Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Bembo" in English language version.
During the 20th century two typographic historians have achieved notable stature and will be long remembered. The first of these, Daniel Berkeley Updike of Boston, died in 1940. The second, Stanley Morison, died at his home in London on October 11, 1967. He was 78 years of age ... During the 1920s when there was slight interest in the production of new "book" types, the Monotype firm—with Morison's guidance—embarked upon a program of classic type revivals which resulted in the cutting of such faces as Garamond, Bembo, Poliphilus, Baskerville, Bell, and Fournier. These types remain in demand and are among the best of the historic revivals.
The surviving records of the progress of some of the classic typefaces demonstrate that their exemplary final quality was due to a relentless willingness on the part of 'the works' to make and remake the punches over and over again until the result was satisfactory. The progression of series 270 from the weak Poliphilus Modernised to the familiar Bembo is an object lesson in the success of this technique. That it was [engineering manager Frank] Pierpont himself who was central to this drive for quality is made abundantly clear by the abrupt changes that are seen after his retirement in 1937.
In 1923 [Monotype engineer Frank] Pierpont made a version of the type of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili printed by Aldus in 1499 for a publisher who planned to produce an English translation which in the end never materialised. The result is an astonishingly close recreation of the original type ... Monotype has a page from the Hypnerotomachia reset in the new type, which is almost indistinguishable from the original. Morison scornfully wrote of Pierpont's "pathetic" pride in the achievement. This, in Monotype's terms, was a rough" revival, staying faithful to all the distortions caused by the ink-squeeze and damaged letters of the printed page ... Monotype's Bembo, originally named "Poliphilus Modernised", is the "smooth" version of the same type in the form used a few years earlier by Aldus in the De Aetna of Pietro Bembo, a usage of which Morison mistakenly believed himself to be the discoverer. The Monotype classics dominated the typographical landscape in which Matthew Carter [and I] grew up ... in Britain, at any rate, they were so ubiquitous that, while their excellent quality was undeniable, it was possible to be bored by them and to begin to rebel against the bland good taste that they represented.
At the instance of Stanley Morison, he [Fairbank] designed in 1928 the elegant compact typeface known as Narrow Bembo, a title he detested.
In 2004 and 2005 the National Gallery was undergoing building and refurbishment work. Incisive Letterwork was awarded the contract to design and carve the lettering for the project. The National Gallery's house style, used for signage and graphics is Bembo and we were asked to use this as a starting point for our design. Faced with this task we referred back to the original Bembo type designed by Aldus Manutius and cut by Francesco Griffo in the 1490s. The challenge was to design letters which would look good as large cut forms, for instance along the frieze of the portico, but also at a much smaller and massed scale as on the donor plaques for the entrance hall. The width of the original face was retained in the new design but the thins were thickened and the serifs turned into small slab serifs. As the lettering is asked to do a variety of different jobs we designed 3 related versions of the basic alphabet. The widest and largest version is used in the newly carved name on the portico above the main entrance. The proportion of the frieze, long and narrow, means that the letters need to be fairly wide and widely spaced. The letter height could only be 400mm yet the words THE NATIONAL GALLERY needed to fill a substantial part of the 18 metre long portico ... the carving and gilding took 3 weeks ... The main entrance hall features plaques, 24 Portland stone slabs in all, carved with the names of donors to the Gallery from the years 1826 to 2002. We designed a narrower version of the Bembo face for these. Legibility required the largest cap height possible for the letters and a height of 33mm was made possible by narrowing the original design. This also had the effect of making the mass of lettering into a pleasing yet readable abstract pattern. All the people who helped with this part are mentioned below. For the Getty entrance and the Annenberg Court we used the letter width most closely related to Manutius's original typeface.
[Quoting a personal communication from Monotype type designer Robin Nicholas]: We had been aware for many years that the digital version of Bembo…had limited use as a book face due to its rather thin appearance. This version had in fact started as a phototypesetting font, the artwork being scanned for digital use. This version was based on hot metal 8/9 point drawings and while some thickening of serifs and hairlines had been carried out, no overall weight increase was applied to make full allowance for the change in setting and printing technologies happening at the time. Knowing the shortcomings of the existing font it was clear that a new 'cut' of Bembo would be well received. The basis for the new version was the set of hot metal drawings for the 10–14 point size range.[permanent dead link]
The problem, however, was that no allowances were made for the way the 9-point type looked when inked and printed. The resulting phototype and first digital fonts produced a Bembo that was much less robust than the original metal versions.
A roman lower case which seems to many critics to represent the finest Old Face design ever cut; classic capitals and small caps[;] a fine, tranquil italic and a notable series of Display Capitals combine to make Bembo an excellent investment for the wise printer
Cyrillic version was developed by Isabella Chaeva and released by ParaType in 2008.
I had hoped to create a good screen version of the Bembo Book typeface, a beautiful and very popular design for book publishing. I was unhappy with my attempts to reconcile some of its unique qualities in the screen version and decided not to release it until it was really working well. One particular characteristic is the lowercase n, which has a slight bow in the right stem – as opposed to a straight side. Finding a workable solution would have delayed the general release so I'll get back to it in the future.
During the 20th century two typographic historians have achieved notable stature and will be long remembered. The first of these, Daniel Berkeley Updike of Boston, died in 1940. The second, Stanley Morison, died at his home in London on October 11, 1967. He was 78 years of age ... During the 1920s when there was slight interest in the production of new "book" types, the Monotype firm—with Morison's guidance—embarked upon a program of classic type revivals which resulted in the cutting of such faces as Garamond, Bembo, Poliphilus, Baskerville, Bell, and Fournier. These types remain in demand and are among the best of the historic revivals.
I had hoped to create a good screen version of the Bembo Book typeface, a beautiful and very popular design for book publishing. I was unhappy with my attempts to reconcile some of its unique qualities in the screen version and decided not to release it until it was really working well. One particular characteristic is the lowercase n, which has a slight bow in the right stem – as opposed to a straight side. Finding a workable solution would have delayed the general release so I'll get back to it in the future.
