Chauncey H. Griffith American printer and typeface designer. Griffith was born in the U.S. state of Ohio, and began his career as a compositor and pressman. In 1906 he joined the Mergenthaler Linotype Company as part of their sales force. He became sales manager, and oversaw the entrenchment of Linotype equipment as the industry standard in newspaper and book composition.

Griffith advanced to become a vice president for typographic design, working closely with the typeface designers William Addison Dwiggins

William Addison Dwiggins

William Addison Dwiggins was a U.S. type designer, calligrapher, and book designer...

 and Rudolph Ruzicka

Rudolph Ruzicka

Rudolph Ruzicka prominent Czech-born American wood engraver, etcher, illustrator, typeface designer, and book designer. Ruzicka designed typefaces and wood engraving illustrations for Daniel Berkeley Updike's Merrymount Press, and was a designer for, and consultant to, the Mergenthaler Linotype...

. He developed the typeface Excelsior in 1931 and it was widely adopted as a text and display face for newspapers across the United States. While Griffith was head of typographic development, Linotype issued revivals of Baskerville

Baskerville

Baskerville is a transitional serif typeface designed in 1757 by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England. Baskerville is classified as a transitional typeface, positioned between the old style typefaces of William Caslon, and the modern styles of Giambattista Bodoni and Firmin Didot.The...

, Granjon

Granjon

Granjon is an old style serif typeface designed by George William Jones in the period 1928–1929, and based on the Garamond typeface that was used in a book printed by the Parisian Jean Poupy in 1592. The roman design was from Claude Garamond and the italic version was from Robert Granjon...

, and Janson

Janson

Janson is the name given to an old-style serif typeface named for Dutch punch-cutter and printer Anton Janson. Research in the 1970s and early 1980s, however, concluded that the typeface was the work of a Hungarian punch-cutter named Miklós Tótfalusi Kis...

. In 1938 Griffith designed the typeface Bell Gothic for the Bell Telephone Company's directories.

Griffith's typeface designs include:

• Ionic No. 5
  Ionic No. 5
  Ionic No. 5 is a serif typeface, designed by Chauncey H. Griffith, and presented by Mergenthaler Linotype in 1925. It is one of five typefaces in Griffith's 'Legibility Group' which contains typefaces especially well-suited to newsprint including Corona, Excelsior, Opticon, Paragon, and Textype...
  
  , 1922–1925
• Poster Bodoni, Poster Bodoni Compressed, 1929
• Granjon
  Granjon
  Granjon is an old style serif typeface designed by George William Jones in the period 1928–1929, and based on the Garamond typeface that was used in a book printed by the Parisian Jean Poupy in 1592. The roman design was from Claude Garamond and the italic version was from Robert Granjon...
  
  , 1930
• Excelsior
  Excelsior (typeface)
  Excelsior is a serif typeface, designed by Chauncey H. Griffith, and presented by Mergenthaler Linotype in 1931. It is one of five typefaces in Griffith's 'Legibility Group' which contains typefaces especially well-suited to newsprint....
  
  , 1931
• Paragon
  Excelsior (typeface)
  Excelsior is a serif typeface, designed by Chauncey H. Griffith, and presented by Mergenthaler Linotype in 1931. It is one of five typefaces in Griffith's 'Legibility Group' which contains typefaces especially well-suited to newsprint....
  
  , 1935
• Bookman
  Bookman (typeface)
  Bookman or Bookman Old Style is a serif typeface derived from Old Style Antique and designed by Alexander Phemister in 1858 for Miller and Richard foundry. Several American foundries copied the design, including the Bruce Type Foundry, and issued it under various names. In 1901, Bruce refitted...
  
  , 1936
• Opticon
  Excelsior (typeface)
  Excelsior is a serif typeface, designed by Chauncey H. Griffith, and presented by Mergenthaler Linotype in 1931. It is one of five typefaces in Griffith's 'Legibility Group' which contains typefaces especially well-suited to newsprint....
  
  , 1935–1936
• Memphis Extra Bold, Extra Bold Italic, 1936
• Janson
  Janson
  Janson is the name given to an old-style serif typeface named for Dutch punch-cutter and printer Anton Janson. Research in the 1970s and early 1980s, however, concluded that the typeface was the work of a Hungarian punch-cutter named Miklós Tótfalusi Kis...
  
  , 1937
• Bell Gothic, 1938
• Ryerson Condensed, 1940
• Corona
  Corona (typeface)
  Corona is a serif typeface, designed by Chauncey H. Griffith, and presented by Mergenthaler Linotype in 1941. It is one of five typefaces in Griffith's 'Legibility Group' which contains typefaces especially well-suited to newsprint. Corona is based on forms of the Ionic type and designed to meet...
  
  , 1941
• Monticello, 1946

External links

• Linotype's web page on Griffith
• The Typophile page on Griffith