The Internet was growing by leaps and bounds in the early 90s, so there was a real need for fonts that would look good even at low resolutions and in smaller sizes. Such regal beginnings inspired Carter in his own work with typefaces. Where did the name “Georgia” come from? It’s said that the idea for the typeface name came from a headline at the time: “Alien Heads found in Georgia.” Carter’s father was a British historian of typography, even working for Her Majesty’s Stationery Office and University Press at Oxford. The history of the font is inspired by Scotch Roman designs from the 1800s, and it came to life in 1993, thanks to Matthew Carter. Like other serif designs, Georgia has a formalness to it - but it stays readable on a variety of screen sizes. It’s a versatile typeface that works well with text that will display on a screen. Taking a look at the history of the font and the ways other designers have used the font, though, can make a huge difference. It can feel a bit overwhelming trying to figure out which one works best for which project. Carter was asked to produce two, a serif and sans serif.If you search for fonts on any typeface site, you’ll find thousands and thousands of fonts available. Concerned that none of the existing digital fonts were easily readable, Microsoft commissioned a collection of screen-friendly typefaces to be given away free with its Windows software. The rest of us became savvier about type, often unconsciously, as we learned how to pick our favorites from the list of fonts on our computers.īy the mid-1990s, as more and more people were using Internet and e-mail, we were spending so long reading information on screen that legibility became a critical issue. As design software became more sophisticated, it was so easy for graphic designers to create digital fonts that the market was flooded with new ones. Carter, by then an acclaimed designer of print typefaces - including Bell Centennial, which is used in United States telephone directories - co-founded Bitstream, one of the first companies to develop type for use on screen. Even supposedly modern fonts dated back decades, like Times New Roman of 1931 and the popular sans serif typeface (that's one without squiggles), Helvetica of 1951.Īll this changed in the 1980s when computers became cheaper, and desktop publishing exploded. Many of the most commonly used ones were centuries-old, such as Bodoni and Baskerville, both designed in the 1700s. The development process was so time-consuming that new typefaces were relatively rare. This was how Carter, now 68, trained in the 1950s when he gave up a place at Oxford University for an internship at a traditional Dutch type foundry. Georgia's growing popularity is partly the product of typographic fashion, but also reflects deeper changes in our relationship with the screen as our primary source of information.īefore the digital era, typography was an obscure, though highly skilled craft in which letter shapes were literally carved out of metal. Instead it is one of the serif fonts with decorative squiggles at the ends of the characters that we are accustomed to seeing in print. Whatever its age, Georgia is an elegant, quietly idiosyncratic typeface, which is a pleasure to read on screen, even though it is not designed in the minimalist style of lettering that we associate with the Internet. "It seems a bit young to have died and been revived already." "A few designers have mentioned that there seems to be a 'Georgia revival' going on," says Matthew Carter, the British-born, Boston-based designer who developed Georgia for Microsoft in 1996. Typefaces slip in and out of fashion like every other area of design, but right now Georgia is the most fashionable one on the Internet. Just as you'll spot it on the Web sites of London's Frieze Art Fair, the architecture magazine Metropolis, the artist Damien Hirst, and on blog, after blog, after blog.Īll of these Web sites use the same typeface - Georgia. LONDON - Log on to The New York Times's Web site, and you'll see it there.
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