Our type tutor said that the traps used on bell centennial were modelled after the shape of the crimping of the glass on cathode ray tubes. I thought the shapes were arbitrary. Were they, to anyone's knowledge, modelled after anything or nothing? thanky sai.
Kris --
I've never heard this explanation. It sounds suspicious to me.
The creation of Bell Centennial was made necessary because of the switch from hot-metal Linotype to Cathode Ray Tube technology. The traps were introduced to compensate for effects of CRT exposure and ink spread on cheap paper. The early CRT technology was basically like bitmaps; there was no such thing as smooth, device-independent outlines. Matthew drew the letterforms for Bell Centennial, laboriously, on quadrille (graph) paper. Any given notch might be comprised of maybe 8 or 10 "pixels" -- not really enough resolution to model them after much of anything.
I can't say definitively that they weren't modelled after glass crimps, but I find it doubtful.
-- K.
kris, that's pretty inventive! But I agree with Kent that it seems pretty hoaky.
The only thing it would make sense to model the traps on is the invert of a circle.
hhp
can i found it free ? this bell Bell Centennial
Of course you can find it for free!
Even easier; e-mail agfa-monotype and they will send you a CD, free of charge.
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