Morris fuller benton biography

Morris Fuller Benton

American typeface designer (–)

Morris Fuller Benton (November 30, &#; June 30, ) was an American typeface designer who headed the design department of the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was the chief type designer from to [1][2][3][4]

Many of Benton's designs, such as his large family of related sans-serif or "gothic" typefaces, including Alternate Gothic, Franklin Gothic, and News Gothic, are still in everyday use.

Typefaces

Main article: Morris Fuller Benton (list of types)

Benton is credited as America's most prolific designer of metal type, having (with his team) completed typefaces, including revivals of historical models, like Bodoni and Cloister; original designs, such as Hobo, Bank Gothic, and Broadway; and adding new weights to existing faces, such as Century, Goudy Old Style and Cheltenham.

Morris fuller benton: My recollection is that his skills were not much up to the task that day and I was pretty certain that I could have done better. Watts in charge of ATF type sales and production of new typefaces from to attribute nine Goudy Old Style variations to Benton. As an advertising device, in ATF manufactured a piece of type eight points tall 0. To be sure, they had talent.

Although he did not invent the concept, Benton working at ATF pioneered the concept of families of typeface designs, allowing consistency of appearance in different sizes, widths and weights.[5] This allowed ATF to capitalise on a successful typeface's popularity and facilitated coherent layout and graphic design; its specimen book described its approach of creating families which could allow advertisers to "talk at command with varying emphasis and orchestral power [rather than using] a medley of display types."[6]

Benton worked as the team leader of designers responsible for creating a basic design and then adapting it to different sizes and weights.

He considered his work as a designer important and wrote a brief list of typefaces he considered his most important work in , shortly before his retirement.[7][8] Benton was relatively retiring in life: a interview described him as "one of the most difficult men to interview I have ever talked totry to pin some honour on him, or give him credit for some achievement, and he will modestly sidestep with the remark that ‘Lady Luck helped me a lot there!’"[1]

Technology

In addition to his strong aesthetic design sense, Benton was a master of the technology of his day.

He read mechanical engineering at Cornell University, graduating in [9] His father, Linn Boyd Benton, invented the pantographic engraving machine, which was capable not only of scaling a single font design pattern to a variety of sizes while compensating for the size change, but could also condense, extend, and slant the design (mathematically, these are cases of affine transformation, which is the fundamental geometric operation of most systems of digital typography today, including PostScript).

Morris used these machines with his father at ATF, during which these machines were refined to an impressive level of precision.[10]

Theo Rehak, the current owner of much ATF typecasting equipment, and author of the definitive treatise Practical Typecasting, explains that the Bentons demanded that any deviation in machining or casting be within two ten-thousandths of an inch.[11] Most modern machine shops are equipped to measure down to one thousandth of an inch.

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    • As an advertising device, in ATF manufactured a piece of type eight points tall ( inch) containing the entire Lord's Prayer in 13 lines of text, using a cutting tool roughly equivalent to a dpi printer.

    References

    • Baines, Phil; Haslam, Andrew (). Type and Typography. Watson-Guptill Publications.

      ISBN&#;

    • Blackwell, Lewis (). 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: ISBN&#;
    • Cost, Patricia (). The Bentons: How an American Father and Son Changed the Printing Industry. Cary Graphic Arts Press. ISBN&#;
    • Fiedl, Frederich; Ott, Nicholas; Stein, Bernard Stein (). Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal.

      ISBN&#;

    • Jaspert, W. Pincus; Berry, W. Turner; Johnson, A. F. (, ). The Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Blandford Press. ISBN&#;X.
    • MacGrew, Mac (). American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Books. ISBN&#;
    • Macmillan, Neil ().

      Morris fuller benton biography death Find Creative Outlets Although his entire career was spent designing and creating typefaces, Morris still liked to stay creative in his free time too. Did he owe anyone an explanation of where Hobo came from? Home About Archives The Book. He understood the importance of studying his field and researching materials relevant to his role as chief type designer.

      An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press. ISBN&#;

    • Meggs, Phillip B. (). Revival of the Fittest. RC Publications. ISBN&#;
    • Rollins, Carl Purlington. “American Type Designers and Their Work.” Print, vol. 4, no. 1.
    1. ^ abLoxley, Simon (12 June ).

      Type: The Secret History of Letters.

      Morris fuller benton biography wikipedia At one particularly cozy little shop, I was flipping through a Russian poster art book, surveying a nice Art Nouveau poster for Duchess Tobacco. He almost flew under the radar due to his quiet, humble demeanor, being somewhat under-appreciated by historians. ISBN Article Talk.

      pp.&#;68– ISBN&#;.

    2. ^Cost, Patricia. "The Contributions of Linn Boyd Benton and Morris Fuller Benton to the Technology of Typesetting and Typeface Design" (MSc thesis, Rochester Institute of Technology). Retrieved 5 September
    3. ^Morphy, Marcia. "RIT Publishes Historical Book on the Bentons and Their Typeface Legacy".

      Rochester Institute of Technology. Retrieved 5 September

    4. ^Cost, Patricia. "Linn Boyd Benton, Morris Fuller Benton, and Typemaking at ATF"(PDF).

      Morris fuller benton history Rick von Holdt gave a talk in Phoenix June that set people talking. Linn Boyd Benton. American Type Founders. Still, he had an incredible career and when we begin to examine the details that we do know regarding who he was, we see a number of interesting traits and ideas that contributed to an incredible career in typography.

      Klingspor Museum. Retrieved 5 September

    5. ^"ATF, 'Originator of Type Fashions'". Retrieved 2 January
    6. ^Specimen Book & Catalogue. American Type Founders.

    7. Carousel
    8. Item 2 of 10
    9. Item 3 of 10
    10. About | The Bentons: How an American Father and Son Changed ...

      11. pp.&#;66– Retrieved 30 August

    11. ^von Holdt, Rick. "Morris Fuller Benton, Type Designer — Fact or Fiction?"(PDF). APA Journal. Amalgamated Printers' Association. Retrieved 2 January
    12. ^Cost, Patricia. "A Reply to Rick von Holdt". Retrieved 2 January
    13. ^"Introduction to Morris Fuller Benton".

      Retrieved 15 January

    14. ^David Consuegra, David (10 October ). Classic Typefaces: American Type and Type Designers. Skyhorse Publishing.

      Morris fuller benton biography Getting philosophical, Michelangelo had a lot of assistants, but his work is still his. He purposely chose to avoid being part of the family business and instead learn something else that interested him. Email Required Name Required Website. By Creative Market.

      pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.

    15. ^Rehak, Theo. "Dale Guild Artifacts". Retrieved

    External links

    • Morris Benton blog, related to the book The Bentons: How an American Father and Son Changed the Printing Industry, by Patricia Cost
    • Linn Boyd Benton, Morris Fuller Benton, and Typemaking at ATF (PDF)
    • Morris Fuller Benton history, by Cynthia Jacquette
    • Morris Fuller Benton
    • HPLHS Font collection, a set of vintage fonts released by the H.&#;P.

      Lovecraft Historical Society, including several by Benton

    • Type Design Information Page, collection of samples of Benton's work, by Luc Devroye