Retro's a pretty broad concept. Do you have specific fonts and eras in mind, would you share them with us?

Nostalgia is in high demand during a time when most everything sucks. The decade of George W. Bush and Paris Hilton has very little to recommend it, let alone a signature style.

History is known to repeat itself. Innovation seems to be overrated & after all, why change a winning team? Pretty much everything has been done at least once by now & the only left to do is to pick up the pieces from the past & -best case scenario- make a modern interpretation of them.
Our time is defined by ephemeral things; everything has to bring in as much money as possible in a very limited period of time. This leads to cheap things (eg. Paris Hilton ;-p ) that are bound to be forgotten in just a few weeks/months time. Survival is only for the strongest & retro design has already proven its strength. It's an easy answer and an only constant in an everchanging world. I blame Brittney!

Which reminds me of something I wrote sometime:
...
Once you've got it made
the key to happiness is to sit back
and let history repeat itself
without mistakes
...

Reviving old type designs of any sort is nothing new. Now just happens to be the first time in history with both tremendous number of designs to revive and cheap processes for doing so.

Also, I believe that Cerulean is right to a degree; nostalgia is just big in general, but IMHO it's because worldwide violence and economic uncertainty in the US and Europe make people crave old stuff that makes them feel safe.

"and let history repeat itself
without mistakes"

Humans have been around a long, long time. When is the "no mistakes" thing supposed to happen?

It's just an extract from a text, Bruce. And it's actually about someone making the same mistake twice. It's pretty much human nature to keep making the same mistakes (because we always want more & better things), but from those mistakes, by now we should have learned not to make them again (which I described in the following part):
...
but know that you would burn your fingers
if you were to flirt with temptation
...
People always get too greedy to ever really be satisfied with what they have. It's hard to explain from just this little extract, but mankind's returning mistake is that we always try to get a little more instead of trying to find happiness in content.
Maybe that philosophy is reflected in retro design as well, history being the inspiration for retro design & the changes made to it expressing our desire for something more/different. Although in retro design, I would not describe it as being a mistake, so maybe that's were history repeats itself without mistakes?
Besides, it clearly states "once you've got it made" & since we haven't quite made it as far as living peacefully in harmony goes yet, we're merely one step in the process of getting there (if we ever even will).

You might find Nick Shinn's article on the persistence of Helvetica and other long-in-tooth type useful. Here's an excerpt:

"Creative strategy has changed, too. Branding in the global corporate
era eschews the slightest quirk. Everyone wants to come
across as MegaCorp Inc, category leader, last man standing, all
things to all people. For this reason, Neue Helvetica is marketed
as “timeless and neutral”, appealing to art directors who would
rather not use typeface to differentiate their clients in the marketplace.

"For all these reasons, the legacy sans faces — and Helvetica in
particular — have come to dominate the typographic landscape.
They are popular not because they are appropriate to the task at
hand but because they pander to the authority of mass fashion."

...and a link:

http://shinntype.com/Stories/Uniformity.pdf

Essi,

To be honest, it sounds like you're callin' me out but I'm surprised you didn't e-mail me directly. As the proprietor of the Font Diner (http://www.fontdiner.com) for going on 11 years now, I'm precisely the fellow your talking about . . .

As to your questions . . .

Why now? There’s no limitations in the forming of letters but still people are interested more reviving these old styles.

Call it personal taste . . . I've always been fascinated with the stylized aesthetic of bygone eras and I identify most of them specifically by the type in use during that time and its method of use. The only reason I create retro display work is because its what I am most passionate about and reflects my personal taste.

Is that just the point? Are designers just tired of the weird stuff that was made in the 90s?

Prior to my own discovery of retro, the only specific retro type available from the 90s was little scripty gems by Leslie Cabarga released through Font Bureau, otherwise I can't remember never NOT liking Futura.

I think in the early 90s it could have been said there was no specific retro movement but nowadays, I feel there actually is a definable retro movement and type designers of today cater to that vs. early on they were helping define it . . .

Are the retro designers all amateurs who just make what they think will look nice?

