Robert Slimbach
Encyclopedia
Robert Slimbach is a type designer, who has worked at Adobe Systems
since 1987. He has won many awards for his digital typeface designs, including the rarely-awarded Charles Peignot Award
from the Association Typographique Internationale, and repeated TDC2 awards from the Type Directors Club
.
in 1956. Shortly after, he moved to Southern California
where he spent his childhood and his youth. After leaving college he developed an interest in graphic design
and typeface
s while running a small screen printshop for manufacturing posters and greeting cards. This work brought him into contact with Autologic Incorporated in Newbury Park
, California
. After training from 1983 to 1985, Slimbach worked as a type designer
with Autologic Incorporation, where Sumner Stone
also worked for a short time. There he received further training, not just as a type designer but also as a calligrapher. Slimbach was then self-employed for two years and developed the two fonts ITC Slimbach and ITC Giovanni for the International Typeface Corporation
in New York.
In 1987 he joined Adobe Systems
. Since then, he has concentrated primarily on designing typeface
s for digital technology, drawing inspiration from classical sources. He has developed many new fonts for the Adobe Originals
program. His time at Adobe Systems in California
has seen the production of, among others, the Utopia
(1988), Adobe Garamond (1989), Minion
(1990) and Poetica
(1992) font families. In 1991, he received the Charles Peignot Award from the Association Typographique Internationale for excellence in type design. More recently, Slimbach's own roman script calligraphy formed the basis for his Brioso.
Since 2000, the rate of Slimbach's new typefaces has slowed, as he has taken advantage of the new linguistic and typographic capabilities offered by the OpenType
format. Where in the 1990s a given typeface design might be instantiated in one or two fonts, with 200-500 glyph
s, a typical new Slimbach work post-2000 has 1500-3000 glyphs.
In 2004, Adobe released Garamond Premier Pro, a new take on the Garamond designs, which Slimbach had been working on for 15 years, since he first completed Adobe Garamond in 1989.
Slimbach has notable skills in several fields other than type design: he went to college on a gymnastics scholarship, and he is an accomplished calligrapher and photographer. His photographic work uses black & white film, and is mainly portraits that examine human foibles and idiosyncrasies.
typefaces designed by Slimbach:
Slimbach's OpenType
families include reworkings of his previous designs as well as all-new typefaces:
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
since 1987. He has won many awards for his digital typeface designs, including the rarely-awarded Charles Peignot Award
Prix Charles Peignot
The Prix Charles Peignot is a major award in typeface design, given "to a designer under the age of 35 who has made an outstanding contribution to type design" . It is awarded irregularly, typically every three to five years, by the Association Typographique Internationale...
from the Association Typographique Internationale, and repeated TDC2 awards from the Type Directors Club
Type Directors Club
The Type Directors Club is an international organization for those devoted to excellence in typography in all its forms. Created in 1946, the organization’s mission is to raise the standards of typography and related fields within the graphic arts. The TDC supports research and education, and...
.
Biography
Slimbach was born in Evanston, IllinoisEvanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
in 1956. Shortly after, he moved to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
where he spent his childhood and his youth. After leaving college he developed an interest in graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
and typeface
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
s while running a small screen printshop for manufacturing posters and greeting cards. This work brought him into contact with Autologic Incorporated in Newbury Park
Newbury Park, California
The community of Newbury Park, California is located in the western portion of the city of Thousand Oaks and Casa Conejo, an unincorporated area of southeastern Ventura County's Conejo Valley, which is also in the northwestern Greater Los Angeles Area...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. After training from 1983 to 1985, Slimbach worked as a type designer
Type design
Type design is the art of designing typefaces.- History :Although the technology of printing text using movable type was invented in China, and despite the esteem which calligraphy held in that civilization, the vast number of Chinese characters meant that few distinctive, complete fonts could be...
with Autologic Incorporation, where Sumner Stone
Sumner Stone
Sumner Stone is a typeface designer and graphic artist. He notably designed ITC Stone while working for Adobe. A specimen of ITC Stone exists at his personal website.-Career:...
also worked for a short time. There he received further training, not just as a type designer but also as a calligrapher. Slimbach was then self-employed for two years and developed the two fonts ITC Slimbach and ITC Giovanni for the International Typeface Corporation
International Typeface Corporation
The International Typeface Corporation was a type manufacturer founded in New York in 1970 by Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin, and Edward Rondthaler. The company was one of the world's first type foundries to have no history in the production of metal type...
in New York.
In 1987 he joined Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
. Since then, he has concentrated primarily on designing typeface
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
s for digital technology, drawing inspiration from classical sources. He has developed many new fonts for the Adobe Originals
Adobe Originals
The Adobe Originals program began in 1989, when Sumner Stone hired Carol Twombly and Robert Slimbach to create a new series of type families for Adobe Systems. At the time, the desktop publishing revolution was in full swing, and designers had a growing need for high-quality digital fonts. The...
program. His time at Adobe Systems in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
has seen the production of, among others, the Utopia
Utopia (typeface)
Utopia is the name of a Didone serif typeface designed by Robert Slimbach, who worked at Adobe Systems, and which was released in 1989.It was one of the first typefaces to be part of the collection of selected fonts called Adobe Originals...
