Today, Cooper Black is one of the most recognizable display faces of the 20th century, surviving on as part of the corporate identity of British airline Easy Jet. Historically a popular choice for advertising headlines, it's influences on later typographic trends is palpable.
Rationals serifs can be
problematic, especially when hairline serifs disappear at smaller sizes. Didot, originally a commission from Harper’s Bazaar magazine, addresses this problem through the inclusion of seven different optical sizes. Didot is one of the most popular rational serifs available today.
Gill Sans actually began life as sign writing, painted by Eric Gill on the fascia of Bristol bookshop in 1926. On seeing it, Stanley Morison of Monotype commissioned Gill to develop the style into a complete sans-serif family.
Memphis is the earliest modern revival of the unbracketed slab serif style traditionally known as the Egyptian. The term derives from the fascination with all things Egyptian during the early 19th century, the period when this style of typeface first appeared.
Clarendon is the epitome of the 19th-century slab serif and was wildly popular when it first appeared, but it’s difficult to use outside of its core intention as an attention-grabbing display face. Moderate contrast allows its use for text setting, but only for short passages.
Futura can rightly claim to be
one of the most influential sans
serif typefaces of all time. Inspired by art movements such as De Stijl and Constructivism, as well as happenings at the Bauhaus school, its strict geometry provides an ageless quality that maintains its modernity.
Like Jenson, Bembo references
centuries of handwritten letterforms,
but is one of the earliest typefaces to display the qualities associated with Old Style serifs. Griffo introduced refinements that began to move typeface design away from an overtly calligraphic influence.
Although Giambattista Bodoni
wasn’t solely responsible for the
creation of the distinctive Modern style that, under our preferred system, falls within the Rational classification group, his typefaces are arguably the most synonymous with Modern serif typefaces.