Excelsior is a serif

Serif

In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface . A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”...

 typeface

Typeface

In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....

, designed by Chauncey H. Griffith

Chauncey H. Griffith

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...

, 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.

Before designing this font, Griffith consulted the results of a survey of optometrists regarding optimal legibility.

Opticon and Paragon were released in 1935 as slightly heavier and slightly lighter versions of Excelsior designed for newspapers that deliberately underink to favor halftones, or overink to favor text and headlines.

The News 702 typeface by BitStream is almost identical to Excelsior.

External links

• Excelsior Font Family - by Chauncey H. Griffith
• Font Designer - Chauncey H. Griffith