Edward Johnston

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Edward Johnston Born in Uruguay in 1872, he died in the UK in 1944. A medical doctor, he taught all his life at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and at the Royal College of Art in London. From 1910 until 1930, he designed fonts for the Cranach-Presse in Weimar, which was owned by Count Harry Kessler. In 1916, he made a typeface for the London Underground (helped by Eric Gill). Johnston's London Transport type was reworked by Colin Banks in his New Johnston (1979), and again in 2016 by Malou Verlomme at Monotype, on commission for Transport For London (TfL), as Johnston100. Edward Johnston's fonts show a strong influence by Eric Gill. Hamlet-Type (1912-27, designed for a Shakespeare edition, Cranach Press, 1929) was also called Kessler-Blackletter. It was designed by Edward Johnston and cut in three sizes (10, 12 and 18 pt) by Edward Prince for William Shakespeare's Hamlet (published by Harry Kessler's Cranach Press in Weimar in 1929). The type is based on the Durandus for the lowercases, and Sweynheim & Pannartz's Subiaco type for the capitals. For a digital revival, see Hamlet Tertia 18 and Hamlet Cicero 12 by Alexis Faudot and Rafael Ribas which was developed at a workshop in Weimar in 2018. Hamlet was revived by Manfred Klein and Petra Heidorn as HamletOrNot. Johnston designed Imprint-Antiqua with Gerard Meynell and J. H. Mason in 1913. It includes Imprint Shadow. Digital descendants exist at Monotype [Imprint MT], URW [Imprint URW, preferred over the MT version by some of my correspondents], SoftMaker [I771], and Bitstream [Dutch 766<]. Johnston Sans Serif was done in 1916. A version of the London Underground typeface (1997, by Richard Kegler) was digitized by P22. In 2007, Paul D. Hunt extended that typeface to a 21-style multilingual collection called P22 Underground Pro. At ITC, Dave Farey and Richard Dawson recreated a Johnston sans serif family with 3 weights, aptly called ITC Johnston. Nick Curtis created Underground NF in 1999. Jordan Davies called his revivals London Medium (2017) and London Heavy (2017). Many other designers aped Johnston's Underground as well. In 2012, Greg Fleming published Railway Sans as a free open source font at OFL. It is based upon Johnston's original drawings and work started by Justin Howes just before his death. In 2021, P22 added italics to P22 Underground Pro and now covers Latin, Cyrillic and Greek---help with this newest version came from Housestyle Graphics (Dave Farey; for the italics), James Todd, and Patrick Griffin (final mastering). Edward Johnston is a book published by Priscilla Johnston (London, 1959). Author of Writing&illuminating,&lettering (1917, J. Hogg, London; original done in 1906). Writing Illuminating Lettering at Amazon. Scans of some lettering by him: illuminations (1917), modernized half uncial (1906), Calligraphy by Johnston. Digital fonts based on alphabets from the 1906 book include Edward's Uncial 1904 (2011, David Kettlewell). Links: Linotype, FontShop.	EXTERNAL LINKS Edward Johnston [Designer info] Klingspor Museum page MyFonts search Monotype search Fontspring search Google search INTERNAL LINKS Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Uruguayan type design ⦿ Books on type design ⦿ Arts and Crafts Movement ⦿ Type design in the United Kingdom ⦿ Uncial typefaces ⦿ Eric Gill and his typefaces ⦿