I sure hope not . . . I guess this is my profession so I'm a professional retro type designer. And yes, I make what I like because it appeals to me, AND there are many folks it also appeals to so when I decide the next typeface to create, it's always with both in mind . . .

What are the reasons for making fonts that look old?

If you're referring to distressed 'beat up' type, there is an inherent connection between the erosion on a physical object due to its environment and the sense of its age, like wrinkles . . .

What problems these retro fonts have?

Explain?

What styles seem to be the most reproduced and what styles would you wish someone would digitalize?

There aren't many styles left undigitized and fewer still as the days go on and the retro aesthetic appeals to more audiences . . .

Again, I may be completely offbase with my reply because you failed to clearly identify what you consider to be 'retro' display fonts . . . My work is primarily 1930s through the 1960s but you may be looking at a different frame of reference . . .

Stuart :D

Cerulean hit it on the nose but I think it started well before the present era. I think it started in pop culture with Star Wars.

peace

Thanks for the great answers!

Maybe I need to clarify some things about this work. It's not a study about certain fonts or styles, it's more about the reviving of fonts and styles in general.
Personally I think the word 'retro' is problematic because its definition is a bit blurry, but it seems to be the only word I get even close. What I here mean by retro is all the display fonts which are done recently (1998-2007) but have copied the style, more or less, from the past (1900-1980, somehow 90s is not yet retro). I have happily ruled out the odd reviving of blackletter in the hip hop scene.

The whole topic is really vast but I'm trying to get the most important factors of the 'retro display font phenomenon' in a nutshell, like: the history of reviving, reasons for reviving, retro designers' resources for inspiration, classifying of retro fonts (this is a tricky one), is there certain forms for certain times, how long this retro fashion might last, the most copied styles and so on. I have managed to write the history part but for the other stuff there's not much references. So I'm more than happy to hear thoughts on these things.

I made one retro font in a typography course in my school and my teacher started to wonder how the retro stuff is so popular nowadays even in font design. That inspired me to take the issue under a magnifying glass, question the whole thing, organize it and study it. I would like to find some reasons why so many people find old styles appealing, It can't be only a matter of personal taste when the same taste is shared so widely. Although it might be useless trying to find the ultimate reason, when these designs often develop from nostalgia and from the cycle of fashion, but still I feel there might be something that has driven our visual taste to the point where past designs are more interesting than fresh innovations.

What I'd like to find is examples of the new display fonts with their origins, and try to compare the old and new version. Also I would like comments from the people who make the fonts, like: how they started to make revivals and why? What are their favorite styles and why? Also comments from the people who use the fonts would be very welcome. It's interesting to hear why and when they use revivals.

Sometimes it even seems like some 'authorities' are (or were) against the retro fonts, they are too easy and they appeal to the masses. I guess it's part of the democratization of font design, there is little room for authorities when amateurs upload their fonts to web. But somehow now it's more acceptable because the retro fonts are getting more and more professional. Hmm, well I don't have much to back that statement up, but that's where I need your opinions!

Write what comes to mind about the things I've said above.
If you feel like writing more about the topic, please email me directly.
Stuart, your email would be worth gold!

Essi

Essi,
Retro is far easier now in the digital era because you can research stuff in minutes on the web and the digitising tools are so much faster than doing things by hand. That makes the means readily available. Before digital, lettering styles were copied and used in more current works. Samples were copied by Photostat and reworked with pen and brush. Much of the display type that you refer to as being retroed was actually much older hand lettering that was made into a typeface in more recent years. Stuart from FontDiner has done a wonderful job of this.

I think more retro work is done today because we have the means to do it well and quickly. I also think it fills a market niche for art directors who are using older times as venues to create an atmosphere for current products. If you have a national chain of diners who try to pose a 50's feeling, you want type for menus and ads that fits the bill. You also have high-tech stuff going on that prompts modern design as well. I don't think you can make a value judgement that says making retro fonts is some kind of easy way out. It isn't. It is just an area of the market that has customers so why not do it if you have a passion for it. The value judgements come only in how well it is done. Personally, I am more passionate about coming up with my own notions for new type but that is just me. I probably would not fulfill the same market needs as Stuart but that is what makes the World more interesting. Everyone can work on what they feel comfortable with and the customers get a broad range of choices.

