- New Alphabet (typeface)
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New Alphabet 
Category Sans serif Designer(s) Wim Crouwel Foundry The Foundry, London New Alphabet is a geometric typeface designed by Wim Crouwel, released in 1967.
Contents
History
New Alphabet is a personal, experimental project of Crouwel. The typeface embraces the limitations of the cathode ray tube technology used by early data display screens and phototypesetting equipment and thus only contains horizontal and vertical strokes. Conventional typefaces can suffer under these limitations, because the level of detail is not high enough. Crouwel wanted to adapt his design to work for the new technologies, instead of adapting the technologies to meet the design.[1] Since his letter shapes only contain horizontals and verticals, some of the letters are unconventional, while others are difficult to recognize at all. Because of this, the typeface was received with mixed feelings by his peers.
Most of the letters are based on a grid of 5 by 9 units, with 45-degree corners. There is no differentiation between uppercase and lowercase. Many of his peers were of the opinion that the design was too experimental and that it went too far. So much so, that it got a lot of newspaper coverage, which sparked a lively debate.[2] For Crouwel it was mostly a theoretical exercise, ‘The New Alphabet was over-the-top and never meant to be really used. It was unreadable.’[3]
Digital New Alphabet
New Alphabet was digitized in 1996 by Freda Sack and David Quay from The Foundry in London. It is part of the Architype 3 Crouwel Collection, and it constists of three weights. Other typefaces designed by Crouwel in the same collection are Architype Gridnik, Architype Fodor, Architype Stedelijk and Architype Catalogue.
Other typefaces by Crouwel
- Gridnik
- Fodor
References
- ^ Jan Middendorp, Dutch Type, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam (2004), p. 120.
- ^ Jan Middendorp, Dutch Type, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam (2004), p. 121.
- ^ Wim Crouwel interviewed on his 80th birthday.
External links
- Architype 3 Crouwel collection on the website of The Foundry.
Categories: Monospaced typefaces | Display typefaces
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