Type Categories, part 05: Transitional
Hello November, here come the holidays. I can’t believe it’s already the beginning of the end of 2009! Hopefully the time change is treating you well (except for those of you in, Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa). Without further ado, I give you today’s type lesson all about Transitional Letters:
Transitional letter forms were the next stage of refinement to Oldstyle letters. Unlike the diagonal stress of Oldstyle, Transitional letters have a primarily vertical stress and had more refined thin strokes. Thick-to-thin relationships were exaggerated, and brackets were lightened all thanks to the advances in metal type.
Transitional, on the scene around 1750
Examples shown: Baskerville, Century, and Times*. The Transitional type category was the first new category of type in almost 200 years (Scripts circa 1550). It will only be 25 years until the next new type category. Tune in next Monday as we discuss Modern typefaces.
*A note about Times. Times happens to be a “Transitional” typeface and worth talking about in today’s lesson. Since it was designed in ~1750 there have been a number of redesigned versions or new releases. One you’re probably quite familiar with: Times New Roman. We’ve found that many people have a distaste for any type resembling Times or Times New Roman. I actually Googled “I hate Times New Roman,” and there are no shortage Times haters. The reason you/others don’t like Times is because every computer under the sun has it pre-installed as a system font. Therefore, it has become so common and over-used that that it’s received a bad rap. Next time you see Times, remember that it’s actually very well-designed, albeit over used.
Information cited from: A Type Primer by John Kane and Fonts and Logos by Doyald Young
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so.
tell me, what percentage of projects from Red Door incorporate TIMES?
Kellie,
We’re assuming you’re inquiry is facetious, but will answer it anyways…
We only use Times on web projects, where it is one of the universal serif web typefaces. Otherwise, we choose serif faces that have been less over-used.
Erik