Arthur Baker Designs (or: Glyph Systems)

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Arthur Baker Designs (or: Glyph Systems) [Arthur Baker] American calligrapher who worked for many foundries, and ran several studios. His fonts have calligraphic influences, of course. MyFonts page. Another MyFonts page. And still another MyFonts page. FontShop link. Some of his work, which is a bit scattered over many foundries: He runs Glyph Systems in Andover, MA, where one can find Calligraphica (1995, like Sassafras), Cold Mountain (1995, grunge), Collier Script (1995, calligraphic), Daybreak (1995, grunge), Duckweed (1995), Duckweed Sans, FishFace (dingbats), Hiroshige Sans (1995), Kigali (1994), Mercator (1995, an old mapmaker type family), Oakgraphic, Swooshes (1994, ornaments), Feathers, Florettes, Flowery, Hands (1995, calligraphic fists), Plumes, Swirls, Arrows (1995), and Sassafras (1995, a decorative engraving family). At one point, he designed a Maverick Designs Collection (1994): New Amigo, New Marigold, New Oxford, New Pelican, New Visigoth. Linotype Amigo. Linotype carries Baker Signet (2001, famous for the word Coke on the Coca Cola bottles) [Bitstream also has a version of this], Visigoth, Oxford, Marigold, Amigo, Sassafras and Kigali. Agfa-Monotype carries Pelican, and so does Adobe. ITC has ITC Tiepolo (1987). He had some fonts published under the label AlphaOmega. These all appeared later with Adobe. At P22: Calligraphica (2001) and the medieval map writing font Mercator (2001). P22 Matador (2007) is a contemporary Roman font based on the manuscript tradition (digitized by Michael Clark). At VGC: Baker Argentina No 1 (1976), Baker Danmark One (1976), Baker Signet (1965). Baker Signet, in its display text weights, was at the basis of Sigvar (Softmaker). Some explanations by Freddy Nader: The Baker Argentina and Danmark faces were variations on his Signet. Baker originally made Signet for Headliners International in the 1960s, where he worked full time. In 1972 he was approached by VGC and told that they would pay him royalties as well if he made the same typeface for them. Royalties were a relatively new thing back then - Tommy Thompson was the very first person to ever learn royalties in type (in 1944 for his Thompson Quill script for Photo Lettering Inc), and he wasn't a type designer per se, he was a calligrapher. Lured by the idea of royalties coming his way from two different directions for the same face, Baker did a Signet for VGC. When Bob Evans, owner of Headliners, found out, he threatened to sue VGC for trademark infringement (copyright for typefaces was unheard of at the time - every major photo type house had "similar" fonts, and whenever someone got exclusives made by outside designers under a royalty program, it was only a matter of weeks before they were knocked off and changed slightly by other type houses, big and small). So in order to avoid a trademark infringement lawsuit, VGC called their typeface Baker Signet, instead of just Signet, and went further by asking Arthur Baker to make a lighter version and a condensed version. The lighter version was called Baker Argentina, the condensed version was called Baker Danmark. The "Number One" prefix was added to both so that when the inevitable knockoffs happened, type buyers would know which type was made first. About Baker Sans, Freddy writes: The Baker Sans was a knockoff of Helvetica. It was a massive family of a lot of fonts, rendered very ugly by camera stretching and slanting. Eddie Bauer used it as their corporate typeface for a long time in order to avoid the expensive fees of licensing Helvetica. Tim Ryan ended up digitizing it for Arthur Baker in the mid 1990s for a lot of money. That digital version is now being sold by ITF under one of its many companies (either Arthur Baker Design, or Arthur Baker Designs, or maybe Maverick Designs). MyFonts link">MyFonts link. Klingspor link. View Arthur Baker's typefaces. MyFonts link.	EXTERNAL LINKS Arthur Baker Designs (or: Glyph Systems) [Buy fonts] [Designer info] MyFonts search Monotype search Google search INTERNAL LINKS Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Calligraphic typefaces ⦿ Commercial fonts (small outfits) ⦿ Dingbats (original) ⦿ Type scene in Massachusetts ⦿ Brush script typefaces ⦿ Photo and film type era ⦿ Typefaces with arrows ⦿ Fists, pointing hands ⦿ Chancery hand, cancellaresca ⦿