Twenty Typefaces that Changed the World
Editorial — Typography — Print2024Book
Specimen — Martina Plantijn
This third year project was a significant turning point in my creative practice, it developed my strong interest in the history of type and my already established love of typographic design. I designed and hand-made a book of twenty typefaces that have “changed the world” in some way.
For the 20th and final typeface we were instructed to choose one that had been designed within the last decade that either had, or has the potential to change the world, or is a reflection of how the world has changed.
I chose to create a specimen for Martina Plantijn by Kris Sowersby for Klim Type Foundry. This typeface was designed to address the failings of the digital version of Plantin. When the Plantin typeface originally designed by Frank Hinman Peirpoint in 1913 was brought to our modern day screens, many of the unique characteristics that made Plantin, Plantin had been overlooked and left out. In the specimen I created for Martina Plantijn I compared it to the original metal type as well as the digital version, to show how the new typeface brought metal type Plantin to a contemporary audience, celebrating and honouring the original type design while adapting it for screen-based media.