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Freeman Jerry Craw

Or Freeman Godfrey Craw. Type designer from East Orange, New York, born in 1917, who was associated with ATF. He died in 2017.

Excerpts of his obituary in the Star Ledger: Graphic artist and designer renowned internationally as innovator in visual identity field, created many recognizable typefaces that bear his name. Freeman Godfrey Craw, 100, of Tinton Falls, N.J., passed away peacefully on Monday, May 1, 2017. Mr. Craw had lived in Tinton Falls since 2001. Prior to that, he had been a long-time resident of Short Hills, N.J. Known to family and friends as Jerry, he forged a highly distinguished and decorated career in graphic art, calligraphy, and topography. Born and raised in East Orange, N.J., Jerry graduated from Cooper Union For The Advancement of Science and Art in 1939. Upon graduation he became a designer with the American Colortype Company in New York City. In 1943, he joined Tri-Arts Press Inc. as its art director, and in 1958, he was named vice president of the company. In that capacity, he had complete graphic control over the most interesting and impressive printing produced in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, he created unique visual identity programs for numerous prestigious business and institutional clients, including CBS and IBM. In 1968, he left Tri-Arts to establish his own company, Freeman Craw Design as a specialist in design-for-printing. As an independent design consultant and art director, Jerry maintained a full-time office of designers and artists to better serve the complete needs of his clientele. He provided a broad range of graphic and production services, including photography, typography, illustration, composition, platemaking and printing. He also served as manager of production and graphics for Rockefeller University Press at that time. Jerry was considered one of the best graphic artists in the world, and his body of work has been described by colleagues and industry insiders as "legendary." He was best known to fellow topographers for his many type designs commissioned by American Type Founders Company. Among these are Craw Clarendon, Craw Clarendon Book, Craw Clarendon Condensed, Craw Modern, Craw Modern Bold, Craw Modern Italic, Ad Lib, Canterbury, Chancery Cursive, Classic, CBS Sans and CBS Didot. Jerry's calligraphic works were held in such high regard that permanent collections were established at the of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of New York, a division of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the Whitney Museum of American Art. He also had a number of one-man exhibitions in New York, Chicago, and London, and was an honorary member of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany. Additionally, in 1946, he was a founding member of the Type Directors Club, which today is still the leading international organization devoted to excellence in topography. He was also the recipient of numerous national and international awards and citations for excellence in graphic design. Jerry wrote and designed for the following publications: American Artist, Fortune, Graphis, Print Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post, to mention only a few. He even found time as a guest lecturer at institutions including Yale University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Kean University, The New York School of Visual Arts, as well as the Universities of Alabama, Utah, and Maryland.

His obituary contains this paragraph about Jerry's great personality: Jerry was warmhearted, gregarious, and passionate about his art. His intelligence and gentle nature always shined through. He was good humored, loved to be around people, and always seemed to get along with everyone, even strangers. He considered himself a "hopeless Francophile," and was heavily influenced by School of Paris painters like Degas, Braque, Picasso, and particularly Modigliani. Having traveled extensively throughout France, he developed a keen appreciation of French culture, French architecture and, of course, French wine. He even taught himself the language and became fluent in it. Jerry loved a good bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, but would love sharing it with family and friends even more. His warmth, humor, and creativity will be sorely missed by all who knew and loved him.

Designer of

• Craw Clarendon (ATF, 1955-1960), based on the Benjamin Fox/Robert Besley Clarendon of 1845. Now available as OPTI Craw Clarendon (Castcraft), Craw Clarendon EF (Elsner & Flake), or Craw Clarendon (2013, Jordan Davies), for example. Mac McGrew writes: In 1955, ATF commissioned Freeman Craw to develop an American version of the Clarendon letter, resulting in Craw Clarendon. The following year Craw Clarendon Book, a lighter weight, was released, and Craw Clarendon Condensed in 1960. Craw has commented that as a designer of type he faced different problems than as a designer with type. Perhaps this and the alleged rush production resulted in unfortunate compromise, as some sizes are small for the body, with excess shoulder. Otherwise they are excellent and deservedly popular typefaces. The normal widths are also made by Monotype. Also see Clarendon.
• Craw Modern (1958). Mac McGrew writes: Craw Modern is a contemporary interpretation of the modern roman style, designed by Freeman Craw for ATF in 1958. It is a very wide face, with large x-height and short ascenders and descenders, otherwise somewhat the character of Bodoni but a little less formal. Craw Modern Bold followed, and in 1964 Craw Modern Italic was introduced. These typefaces have the same general proportions and some of the general design characteristics as the same artist's Craw Clarendon, but the similarity ends there and the typefaces should not be considered part of the same family. Compare Modern Roman, Litho series. Digital versions include Craw Modern (2012, Group Type) and OPTI Craw Modern (Castcraft).
• Ad Lib (ATF, 1961). This was revived as Ad Lib in 2010 by SoftMaker. Nick Curtis remade it as Oo Boodlio Doo NF (2011). Bitstream's version is simply called Ad Lib. Vladimir Pavlikov made a Cyrillic version at Paratype in 1999. Mac McGrew writes: Ad Lib is an irregular, novel gothic letter, designed by Freeman Craw in 1961 for American Type Founders, probably in response to the new-found freedom of photolettering techniques. The effect, suggestive of a woodcut technique, was reportedly achieved by cutting the letters out of a black sheet material with scissors. The complete font as shown features alternate designs for a number of characters; in addition, it is aligned so that several characters can be inverted to form additional alternates, such as u for n and vice versa. It is made only in three sizes. The alternate characters were later discontinued. Samoa, a nineteenth-century typeface, had somewhat similar invertible characters.
• Special commissions: Canterbury, Chancery, Classic, CBS Sans, and CBS Didot (1970s; for private users and manufacturers of film and digital type equipment). CBS Didot (2009, Daylight Fonts) is a revival of Craw's CBS Didot. For other digitizations, see K22 My Didot (2012, by Toto), Opti Didot CBS Special by Castcraft Software and an unattributed free font called CBS Didot.

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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type scene in New York ⦿ Modern style [Bodoni, Didot, Walbaum, Thorowgood, Computer Modern, etc.] ⦿ Chancery hand, cancellaresca ⦿ Clarendon ⦿