FF Scala is an old-style

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...

typeface designed by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor in 1991 for the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

, the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The FF Scala font family was named for the

Teatro alla Scala La Scala (, , ; officially , ) is a historic opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as (, which previously was a church). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri's ''Europa r ...

(1776–78) in

Milan, Italy Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. Like many contemporary Dutch serif faces, FF Scala is not an academic revival of a single historic typeface but shows influences of several historic models. Similarities can be seen with William Addison Dwiggins' 1935 design for the typeface

Electra Electra, also spelt Elektra (; ; ), is one of the most popular Greek mythology, mythological characters in tragedies.Evans (1970), p. 79 She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, ''Electra (Sophocles play), Electra'' by Sophocles and ''Ele ...

in its clarity of form, and rhythmic, highly calligraphic italics.

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as "the greatest artist-craftsma ...

's 1931 typeface

Joanna Joanna is a feminine given name deriving from from . Variants in English include Joan, Joann, Joanne, and Johanna. Other forms of the name in English are Jan, Jane, Janet, Janice, Jean, and Jeanne. The earliest recorded occurrence of th ...

(released by

Monotype Corporation Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use wit ...

in 1937), with its old style armature but nearly square serifs, is also similar in its nearly mono-weighted stroke width. FF Scala is a complete typeface family with

small caps In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are grapheme, characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used i ...

, ligatures and

text figures Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...

or lower-case numbers, as well as condensed regular and bold fonts. In 1996, a decorative variety of capitals titled FF Scala Jewel was released. These show influence of Dutch Baroque decorative capitals. A companion sans-serif version, FF Scala Sans was released in 1993, making Scala a font superfamily of matching designs. This makes Scala a very popular font in book design and fine printing. FF Scala Jewels

FF Scala used to be the house typeface for the prominent Dutch newspaper '' Algemeen Dagblad'' and for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. It is also used on the logo of the United States'

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

, which uses the similar

as a corporate font. In 2023, the font, alongside its companion FF Scala Sans, were reissued as "Scala" and "Scala Sans", respectively on Majoor's own independent type foundry, which was founded in 2021.

Bibliography

* Lupton, Ellen. ''Graphic Design and Typography in the Netherlands: A View of Recent Work.'' Princeton Architectural Press: 1992. . * Friedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. ''Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History.'' Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. . *

Bringhurst, Robert Robert Bringhurst Appointments to the Order of Canada (2013). (born 1946) is a CanadianWong (1999). poet, typographer and author. He has translated substantial works from Haida and Navajo and from classical Greek and Arabic. He wrote '' The ...

. ''

The Elements of Typographic Style ''The Elements of Typographic Style'' is a book on typography and style by Canadian typographer, poet and translator Robert Bringhurst. Originally published in 1992 by Hartley & Marks Publishers, it was revised in 1996, 2001 (v2.4), 2002 (v2. ...

''. Hartley & Marks: 1992. . * Middendorp, Jan: ''Dutch Type'', 010 Publishers: 2004, * Lupton, Ellen. ''Thinking with Type: A critical guide for designers, writers, editors, & students.'' Princeton Architectural Press: 2004. . * Spiekermann, Erik; Middendorp, Jan: ''Made with FontFont'', Book Industry Services (BIS): 2006, * Thi Truong, Mai-Linh; Siebert, Jürgen; Spiekermann, Erik: '' FontBook – Digital Typeface Compendium'', FSI FontShop International: 2006,

Bibliography

References

External links