Alfred John Fairbank

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Alfred John Fairbank English calligrapher, b. 1895, Grimsby, d. 1982, Hove, Sussex. Student at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, disciple (in his own words) of Edward Johnston. In 1921, he co-founded the Society of Scribes and Illuminators, and was honorary secretary from 1931 to 1933. He wrote several books on handwriting, including A Handwriting Manual (1932), many times reissued. In 1932, Alfed Fairbank proposed Dryad Writing for schools. It is a connected regular and legible style of writing that was influenced by Francisco Lucas (16th century, Spain), and could be called chancery script. After the Second World War he founded the Society for Italic Handwriting. His only typeface was the first italic for Monotype, Bembo. This was not the italic that was put out for general use, and was eventually released (in 1928) as Bembo Narrow Italic. It is sometimes referred to as Fairbank Italic. The Bembo family is of course due to Stanley Morison at Monotype, after models of Francesco Griffo and Giovanni Tagliente. It has digital reinterpretations such as Bamberg Special (Softmaker) and Bergamo (Softmaker). It is possible that Fairbank MT (2003, Robin Nicholas) is named after him. Klingspor link.	EXTERNAL LINKS Alfred John Fairbank [Designer info] MyFonts search Monotype search Google search INTERNAL LINKS School fonts ⦿ Type design in the United Kingdom ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Chancery hand, cancellaresca ⦿ Penmanship ⦿

file name: Alfred Fairbank Dryad Writing 1932

file name: Robin Nicholas Fairbank M T 2003

file name: Robin Nicholas Fairbank M T Chancery 2003

file name: Robin Nicholas Fairbank Pro 2003

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