Centaur (typeface)

The Centaur, the American type designer Bruce Rogers has initially established for the hand set bears the name of a work, for which it was used in 1916 for the first time. It is a private edition of the translation of Maurice de Guérin 's Le Centaure. 1929 took over the Monotype Corporation this scripture in their program, to make them available for the machine set accessible.

The Centaur Italic for the Arrighi.

Genesis

The Centaur is a member of the Venetian Renaissance Antiqua, which originated in the incunabula period. The first printer who then settled in Italy were invariably German. In the home they had the manuscripts of that time - as faithfully as possible modeled as types - with its Gothic letters. Beyond the Alps they had now realize that the humanist movement, with its center in Florence, also determined the book design. In rejecting all of the earlier Gothic also encountered in the manuscripts Gothic letters a, going back to the Carolingian minuscule script was the place the humanistic, resigned.

The German printers had problems to move away from their own understanding of form. Despite approaching the humanistic minuscule often certain Gothic style elements the overall appearance.

It is the merit of Nicolas Jenson, famous printer in Venice, in 1470 for the first time shown with the cut of him and in his work Eusebius type to have created a Antiqua, which leaves all Gothic relics behind. His work surpasses all previous clarity and readability and offers the balance and the regular rhythm. It is regarded as the ideal of a perfect document. Thus they became the model for the printing types of many private presses. In the history of writing, it marks an important step, at least until the release of Aldus letters.

The Centaur is a very free re-enactment of Eusebius -Type. It is lighter than the original, omit the terminating line over the > A < and inwardly drawn head - serif when > M <. The capitals are generally kept slightly smaller, giving the overall picture benefits.

The Antiqua of Nicolas Jenson is due to the closeness of its record image and the harmony that it emits, for many the epitome of a perfect printing type. Also affected by the radiation emanating from William Morris return to the Renaissance, the Eusebius -Type Jenson has a number of type designers animated to access the form form of this Venetian Renaissance Antiqua and - especially when it came to the creation of fonts for private presses - to orient themselves to it.

One is the Montaigne, which is the same Bruce Rogers has designed for the Riverside Press in 1902, which later became the Centaur drew. While Montaigne is a genuine replica of Eusebius writing, it is at the Centaur - has cut it Robert Wiebking from Chicago - a standalone font creation which, although based on the historical model - and this is often down to the details - which are also but carries the technical account changing demands. So when the Centaur Venetian typefaces own, relatively dark color of sentence picture was abandoned; the writing has become much easier in their overall effect. For this purpose, the contours are kept sharper and more pointed.

Classification

• According to DIN 16518 the Centaur is in group I ( Venetian Renaissance Antiqua )