#ADOBE FONT CENTURY SCHOOLBOOK SERIES#

вЂњAt the end of the day, they offered me the job. , everyone who would work with you got to talk to you,вЂќ Stone said. вЂњ said, вЂWould you like to come to California and interview? We are looking for someone to run our type program.вЂ™ I already knew a little from friends about what they were doing. Stone had been with the startup for less than a year when John Warnock called him.

I was there about five years, remaking faces that already existed, always on a rush-rush schedule,вЂќ Stone said.ДЇrom Autologic, Stone made the cross-country move to Boston, Massachusetts, to serve as director of typography and design for Camex, a company which produced a machine for laying out newspaper ads. вЂњI went there and organized their font production situation so that they could try to sell their machines in the commercial marketplace to a much larger audience. Stone says Autologic was really the first company to develop a successful digital typesetting machine, which was sold primarily to large newspaper dailies and chains. He spent two years at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Missouri, before becoming director of typographic development at Autologic in Thousand Oaks, California. Stone, after studying calligraphy with Lloyd Reynolds at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, had quietly been making a name for himself as a lettering artist and typographer. When Warnock and Geschke brought Sumner Stone on board as AdobeвЂ™s first director of typography in the summer of 1984, a critical piece of the changing publishing puzzle fell into place. Growing the world of PostScript type-and driving quality standards-meant bringing in some serious typographic muscle. If they wanted a bold, they just stroked it more.вЂќ It wasnвЂ™t an outline, and it was written longhand in PostScript because they didnвЂ™t yet have any tools to draw it (which is why itвЂ™s so bad). The first Courier font at Adobe was a stroke font.

вЂњThey learned something when they had the first LaserWriter with four fonts (Helvetica, Times Roman, Courier, and Symbol). вЂњWarnock came to realize that fonts were the secret sauce of page description languages if he could have some good fonts, it would make all the difference in the world,вЂќ Black said. Publication designer and typographic consultant Roger Black remembers the early emergence of PostScript well. They also knew that, even though they had struck gold by getting a licensing deal to include LinotypeвЂ™s Helvetica and Times Roman in the initial 13-font PostScript library, that collection had to grow-fast. John Warnock (As quoted in вЂњInside the Publishing Revolution,вЂќ Pamela Pfiffner, Adobe Press, Berkeley, 2003.)ДЄdobe co-founders John Warnock and Charles вЂњChuckвЂќ Geschke knew PostScript had the potential to change the face of publishing forever. But we had a responsibility to replace that with something better and to keep the values high. I knew weвЂ™d take out Letraset and that Monotype and LinotypeвЂ™s typesetting business would go down. There will always be people who understand that and those who donвЂ™t see it. It has a significant position in the history of communication. This post takes us to the beginning of type at Adobe, when Sumner Stone began his work as the companyвЂ™s first Director of Typography.

#ADOBE FONT CENTURY SCHOOLBOOK SERIES#

This is the second in a series of articles from Tamye Riggs, a longtime lover of type who is working with us to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Adobe Originals type program.

Adobe font century schoolbook