subject: Introduction Of Times New Roman [print this page] Times New Roman is one of the most popular fonts nowadays. However, less people know what important role is has played in publishing industry. In particular, its introduction was a successful PR movement, which put English paper "The Times" among top ranked periodicals. It has appeared on October 3rd 1932 and immediately alerted an attention of readers.
The creation of this font has lasted for three years. In particular, its "fathers", historian of typography Stanley Morrison and graphic designer Victor Lardent, were employed by editorial board to change a visual image of the paper. At the time the most distributed typing font was Ionic, which was claimed to be the script of tabloids and yellow press rather than solid newspapers. One could guess that font at the time was not a matter of fact for readers. As Times New Roman was introduced, it turned out otherwise.
Stanley Morrison was invited by "The Times" in 1929, when editors decided that their articles are not compacted enough, hard to read and bad-shaped. All in all, the paper should have contained more written information without overload of letters. In 1994 another story about Times New Roman creation was revealed, and it was not a positive one. There were claims that font was stolen from William Starling Burgess, American constructor. Since this
discovery there were three versions introduced about emergence of Times New Roman.
1. Stanley Morrison gave Victor Lardent the sketches of new font made by himself.
2. Stanley Morrison advised to use Plantin font model, but with sharpened serifs.
3. The basis of Victor Lardent's work was a page photo from the book of Flemish typographer of the 16th century - Christophe Plantin. Victor Lardent has designed the twin font, transformed by Stanley Morrison.
As time passed, new versions of the font were designed, which found their implementation in different fields. For instance, there are commercial and publishing variants. Linotype Company has created own typefaces on Times New Roman basis. Among them there are Times New Roman World for Windows Vista OS, Times New Roman WGL (Windows Glyph List 4), Times New Roman Condensed, Times New Roman Small text, etc. To date people know that Times New Roman is a serif typeface, used much in publishing, personal computers and documents. Notwithstanding the controversial nature of its invention, it still does not lose its popularity and demand. It has replaced many old sets of fonts like Ionic, Times Europa and many previous versions of Times, preserving its distribution.
