- Lithos
Infobox font
name = Lithos
style =Sans-serif
classifications = Incised, Display
releasedate =1989
creator =Carol Twombly
foundry =Adobe Type Lithos is a glyphic
sans-serif typeface designed byCarol Twombly in 1989 forAdobe Systems . Lithos is inspired by the unadorned, geometric letterforms of the engravings found on Ancient Greek public buildings. The typeface consists of only capital letters, and comes in five weights, with no italics.According to Twombly, Lithos only used Greek inscriptions as inspiration, making Lithos more of a modern reinterpretation than a faithful reproduction. Twombly also designed Trajan and Charlemagne based respectively on ancient Roman and Byzantine inscriptions. Those typefaces, unlike Lithos, were modeled more directly upon their historical counterparts. One example of Lithos' departure from historical accuracy is the inclusion of bold weights, which never existed in historical Greek inscriptions.
Publications associated with African, African Americans and Southwestern cultures have used Lithos for its "ethnic" feel, even if it is the wrong ethnicity. Lithos has also become something of a generic stand-in whenever a "primitive" feel is desired. For this reason, Lithos has been compared to
Rudolf Koch 's typeface,Neuland , which was originally intended to be a modern reinterpretation ofblackletter , but received similarly broad use.Lithos Pro
In 2000, Adobe released the
OpenType version called Lithos Pro, which included Adobe CE, Adobe Western 2, Greek character sets support, andsmall caps in the lowercase positions. OpenType features include alternates, case forms, proportional lining figures, small caps.References
*Giampietro, Rob. [http://www.studio-gs.com/neuland.html "New Black Face"] "Giampietro+Smith Studio" taken from "Letterspace" Fall/Winter 2004. Retrieved May 30, 2007.
* [http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_1711.html "Lithos Pro"] "Adobe.com". Retrieved May 30, 2007.
* [http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFontPackage&code=121 Adobe - Fonts: Lithos]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