ChrisL

As Mark infers in referencing my Helvetica article, Helvetica is indeed a retro face, and classic Modernism (the historical movement) is retro too, which is ironically appropriate for post-modern times. So until we're better able to draw a distinction between historical Modernism and being contemporarily modern, and as long as we find post-modernism unpalatably radical, retro will prevail.

**

Taking a narrow focus on a specific circumstance (and a point I didn't mention in my Helvetica piece): news media channels foundry typeface development, and that's a lucrative market for independent foundries.

This involves a font development process that several foundries use, because it makes good business sense. It works like this: one of the major sectors in commissioning typefaces is peridiocal publishers. More so than corporations, I would say. So what happens is that a publication is being redesigned (or launched), and a new typeface is called for.

Why? Because a new typeface helps to focus design efforts, and helps the product stand out from the crowd in a text-heavy medium, especially at awards competitions.

However, not only is news publishing a conservative medium, but its business culture is also conservative, especially in the USA. So the kinds of faces that are being commissioned tend to be conservative revivals.

These faces find their way into a foundry's retail catalogue, after a period of exclusivity.

Certainly, having one's R&D paid for is an offer that's hard to refuse, with the added benefit that the publication environment adds an extraordinary discipline to the design process.

But the upshot is that designers who might otherwise be excogitating original types are distracted. The retail market is a speculative proposition at the best of times.

Another example of "follow the market" is the demand for script fonts. Quite a different beast than news publishing. When it comes to developing script fonts, it's much easier to copy the past, because the professional skill of slick custom lettering has ceased to exist as a part of the graphics industry. There is, quite simply, no contemporary culture of slick script lettering. Well, perhaps that's unfair to those who do still practice the skill, but there are only a few of them, it's not like the 1950s when hand lettered scripts were an integral part of graphic production.

Despite all this, there are a great many original types being published by independent foundries, and part of this may be that the demand for the classics (Garamond, Bodoni, etc.) is amply catered to by their massive distribution in software bundles with major applications and operating systems.

Finally, there is the design philosophy espoused by many typographers, that new faces are not to be used, because their personality gets in the way of the art direction. In other words, the old faces have had the novelty worn off, enabling "pure design". This concept leads comfortably to default system design.

I think it would really help if you listed some of the typefaces you are talking about. I am confused on your post, or maybe you are a little confused. First you said something retro was in the 90's, and now the 1900's....

Off the top of my head, Baskerville comes to mind as a classic typeface, which was made in the later 1700's, that is still used today by many graphic designers. Infact it can still look completely modern and sleek when used today. Probably more modern looking than any crazy starwars super future regular.

Think about the IBM logo. Paul Rand used a "retro" egyptian slab typeface for the leader in technology and computers. Does anyone think of IBM as retro?

Anyone who remembers IBM for its typewriters could certainly think of it as retro, yes.

What Paul Rand was pushing for in that logo was the punchcard effect of the small rectangular counters aas being the modern product emphasis and the slab serif as a reference to the old business machines which gave IBM its birth.

ChrisL

"Post-modernism is modernism with the optimism taken out."
- Robert Hewison

He wrote that in 1987.

peace

Baskerville, as "Bembo" mentions, is a great example. Not only has it been revived more or less faithfully, it has also been released in versions that are influenced by contemporary type trends: ITC Baskerville (with a touch of the big x-height '70s/'80s) and Mrs. Eaves (a postmodern, idiosyncratic take).

Paul, thanks for the Robert Hewison quote; you just made my day ; )

Stuart I think your reply to the original post was right on the money.

Essi
Retro design for me consists of American types for display from the 19th century, mostly wood. Wood was used for large display because it was considerably lighter than metal, fairly easy to make. Wooden type was very popular in the middle to late 19th century and into the early part of the 20th. I like the types because the designs are quite unique, rather quirky, and today, still very useful for display. Many like the types in digital form though some still use original wood. Just Google wood type and you’ll see what I mean.
Jordan Davies