TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Wed Nov 20 11:45:41 EST 2024

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LUC DEVROYE

ABOUT

Greek Font Society

The Greek Font Society was founded in 1992 by the late Michael S. Macrakis (1924-2001) as a Non-Profit Organization with the expressed aim of contributing to the research of Greek typography. The Society was founded initially by the Kostopoulos Foundation, with further support provided by the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Leventis Foundation, Regis College-USA, the Maliotis Foundation and the Girondelis Foundation. From 2004 until 2006, the Board of Directors consists of M.V. Sakellariou (President). L. Macrakis (Vice-President), D.G. Portolos (Secretary), L.G. Savidis (Treasurer), G.E. Agouridis, A.G. Drimiotis, and A. Giakoumakis. GFSs type design programme began through the collaboration of painter-engraver Takis Katsoulidis with type designer George D. Matthiopoulos. Since then, GFS has designed a growing list of Greek polytonic (fully-accented) fonts which include various historical revivals and new designs with respect to typographic tradition. In addition, GFS was commissioned to design fonts for the Athens Academy, The Athens Archeological Society, the Institute of Speech amongst others. Furthermore, GFS organised an International Conference, Greek Letters: from Tablets to Pixels at the Institute Français dAthènes in 1995, and has been active in the publication of works on Typography. For this aim GFS edited and designed the proceedings of the Conference: Michael S. Macrakis (edit), Greek Letters: from Tablets to Pixels, Oak Knoll Press, Newcastle-Delaware, 1996. The artistic collaborators include George D. Matthiopoulos, Michail Semoglou and Natasha Raissaki. Finally, they are making some high quality free fonts, such as:

• GFS Didot (1994, a didone designed by Takis Katsoulidis and digitized by George Matthiopoulos; a matching Latin alphabet is based on Hermann Zapf's Palatino). Open Font Library link.
• GFS Bodoni (1992-1993): a didone designed by Takis Katsoulidis and digitized by George Matthiopoulos. See also GFS Bodoni Classic (Greek only).
• GFS Olga (1995, a serif designed and digitized by George Matthiopoulos, based on the historical Porson Greek type (1803)).
• GFS Callierges Greek, based on the types of Zacharias Callierges (15th century), digitized by George Matthiopoulos.
• GFS Porson Greek, digitized by George Matthiopoulos in 1995. This is based on the types of Richard Porson of the 18th century.
• GFS Artemisia (2001), by painter-engraver Takis Katsoulidis and digitized by George D. Matthiopoulos. Open Font Library link.
• GFS Complutensian Greek, digitized by George Matthiopoulos and Antonis Tsolomitis. This was based on the types of Arnaldo Guillen de Brocar (16th century). Now called GFS Complutum (2007).
• GFS Neohellenic (1993-2000, Takis Katsoulidis and George D. Matthiopoulos). They explain: In 1927, Victor Scholderer (British Museum Library curator), on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Greek Studies, got involved in choosing and consulting the design and production of a Greek type called New Hellenic cut by the Lanston Monotype Corporation. He chose the revival of a round, and almost monoline type which had first appeared in 1492 in the edition of Macrobius, ascribable to the printing shop of Giovanni Rosso (Joannes Rubeus) in Venice. New Hellenic was the only successful typeface in Great Britain after the introduction of Porson Greek well over a century before. The type, since to 1930s, was also well received in Greece, albeit with a different design for Ksi and Omega. GFS digitized the typeface (1993-1994) funded by the Athens Archeological Society with the addition of a new set of epigraphical symbols. Later (2000) more weights were added (italic, bold and bold italic) as well as a Latin version. A further extension, GFSNeohellenicMath, was published in 2018: The font GFSNeohellenicMath was commissioned to the Greek Font Society (GFS) by the Graduate Studies program "Studies in Mathematics" of the Department of Mathematics of the University of the Aegean, located on the Samos island, Greece. The design copyright belongs to the main designer of GFS, George Matthiopoulos. The OpenType Math Table embedded in the font was developed by the Mathematics Professor Antonis Tsolomitis. The font is released under the latest OFL license, and it is available from the GFS site at http://www.greekfontsociety-gfs.gr. The font is an almost Sans Serif font and one of its main uses is for presentations, an area where (we believe) a commercial grade sans math font was not available up to now.
• GFS Elpis (2006, Natasha Raissaki), an original design which tries very hard to match the Greek and Latin parts of its alphabet.
• GFSSolomos (2006) by George D. Matthiopoulos.
• GFS Theokritos, a redesign by George D. Matthiopoulos of a font created by Yannis Kefallinos (1894-1958) in the 1950s. Free at Open Font Library.
• GFS Baskerville (2007) by Antonis Tsolomitis.
• GFS Gazis (2007, George Matthiopoulos), about which they write: During the whole of the 18th century the old tradition of using Greek types designed to conform to the Byzantine cursive hand with many ligatures and abbreviations - as it was originated by Aldus Manutius in Venice and consolidated by Claude Garamont (Grecs du Roy) - was still much in practice, although clearly on the wane. GFS Gazis is a typical German example of this practice as it appeared at the end of that era in the 1790s. Its name pays tribute to Anthimos Gazis (1758-1828), one of the most prolific Greek thinkers of the period, who was responsible for writing, translating and editing numerous books, including the editorship of the important Greek periodical (Litterary Hermes) in Wien.
• These majuscule typefaces were made by George Matthiopoulos in 2006 and 2007: GFS Ambrosia, GFS Eustace, GFS Fleischman-Regular, GFS Garaldus, GFS Jackson-Regular, GFS Nicefore. He writes: GFS Ambrosia has the main characteristics of the majuscule forms of the early Christian tradition while GFS Nicefore is a typical byzantine sample of the 5th-7th century period. GFS Jackson is an edition of the font cut, in 1788, by Joseph Jackson on commission by the Cambridge University in preparation of the edition of the Beza codex containing the New Testament from the 5th-6th century. Theodore Beza was the erudite scholar from Geneva who had given the codex as a gift to the University in 1581. GFS Eustace is a typical example of byzantine woodcut initials used in many similar forms in Italy for Greek editions of the Bible, Prayers and other theological literature from the 15th to 19th centuries. GFS Fleischman, on the contrary, is based on a typeface cut by Johann Michael Fleishman, typecutter of the Dutch Enschedé foundry in the baroque style that prevailed in the mid-18th century.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Greek Font Society
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INTERNAL LINKS
Greek/Coptic ⦿ Modern style [Bodoni, Didot, Walbaum, Thorowgood, Computer Modern, etc.] ⦿ Garalde or Garamond typefaces ⦿ Baskerville ⦿ Mathematics fonts ⦿ Type magazines/ezines ⦿