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Whedon Davis
ATF sales manager and director of typeface design, b. 1935. His typefaces: - Americana (1965-1966, Kinsgsley, ATF), co-designed with Richard Isbell. Americana, a display typeface with huge x-height and short serifs, was the last type cut in metal by the ATF in 1967. Digital versions of Americana include Freedom (Autologic), Flareserif 721 (Bitstream), American Classic (Compugraphic), AM (Itek), Colonial (Varityper), Almeria (Softmaker) and Amherst (Corel). McGrew: Americana was introduced by ATF in 1966, the foundry calling it later "the most successful typeface ATF has introduced in many years; it is the result of an assignment to 'return to elegance,' being designer Richard Isbell's inter- pretation of that trend." It features short, slightly concave serifs, short as- cenders, and capitals not quite as tall as ascenders, while being quite wide. Fonts include several characters not usually available, such as center dot, hyphen, and short dash positioned to center on cap height as well as versions in the usual lowercase position. The interrobang, the first new punctuation mark to have been introduced in three hundred years and the only one invented by an American, is also featured in Americana. The interrobang, combining exclamation and question marks, was originated in 1962 by Martin K. Speckter, New York advertising executive and printing hobbyist. It was incorporated into all versions of Americana (ATF calling it "interabang"), but although it got considerable response at the time, it was not included in other type families. Emil Klumpp directed the basic version while Whedon Davis directed the others, which were added in the following two or three years. Americana Extra Bold was the last new typeface created by ATF.
- Whedons Gothic Outline (1965, ATF). Mac McGrew: Whedons Gothic Outline was designed by Whedon Davis in 1965 while he was ATF staff designer, as a contemporary interpretation of the gothic letterform. It is a condensed face, with flat-sided round letters which emphasize the vertical appearance, and is nearly the only modern American gothic available in outline form. It also features a number of characters not often included in type fonts, as shown---cent, pound sterling, and percent marks; asterisk and parentheses; and hyphen, short dash and center dot in two sizes to work with either caps or lowercase. A solid version was planned but never completed. Compare Condensed Gothic Outline (shown with Alternate Gothic), Outline Gothic Medium Condensed (shown under Modern Gothic).
- Franklin Gothic Condensed Italic (1967).
FontShop link. Klingspor link.
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