MetaFilter posts tagged with typeface and history

The Final Alphabet

netbros — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:06:07 -0800

Arkitypo — Using the 26 letters of the alphabet as the starting point, the curators selected a specific typeface that began with each respective letter to develop a 3d alphabet of alphabets. After thoroughly researching the history of each letter, they set out to represent each individual character graphically with elements of its history serving as the foundation. Arkitypo: letter rotations on Vimeo.

Times New Starling

ocherdraco — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:32:14 -0800

The unexpected (possible) history of the world's most famous typeface. Mike Parker, former head of typographic development at Morgenthaler Linotype, has challenged the standard history of Times New Roman. The typeface, Parker claims, wasn't designed by "the great persuader" Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent of Monotype in 1931, but rather thirteen years earlier by an American, William Starling Burgess, an airplane and yacht designer, published poet, and naval architect who married five times and whose daughter, also named Starling Burgess, described him as “a bird of paradise in a family of English sparrows.” By the time of that statement, she no longer shared his name, but had become the celebrated children's author Tasha Tudor. (via)

Comic Sans

GuyZero — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:59:33 -0800

The story behind Comic Sans: The web's most hated typeface. Previously

Behind The Typeface Presents: Cooper Black.

youhas — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 02:54:36 -0800

Behind The Typeface Presents: Cooper Black. The gripping saga of one typeface's trials and tribulations, following its path from the dizzying heights of stardom to the brink of self-destruction and back again. (Flash 5, approx. 3MB.)