Stanley Morison (6 May 1889 – 11 October 1967) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
typographerTypography is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques...
, designer and historian of printing.
Born in
WansteadWanstead is a suburban area in the London Borough of Redbridge, East London. The main road going through Wanstead is the A12. The name is from the Anglo-Saxon words wænn and stede, meaning "settlement on a small hill"....
,
EssexEssex is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford.-History:In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary...
, and self-taught, having left school after his father abandoned his family, Morison became an editorial assistant on
Imprint magazine in 1913 . As a
conscientious objectorA conscientious objector is an individual who, on religious, moral or ethical grounds, refuses to participate as a combatant in war or, in some cases, to take any role that would support a combatant organization armed forces. In the first case, conscientious objectors may be willing to accept...
he was imprisoned during the
First World WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, but became design supervisor at the
Pelican Press in 1918 .
In 1922 he founded the
Fleuron Society dedicated to typographical matters (a fleuron being a typographic flower or ornament).
Stanley Morison (6 May 1889 – 11 October 1967) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
typographerTypography is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques...
, designer and historian of printing.
Born in
WansteadWanstead is a suburban area in the London Borough of Redbridge, East London. The main road going through Wanstead is the A12. The name is from the Anglo-Saxon words wænn and stede, meaning "settlement on a small hill"....
,
EssexEssex is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford.-History:In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary...
, and self-taught, having left school after his father abandoned his family, Morison became an editorial assistant on
Imprint magazine in 1913 . As a
conscientious objectorA conscientious objector is an individual who, on religious, moral or ethical grounds, refuses to participate as a combatant in war or, in some cases, to take any role that would support a combatant organization armed forces. In the first case, conscientious objectors may be willing to accept...
he was imprisoned during the
First World WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, but became design supervisor at the
Pelican Press in 1918 .
In 1922 he founded the
Fleuron Society dedicated to typographical matters (a fleuron being a typographic flower or ornament). He edited the society's journal
The FleuronThe Fleuron was a British journal of typography and book arts published in seven volumes from 1923 to 1930....
from 1925 to 1930 . The quality of the publication's artwork and printing was considered exceptional. From 1923 to 1925 he was a staff editor/writer for the
Penrose Annual, a graphics arts journal.
From 1923 to 1967 Morison was typographic consultant for the
Monotype CorporationMonotype Imaging Inc. is a typesetting and typeface design company responsible for many developments in printing technology — in particular the Monotype machine which was the first fully mechanical typesetter — and the design and production of typefaces in the 19th and 20th centuries...
. In the 1920s and 1930s, his work at Monotype included research and adaptation of historic typefaces, including the revival of the
BaskervilleBaskerville 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...
and
BemboBembo is the name given to an old style serif typeface based upon a face cut by Francesco Griffo, first printed in February 1496 . Griffo worked in the Venetian press of the humanist printer Aldus Manutius. The face was first used in the setting of a book entitled De Aetna, a short text about a...
types. He pioneered the great expansion of the company's range of typefaces and hugely influenced the field of typography to the present day.
Morison was also typographical consultant to
The TimesThe Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register....
newspaper from 1929 to 1960 and in 1931, after having publicly criticised the paper for the poor quality of its printing, he was commissioned by the newspaper to produce a new easy-to-read typeface for the publication.
Times New Roman, the typeface Morison developed with graphic artist
Victor LardentVictor Lardent , was a British advertising designer and draftsman at The Times, London. He created the font Times New Roman under the direction of Stanley Morison in 1932.-References :...
, was first used by the newspaper in 1932 and was published by Monotype in 1933.
Morison edited the
History of the Times from 1935 to 1952 and was editor of the
Times Literary SupplementThe Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
between 1945 and 1948 . He was elected a
Royal Designer for IndustryRoyal Designer for Industry is a distinction established by the British Royal Society of Arts in 1936, to encourage a high standard of industrial design and enhance the status of designers. It is awarded to people who have achieved "sustained excellence in aesthetic and efficient design for...
in 1960 and was a member of the editorial board of
Encyclopædia BritannicaThe Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company. The articles in the Britannica are aimed at educated adult readers, and written by a staff of about 100 full-time editors and more than...
from 1961 until his death in 1967 in London.
Other typefaces designed by Morison for the Monotype Corporation include
Blado (1923) and
Bembo (1929).
Selected publications
- Four centuries of Fine Printing; Two Hundred and Seventy-two Examples of the Work of Presses Established Between 1465 and 1924, 1924
- Type Designs of the Past and Present, 1926
- The Typographic Book, 1450-1935: A Study of Fine Typography Through Five Centuries
- Calligraphy 1535-1885: A collection of seventy-two writing-books and specimens from the Italian, French, Low Countries and Spanish schools
- First Principles of Typography, 1936
- Letterforms , 1968
- A Tally of Types
- On Type Designs Past and Present: A Brief Introduction, 1962
- Politics and Script, 1972
External links