As a designer, I’ve always had a love of fonts since I can really remember. Its become quite the obsession lately and I find myself acting giddy when I come across a beautiful font such as Mrs. Eaves or misjudging a business that uses fonts such as Comic Sans or Papyrus. So, you can imagine my excitement when I found out there is a so called ‘Fonts Hall of Fame’ at The Museum of Modern Art. On March 2nd, MoMA acquired 23 digital typefaces for its Architecture and Design Collection.
You may recognize a few of these ‘hall of famer’ fonts such as Gotham, Verdana, or Temple Gothic. Each font was chosen based on historical relevance, social significance and functionality. However, something that sets these particular fonts apart from others is that each of the 23 fonts nominated are all digital fonts or designed because of the digital revolution.
The 23 acquired typefaces are:
• American Type Founders OCR-A (1966)
• Wim Crouwel New Alphabet (1967)
• Matthew Carter Bell Centennial (1976-78)
• Matthew Carter ITC Galliard (1978)
• Erik Spiekermann FF Meta (1984-1991)
• Zuzana Licko Oakland (1985)
• Jeffery Keedy Keedy Sans (1991)
• Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum FF Beowolf (1990)
• Barry Deck Template Gothic (1990)
• P. Scott Makela Dead History (1990)
• Jonathan Hoefler HTF Didot (1991)
• Neville Brody FF Blur (1992)
• Jonathan Barnbrook Mason (1992)
• Matthew Carter Mantinia (1993)
• Tobias Frere-Jones Interstate (1993-95)
• Matthew Carter Big Caslon (1994)
• Albert-Jan Pool FF DIN (1995)
• Matthew Carter Walker (1995)
• Matthew Carter Verdana (1996)
• Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones Mercury (1996)
• Matthew Carter Miller (1997)
• Jonathan Hoefler & Tobias Frere-Jones Retina (1999)
• Jonathan Hoefler & Tobias Frere-Jones Gotham (2000)
Here’s to digital fonts making their stamp on typographical history!
- Beth
