Trajanus
Credits
- Designer(s)
- Warren Chappell, Hermann Zapf
- Foundry(ies)
- D Stempel AG , Linotype
- Release Year
- 1939
- Country of Origin
- Germany
- Classification
- Calligraphic, Uncial
- Original Format
- Metal (Foundry)
- Distributor(s)
- Linotype
- Tags
- calligraphic
Background
Designed by Warren Chappell c. 1939–40. Inspired by the inscriptional letters on the base of Trajan’s Column in Rome. Lowercase is based on Carolingian miniscules (c. 800).
Trajanus is a relatively dark humanist face with angular script forms. It refers to early Renaissance scripts and Roman printing types. Trajanus has three-quarter height lining figures, and an asymetrically-serifed hyphen. It is closely related to Chappell’s sans-serif Lydian.
It was issued by Stempel as a foundry face and by Linotype in machine form, and in digital form in 1997. A companion Cyrillic face in upright and cursive was designed by Hermann Zapf for Stempel in 1957, but not yet rendered in digital type. Bringhurst writes “[n]o other Cyrillic of Western origin comes so close to the proto-Renaissance spirit of much Slavic art and literature.”
Background Source
- Robert Bringhurst (1992, 2005) The Elements of Typographic Style, Vancouver: Hartley and Marks.
Caturrita