Minion is a
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
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are thousands o ...
released in 1990 by
Adobe Systems
Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware
and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...
. Designed by
Robert Slimbach, it is inspired by late
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
-era type and intended for body text and extended reading. Minion's name comes from the
traditional naming system for type sizes, in which minion is between nonpareil and brevier, with the type body 7pt in height.
As the historically rooted name indicates, Minion was designed for
body text in a classic style, although slightly condensed and with large
apertures to increase legibility. Slimbach described the design as having "a simplified structure and moderate proportions."
The design is slightly condensed, although Slimbach has said that this was intended not for commercial reasons so much as to achieve a good balance of the size of letters relative to the ascenders and descenders.
Minion was developed into a large family using sophisticated interpolation or
multiple master technology to create a range of weights and
optical sizes suitable for different text sizes.
This automation of font creation was intended to create a seamless transition of styles from solid, chunky designs for caption-size small print to more graceful and slender designs for headings. It is an early member of what became Adobe's
Originals program, which created a set of type families primarily for book and print use, many like Minion in a deliberately historical, humanist style.
Minion is a very large family of fonts, including Greek, Armenian and Cyrillic alphabets,
optical sizes, condensed styles and stylistic alternates such as
swash capitals. As a standard font in many of Adobe's programs, it is one of the most popular serif typefaces used in books. One of the most famous uses of Minion is ''
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 (v2.5 ...
'',
Robert Bringhurst
Robert Bringhurst Appointments to the Order of Canada (2013). (born 16 October 1946) is a Canadian poet, typographer and author. He has translated substantial works from Haida and Navajo and from classical Greek and Arabic. He wrote ''The Eleme ...
's book about fine printing and page layout.
Releases
Modern Minion releases are in the
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. OpenType is a registered trademark ...
(otf) format, allowing a variety of stylistic alternates such as small caps and
ligatures to be encoded in the same font. The original release used additional 'expert set' fonts for these features, and may remain used by designers using more primitive software such as
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
that has limited OpenType support. Like many Adobe fonts, Minion included a 'Th' ligature derived from traditional
calligraphy
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined ...
.
Minion
The original release. Minion Black does not have an italic counterpart. Minion Expert is a separate font package that include fonts containing
small caps
In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technic ...
, ligatures,
old style figures, and
swash glyphs. There are also fonts for dingbats (Minion Ornaments), and a Black-weighted font (Minion Black Expert). Swash fonts are included for only the 2 lightest font weights. An 'expert set' font is used for older and simpler applications that cannot handle multiple text styles for the same letter (such as both lower-case letters and small caps) in the same font. Slimbach stated, "I saw it as being useful in text applications like newspapers, textbooks, and manuals, as well as signage and titles."
Minion Cyrillic
Minion Cyrillic was designed in 1992 by Robert Slimbach and was conceived as a non-Latin counterpart to Slimbach’s Minion typeface family. There were no Display-sized fonts, expert fonts, or Black-weighted fonts in this family.
Minion MM
The Multi Master version of the original Minion family, released in 1992. Commonly used in Adobe Acrobat to replace unknown fonts.
Minion Std Black
An OpenType version of the Minion Black font, but includes features found in Expert versions of PostScript Minion Black fonts. In addition, character set was updated to support Adobe Western 2.
Minion Pro
An OpenType update of the original family, released in 2000. The update is based on Minion MM but features slight changes to the selection of instances and modifications of the font metrics.
Minion Pro comes with 4 optical sizes (Regular, Caption, Subhead, and Display), 2 widths (Regular and Condensed), 4 weights (Regular, Medium, Semibold, and Bold), each with its respective italic, totalling 64 styles.
The Black weight from Minion Black Expert was not included. Each font includes the expert glyphs and dingbats that were previously found in Minion Expert package (swashes available in italic fonts only), Cyrillic Glyphs from Minion Cyrillic. In addition, the font family supports Adobe CE, Adobe Western 2, Greek, Latin Extended, Vietnamese character sets.
Although any of the fonts may be used at any size, the intended point sizes for the designs of this family are:
Minion Pro won the bukva:raz! 2001 award under the Greek category.
Minion Web
A TrueType version of Minion, designed for screen use. It supports ISO-Adobe character set. Version 1.00 of the font was distributed with Internet Explorer 4.0.
Minion Web Pro
An updated version of Minion Web, which supports Adobe CE and Adobe Western 2 character sets.
Minion 3 (2018)
A rerelease including Armenian, redesigned Greek characters, full support for
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and other modifications.
For example, Minion Pro provides the "Th" ligature by default, while Minion 3 only does so when discretionary ligatures are enabled.