(1988), Adobe Garamond (1989), Minion
Minion (typeface)
Minion is the name of a typeface designed by Robert Slimbach in 1990 for Adobe Systems. The name comes from the traditional naming system for type sizes, in which minion is between nonpareil and brevier...
(1990) and Poetica
Poetica (typeface)
Poetica is the name of a calligraphic, ornamental typeface designed by Robert Slimbach for Adobe Systems in 1992. As one of the first of the Adobe Originals family of typefaces, it attained a wide usage in digital typography.-External links:...
(1992) font families. In 1991, he received the Charles Peignot Award from the Association Typographique Internationale for excellence in type design. More recently, Slimbach's own roman script calligraphy formed the basis for his Brioso.
Since 2000, the rate of Slimbach's new typefaces has slowed, as he has taken advantage of the new linguistic and typographic capabilities offered by the OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
format. Where in the 1990s a given typeface design might be instantiated in one or two fonts, with 200-500 glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....
s, a typical new Slimbach work post-2000 has 1500-3000 glyphs.
In 2004, Adobe released Garamond Premier Pro, a new take on the Garamond designs, which Slimbach had been working on for 15 years, since he first completed Adobe Garamond in 1989.
Slimbach has notable skills in several fields other than type design: he went to college on a gymnastics scholarship, and he is an accomplished calligrapher and photographer. His photographic work uses black & white film, and is mainly portraits that examine human foibles and idiosyncrasies.
List of designed typefaces
Here is a full list of Type 1 and multiple master Type 1Multiple master fonts
Multiple master fonts are an extension to Adobe Systems' Type 1 PostScript fonts, now mostly superseded by the advent of OpenType...
typefaces designed by Slimbach:
- Caflisch Script
- Cronos
- Adobe GaramondGaramondGaramond is the name given to a group of old-style serif typefaces named after the punch-cutter Claude Garamond . Most of the Garamond faces are more closely related to the work of a later punch-cutter, Jean Jannon...
- Adobe JensonAdobe JensonAdobe Jenson is an old style serif typeface drawn for Adobe Systems by type designer Robert Slimbach. Its Roman styles are based on a Venetian oldstyle text face cut by Nicolas Jenson in 1470, and its italics are based on those by Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi...
- Kepler
- MinionMinion (typeface)Minion is the name of a typeface designed by Robert Slimbach in 1990 for Adobe Systems. The name comes from the traditional naming system for type sizes, in which minion is between nonpareil and brevier...
- Minion Cyrillic
- MyriadMyriad (typeface)Myriad is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems. The typeface is best known for its usage by Apple Inc., replacing Apple Garamond as Apple's corporate font since 2002. Myriad is easily distinguished from other sans-serif fonts due to its...
(co-designed with Carol TwomblyCarol TwomblyCarol Twombly is an American calligrapher and typeface designer who has designed many typefaces, including Trajan, Myriad and Adobe Caslon. She worked as a type designer at Adobe Systems from 1988 through 1999, during which time she designed, or contributed to the design of, many typefaces...
) - Poetica
- Sanvito
- UtopiaUtopia (typeface)Utopia is the name of a Didone serif typeface designed by Robert Slimbach, who worked at Adobe Systems, and which was released in 1989.It was one of the first typefaces to be part of the collection of selected fonts called Adobe Originals...
Slimbach's OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
families include reworkings of his previous designs as well as all-new typefaces:
- Arno ProArno (typeface)Arno is a type family created by Robert Slimbach at Adobe. The name refers to the river that runs through Florence, the centre of the Italian Renaissance...
— TDC2 2007 winning entry - Brioso Pro — TDC2 2002 winning entry
- Caflisch Script Pro (added many typographic alternates) — bukva:raz! 2001 winner
- Clean (unreleased, but used in Adobe CS4 and CS5 software icons)
- Cronos Pro
- Garamond Premier Pro — TDC2 2006 winning entry
- Adobe Garamond Pro
- Adobe Jenson Pro
- Kepler Standard
- Minion ProMinion (typeface)Minion is the name of a typeface designed by Robert Slimbach in 1990 for Adobe Systems. The name comes from the traditional naming system for type sizes, in which minion is between nonpareil and brevier...
(added Greek) — bukva:raz! 2001 winner - Myriad Pro (added Greek and Cyrillic, with Carol Twombly, Fred Brady and Christopher Slye) — TDC2 2000 winning entry and bukva:raz! 2001 winner
- Poetica Standard
- Sanvito Standard
- Adobe Text Pro
- Utopia Standard (added optical size variants)
- Warnock Pro — TDC2 2001 winning entry