TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Fri Dec 13 00:44:25 EST 2024

FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE

LUC DEVROYE

ABOUT

Frank Hinman Pierpont

American type designer, b. 1860, New Haven, CT, d. 1937, London. In 1894 he started working at Loewe AG in Berlin. In 1899, he became president of Monotype in England. His typefaces:

• Plantin, a transitional typeface created under Pierpont's direction at Monotype in 1913-1914. Plantin Bold followed in 1925-1927 and Plantin Titling in 1936. It is based on a Gros Cicero typeface cut in the 16th century by Robert Granjon. Digitizations include Plantin (Monotype), Plantin Schoolbook (Phil's Fonts), Placid and Placid Osf (Softmaker), P761 Roman (Softmaker), Francisco Serial (Softmaker), Platus (URW), Aldine 721 (Bitstream). Stanley Morison and Victor Larent based their Times New Roman design on Plantin. Plantain (2002, Jason Castle) is a digital version and extension of Plantin Adweight. Quoting wikipedia on the name Plantin: Pierpont was inspired to use Granjon's designs by a visit to the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium, which had them on display. The Granjon font on which Pierpont's design was based was listed as one of the types used by the Plantin-Moretus Press beginning in the 17th century, long after Plantin had died and his press had been inherited by the Moretus family, but Plantin himself had used a few letters of the font to supplement another font, a Garamond. The design for Plantin preserved the large x-height of Granjon's designs, but shortened the ascenders and descenders and enlarged the counters of the lowercase letters a and e.
• Horley Old Style (Monotype, 1925). An elegant Venetian typeface family. Digital revivals: Horley Oldstyle (Monotype), Horley Oldstyle MT (Adobe), OPTI Hobble Oldstyle (Castcraft), H790 Roman (SoftMaker), Horley Old Style (2009, Tania Raposo).
• Monotype Grotesque (1926, Monotype) is usually attributed to Pierpont, at least as project supervisor. It goes back to Thorowgood's Grotesque (1832). MyFonts mentions that it was originally an update of Berthold's Ideal Grotesque. It served as a model for Arial.
• Rockwell is a famous slab serif typeface developed by Monotype in 1934 under the guidance of Pierpont. It was no secret that it was created in reaction to Rudolf Wolf's slab serif Memphis (1929-1936) done for Stempel. Litho Antique (1910, Inland Type Foundry) served as a model for it, leading first to Rockwell Antique and then Rockwell. Despite Rockwell's atrocious lower case k, Rockwell would go on to become more popular than Memphis. Rockwell poster by Cedrik Ferrer. Rockwell poster by Jonathan Messina. Images by Viktoria Smykova: i ii, iii, iv. Digital remakes include Bitstream's Geometric Slabserif 712, and L850 Slab, Rambault and Stafford at SoftMaker.
• Rodeo (1934).

View digital typefaces related to Frank Hinman Pierpont's work.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Frank Hinman Pierpont
 [Designer info]
Behance page
Klingspor Museum page
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Fontspring search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type scene in Connecticut ⦿ Type design in the United Kingdom ⦿ Telephone directory typefaces ⦿ Venetian or antiqua typefaces ⦿