Minion 3 comes with 4 optical sizes (Regular, Caption, Subhead, and Display) and 4 weights (Regular, Medium, Semibold, and Bold), each with its respective italic, totalling 32 styles.
Reception
Minion has generally received praise for its effectiveness as a clean, neutral book face with a very comprehensive range of features and styles. Slimbach himself has described it as "an exercise in restraint", noting that his other old-style serif designs,
Arno
The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber.
Source and route
The river originates on Monte Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a ...
and
Jenson, are more eccentric.
Type designer
Matthew Butterick mildly criticised it for being overused: "Minion is beautifully made—it’s balanced, it’s clean, it’s handsome, it’s conservative. It’s easy to like. And it’s been hugely successful as a book font, meaning you will not get fired for using Minion ...
utMinion succeeds so well in being noncontroversially good-looking that I find it sort of dull."
Usage
* In 2003,
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
adopted Minion as the typeface for the University logo.
* In 2008,
Wake Forest University
Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the un ...
adopted Minion Pro as its primary
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
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are thousands o ...
as part of its project to update the university's
visual identity, noting that the font "… exhibits warmth and balance …".
*
Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city o ...
uses Minion Pro as its primary font, including in its logo.
*
Robert Bringhurst
Robert Bringhurst Appointments to the Order of Canada (2013). (born 16 October 1946) is a Canadian poet, typographer and author. He has translated substantial works from Haida and Navajo and from classical Greek and Arabic. He wrote ''The Eleme ...
's ''
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 (v2.5 ...
'' (Hartley & Marks, 2008) uses Minion as its body face.
*
University of Otago
, image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg
, image_size =
, caption = University clock tower
, motto = la, Sapere aude
, mottoeng = Dare to be wise
, established = 1869; 152 years ago
, type = Public research collegiate ...
uses Minion as its serif typeface, including in its logo.
* The logo of the
Smithsonian is Minion Pro.
*
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (''CGEL'') is a descriptive grammar of the English language. Its primary authors are Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. Huddleston was the only author to work on every chapter. It was pub ...
is printed in Adobe Minion.
* The logo of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
is printed in Minion Pro, with capital letters.
* In 2019, the Daughters of the American Revolution adopted Minion as their primary font, especially for their logo.
*
University of Rome Tor Vergata
Tor Vergata University of Rome, also known as the University of Rome II ( it, Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata"), is a public research university located in Rome, Italy. Located in the southeastern suburb of Rome, the university combine ...
uses it for its new logo
Related Typefaces
Adobe
The Latin glyphs of Minion are also used in other Adobe font families created to support non-Latin languages, including Adobe Arabic,
Adobe Hebrew,
Adobe Thai,
and Adobe Song.
Adobe Song
Adobe Song is marketed as a Simplified Chinese font, but it does contain Traditional Chinese and Japanese characters.
The Latin characters of Adobe Song are lighter variants of Minion's. Interestingly, the main versions of Minion itself (e.g., Minion Pro and Minion 3) do not include any Light weight.
Third Party
Typefaces included in this section are related to Minion, but are not released by Adobe.
Minion Math
Minion Math is a mathematical font designed by Johannes Küster from typoma GmbH.
Specifically, it uses glyphs from Minion and supplements with additional glyphs such as mathematical symbols.
Minion Math family includes 20 fonts in 4 weights and 5 optical sizes each. An additional optical size 'Tiny' is added. Version 1.026 contains about 3,300 glyphs in each font style;
OpenType math
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. OpenType is a registered trademark ...
features were added in version 1.020. Minion Math had a working title, ''typoma MnMath''. The final form is expected to include all Unicode mathematical symbols and many additional symbols.
MnSymbol
A math companion to Minion is Achim Blumensath's MnSymbol, typically (but not necessarily) used from
TeX.
MnSymbol is ''not'' a full math font, as such it provides mathematical symbols in the style of Minion
but not glyphs for Latin characters.
A common setup is to use a TeX package which allows users to set an arbitrary font (in this case, Minion) as a math font, then supplement mathematical symbols from MnSymbol.
Although MnSymbol has a packaging as OpenType, it only provides
TeX font metric
TeX font metric (TFM) is a font file format used by the TeX typesetting system. It is a font metric format, not an outline font format like TrueType, because it provides only the information necessary to typeset the font such as each character's ...
s for math.
References
External links
Minion Pro at Fontspring- Adobe's preferred reseller
Fonts in UseTUG2008contains info on Minion Math
MinionPro – LaTeX packageUsing Minion Pro with LaTeX
{{Authority control
Old style serif typefaces
Typefaces with text figures
Mathematical OpenType typefaces
Typefaces with optical sizes
Adobe typefaces
Digital typefaces
Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1990
Typefaces designed by Robert Slimbach