similar to the Didone classification. Morris Fuller Benton utilized research done by Clark University that showed young readers more quickly identified letterforms with contrasting weight, but with the lighter strokes maintaining presence. Tests also showed the importance of maintaining counter-form (the white space around the black letterform) in recognizing the face at smaller sizes. In designing Century Schoolbook, M. F. Benton increased the x-height, the stroke width, and overall letterspacing. The faces were issued over a period of five years, all of which were designed by Benton and issued by A.T.F.: 8. This never achieved the popularity of its sister faces, was never adapted for machine composition (much less cold type or digital). One variant, Century Schoolbook Bold Italic was even added by Intertype. Linotype also commissioned Rudolph Ruzicka to design Primer, which was intended to compete directly with Century Schoolbook for the text-book market. ![]() Modern Microsoft products include both this Century (in roman style only but with Cyrillic characters) and the same design as Century Schoolbook, only the latter including the whole family with bold and italics. It is an extensive digitisation with text figures and small caps, also adding unusual features such as asymmetric serifs. ![]()
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