John Baskerville
Mr. John Baskerville is an interesting character (hahaha). Not only did he create a font family he also was an innovator in the entire printing process making improvements on the construction of the red, the ink. The Baskerville font is described as a transition between the older style fonts of William Caslon and of the more modern fonts of Giambattista and Frimin Didot. His clarification with the serifs on the Baskerville font family is what makes them unique making them shaper and more pointed, he also messed around the axis of rounded letter. The most unifying thing about his type is the stability throughout the characters in size and form.
His first book was an edition of Virgil in 1754 on which he of course designed the typeface for and improved the paper he worked on. Among some of most distinguishable pieces he worked on is the Book of Common Prayer, the official prayer book of the church of England. The appeal of the font for this was the simple design of the typeface and pages all while best utilizing the white space on a page. During the printing of the book in 1762 a single column or two column some with or without decorations on fine paper in which he established himself. Another distinguishable work of his is Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Gained. His goal was never to produce lots of books but to improve their artistic quality.
Mr. Frutiger is responsible for many typefaces some of the most infamous being Univers and Frutiger. Univers came about in 1957 and is described as a “realist sans-serif” typeface. His typefaces are were created to assist the movement of traditional printing methods to phototypesetting technologies. The type family is based on numbers instead of names. The number describes the weight and the name describes what it is for example; 2 ultra Light is different from 2 Ultra Light Extended Oblique. However each letter is very uniform and is based on typefaces by Akzidenz Grotesk.The Fruitger typeface based on the Univers typeface is known for the clear lines and legibility at far distances, which is why the Charles De Gaulle International Airport adopted it and is the font on many iMac keyboards. Its influences are Univers and Gill Sans.
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