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ABOUT

Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos

Dutch typographer and type designer, b. Drachten, 1877, d. Haarlem, 1962. He worked at Tetterode from 1907-1941. Catalog of some of his digitized typefaces. Designer of various typefaces:

• The uncial-like typeface Libra Uncial (1938, a pseudo-Gaelic font) at Tetterode in Amsterdam. Libra is now carried in digital form by Mecanorma and Bitstream.
• Nobel, a redesign of Berthold Grotesk. FB Nobel (1993, Tobias Frere-Jones at the Font Bureau) is a powerful 18-style sans family based on de Roos's Nobel. It ranges from Extra Light to Very Black, and includes a condensed sextet. See also DTL Nobel (Dutch Type Library) by Fred Smeijers and Andrea Fuchs (a German student at the Arnhe academy supervised by her teacher, Fred Smeijers).
• De Roos made Dutch (or Hollandse) Mediaeval (1912), an old style (Venetian) typeface with little contrast, arched slabs and serifs, short descenders, an atrocious lower case g, and an italic that is more like an oblique, but with several conservative workhorse qualities that made it one of the most popular typefaces during World War I. Intertype Mediaeval is similar. Hollandse Mediaeval was digitally revived by Hans van Maanen in 2007 as Dutch Mediaeval, and by Hans van Maanen and Patrick Griffin in 2013 as Dutch Mediaeval Book ST. For other digitizations, see De Roos Mediaeval NF (2014, Nick Curtis) and Hoboken Serial (2010, SoftMaker).
• He designed the calligraphic typeface Meidoorn (1928) for De Heuvelpers (his own private press), which was active from 1926-1935. The Meidoorn materials (matrices, punches) are now in the hands of G. J. Randoe (Keizersgracht 89, 1015 Amsterdam). Laure Afchain was doing a revival of Meidoorn in 2008 as a student at KABK, Den Haag. And Joe Chang, still at KABK, did a revival of it in 2012 in van der Laan's class.
• Egmont (1933) is a serifed typeface done at Lettergieterij Amsterdam. Mac McGrew writes: Egmont is a modern interpretation of classic letter forms, designed by S. H. DeRoos for Amsterdam Type foundry in the 1930s, and subsequently cut by Intertype. It is an elegant face, with long ascenders which have double serifs. There are three weights in roman and italic, all with three styles of figures as shown in the bold specimen. Italic swash letters are made for all three weights. Egmont Decorative Initials were added by George F. Trenholm in 1936; they are sometimes called Egmont Medium Italic, from which they are derived. Compare Bernhard Modern. A digital family was designed by Dennis Ortiz-Lopez in 2005 called OT Egmont. Castcraft's free font family OPTI-Eisen is also noteworthy. Open Egmont Kapitalen (2013) is a free openface designed by John Wollring based upon de Roos's known Egmont Inline (or Egmont Versalien) shown in a Lettergieterij Amsterdam specimen book of 1935. Jay Rutherford digitized Egmont Inline in 1988, but did not publish it. In 2016, Alice Retunsky designed the revival Dutch Plus, and added cyrillics.
• Erasmus Mediaeval (1923, Amsterdam). Berry, Johnson and Jaspert write: Venetian in style, but with light serifs and short descenders. Many of the serifs are shaped, as though drawn with a pen. E and F have the centre arms high, the Ha high bar and U the lower-case design. g has a brief tail drawn from right to left;p and q have oblique foot serifs. The italic has slight inclination and has the serifs of the roman. The heavier face of this design is called Grotius. Digital revivals include Erasmus (1992, A. Pat Hickson, ITF) and one by Pradnya Naik.
• Card Pro (2006, URW, Ralph M. Unger) is based on Ella Cursief (1916, Lettergieterij Amsterdam). For another digital version of Ella Cursief, see Rozy Cursive (2016, Leon Hulst).
• Circulaire (2009, Hans Van Maanen, Canada Type) is based on a set of initial caps designed by Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos in 1926.
• His last typeface was De Roos Romein (and Cursief) (1947, Amsterdam; Intertype New York; American Typefoundry) about which Canada Type, which produced a magnificent 10-style digital revival, expansion and interpretation in 2009 simply called Roos, in a cooperative effort between Hans van Maanen and Patrick Griffin, writes: It was designed and produced during the years of the second World War, and unveiled in the summer of 1947 to celebrate De Roos's 70th birthday. In 1948, the first fonts produced were used for a special edition of the Dutch Constitution on which Juliana took the oath during her inauguration as the Queen of the Netherlands. To this day this typeface is widely regarded as De Roos's best design, with one of the most beautiful italics ever drawn. In contrast with all his previous roman typefaces, which were based on the Jenson model, De Roos's last type recalls the letter forms of the Renaissance, specifically those of Claude Garamont from around 1530, but with a much refined and elegant treatment, with stems sloping towards the ascending, slightly cupped serifs, a tall and distinguished lowercase, and an economic width that really shines in the spectacular italic, which harmonizes extremely well with its roman partner. Mac McGrew: De Roos is a handsome contemporary roman type designed by S. H. DeRoos in Amsterdam, Holland. Originally imported from a Dutch type foundry, with additional weights and inline initials, this roman and italic were also cut by ATF about 1952, and by Intertype in 1954. A 1953 piece of ATF literature notes, "Cast at Elizabeth on Amsterdam line." Scans below are from the book First specimen book of De Roos Roman&Italic (Typefoundry Amsterdam).
• Savoy (ca. 1936) was the third art deco display typeface drawn under de Roos's superviosn, after the earlier pair, Bristol and Carlton (1929), which were drawn by Dick Dooijes also under de Roos's supervision.
• Simplex (1937). A typeface that flirts with the idea of unicase. For a digital revival, see Hendrik (2021, by Claudio Rocha and Lucas Franco).
• Zilvertype (1914-1916, with Jean-François van Royen). This was revived by Hans van Maanen as Zilvertype (2012-2014, Hans Van Maanen, Canada Type): Right on the heels of the tremendous popularity wave that made Hollandse Mediaeval the most used Dutch typeface during the Great War years, Sjoerd H. de Roos was asked to design a 15 point type for De Zilverdistel, Jean-François van Royen's publishing company. So between 1914 and 1916, de Roos and van Royen collaborated on the typeface eventually known as Zilvertype, and which both parties viewed as an improved version of Hollandse Mediaeveal. Like Hollandse Mediaeval, Zilvertype was based on the Jenson model, but it is simpler, with more traditional metrics, and lighter and more classic in colour.
• Nieuw Javaansch No. 1 (1909). A Javanese script done by Sjoerd de Roos at Lettergieterij Amsterdam. Revived in 2012 at the KABK by Troy Leinster under the same name.

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Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Dutch type design ⦿ Celtic/Gaelic fonts ⦿ Calligraphic typefaces ⦿ Ornamental caps typefaces ⦿ Uncial typefaces ⦿ Garalde or Garamond typefaces ⦿ Nick Curtis ⦿ Venetian or antiqua typefaces ⦿