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Times Roman
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Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned by the British newspaper, The Times, in 1931, designed by Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent at the English branch of Monotype. It was commissioned after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The font was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times.
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Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned by the British newspaper, The Times, in 1931, designed by Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent at the English branch of Monotype. It was commissioned after Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times. The font was supervised by Stanley Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older font named Plantin as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space. As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman, Morison's revision became Times New Roman and made its debut in the 3 October 1932 issue of The Times newspaper. After one year, the design was released for commercial sale. The Times stayed with Times New Roman for 40 years, but new production techniques and the format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004 have caused the newspaper to switch font five times since 1972. However, all the new fonts have been variants of the original New Roman font.
Although no longer used by The Times, Times New Roman is still widely used for book typography. It is one of the most successful and ubiquitous typefaces in history.
Description
Because of its ubiquity, the typeface has been influential in the subsequent development of a number of serif typefaces both before and after the start of the digital-font era. One notable example is Georgia, shown at right, which has very similar stroke shapes to Times New Roman but wider serifs.
Microsoft has distributed Times New Roman with every copy of Microsoft Windows since version 3.1. As with Times on the Apple Macintosh, it is used as the default font in many applications, especially web browsers and word processors. However, Microsoft replaced Times New Roman with Calibri, a sans-serif font, as the default font in Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, although Times New Roman is still included as an optional font. Times New Roman has grown to become the modern day pencil font.
Times New Roman used in Microsoft Windows is a TrueType version of Times New Roman PS, a narrower variant of Monotype's classic Times New Roman typeface. The PS version was introduced to match the metrics of Times Roman (a PostScript core font by Linotype). It has the lighter capitals that were originally developed for printing German (where all nouns begin with a capital letter).
In 2004, the United States Department of State announced that as of February 1, 2004, all US diplomatic documents would use 14-point Times New Roman instead of the previous 12-point Courier New.
Times New Roman was the official typeface adopted by the 1992 Summer Olympics
Times 4-line Mathematics Series 569
It is a variant designed for printing mathematical formula, using the 4-line system for mathematics developed by Monotype in 1957. Developed from Times New Roman Series 327, it contained many new glyphs that were drawn to reduce the need for kerning and enable, where appropriate, the reuse of matrices for both superior and inferior characters. Greek characters, operators, and other mathematical symbols previously cut for other series were added to Series 569 and redrawn to harmonize with its overall design. New matrices were also made for oversized fence characters (brackets, braces, parentheses, etc.) in sizes up to 72 point. The italic glyphs has as reduced slant of 12° to minimize the need for kerning. The family includes Greek, fraktur, and script alphabets; alternate versions of many glyphs; numerous versions with attached accent marks or maths symbols; and a vast selection of maths symbols. Originally between 700 and 800 different matrices were prepared for the initial release, but by 1971 this number had grown to over 8,000, with up to 5 new matrices still being added each week.
Digital version of Series 569 was released by Monotype as 'Math & Technical', which also includes extra symbols not found in the original family, but was no longer identified as member of the Times New Roman family.
Times
Times is the font family used by Linotype for the Times New Roman family licensed from Monotype. Linotype classifies Times Roman as the upright (Roman) font of the Times family.
Linotype received registration status for Times Roman in 1945. In the 1980s, there was an attempt by unknown entrepreneurs to seek Rupert Murdoch, who owned The Times, the right to use the Times Roman name; separately, a legal action was also initiated to clarify the right of Monotype to use the name in the US despite Linotype's registration. As a result of legal action, Linotype and its licensees continue to use the name Times Roman, while Monotype and its licensees use the name Times New Roman.
Although Times and Times New Roman shares the same font design, various differences developed between the versions marketed by Linotype and Monotype when the master fonts were transferred from metal to photo and digital media. For example, Linotype has slanted serifs on the capital S, while Monotype's are vertical. Most of these differences are invisible in body text at normal reading distances. (Vivid differences between the two versions do occur in the lowercase z in the italic weight and in the percent sign in all weights.) Microsoft's version of Times New Roman licensed from Monotype matches the widths from the Adobe/Linotype version. Versions of Times New Roman from Monotype exist which vary from the Linotype metrics (i.e. not the same as the version for Microsoft).
Variants
URW produced a version of Times New Roman called Nimbus Roman. Nimbus Roman No9 L, URW's PostScript variant, was released under the GNU General Public License, and available in major free and open source operating systems.
CG Times is a variant of Times family made by Compugraphic Corporation foundry.
Times Ten is a version of Times by Linotype, specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below). It features wider characters and stronger hairlines.
Times Eighteen is the headline version of Times by Linotype, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer.
Times 2 is a package of Times Semibold, Times Semibold Italic, Times Extra Bold fonts, designed by Neville Brody. The package was sold by Adobe and Monotype.
Times Europa Office is an update to Times Europa, designed by Akira Kobayashi. Released in 2006, it provides tabulated numbers, mathematical signs, and currency symbols. Each character has the same advanced width in all the fonts in the family. In addition, cap heights and x-heights are the same.
Other Times typefaces
The Times newspaper has commissioned various alternatives to Times New Roman.
Times Europa was designed by Walter Tracy in 1972 for The Times, as a sturdier alternative to the Times font family, designed for the demands of faster printing presses and cheaper paper. The typeface features more open counter spaces.
The Times newspaper replaced Times Europa with Times Roman on 1982-08-30.
Times Millennium was made in 1991, drawn by Gunnlaugur Briem on the instructions of Aurobind Patel, composing manager of News International.
Times Classic first appeared in 2001.
Designed as an economical face by the British type team of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, it took advantage of the new PC-based publishing system at the newspaper, while meeting the production shortcomings of its predecessor Times Millennium. The new typeface included 120 letters per font. Initially the family comprised ten fonts, but a condensed version was added in 2004.
On the 20th November 2006, The Times newspaper unveiled Times Modern, as the successor of Times Classic. Designed for improving legibility in smaller font sizes, it uses 45-degree angled bracket serifs. The font was published by Elsner + Flake as EF Times Modern. The font was designed by Research Studios, led by Ben Preston, Deputy Editor of The Times, in partnership with Neville Brody, former art director of The Face, and lead designer on Actuel, City Limits and Arena magazines. The design team included Ben Preston, David Driver, Mike Prowse, Chris Davalle, Kathleen Wyatt Research Studios: Neville Brody, Jon Hill, Luke Prowse.
See also
External links
Times New Roman
Times 2
Times Modern
- contains questions on Times Modern
Math & Technical
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