HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Miller 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 a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
, released in 1997 by the Font Bureau, a U.S.-based digital type
foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...
. It was designed by
Matthew Carter Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is an English type designer.A Man of Letters
and is of the 'transitional' style from around 1800, based on the "
Scotch Roman Scotch Roman is a class of typefaces popular in the early nineteenth century, particularly in the United States and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom. These typefaces were modeled on a design known as Pica No. 2 from the Edinburgh foundry of ...
" type which originates from types sold by Scottish type foundries that later became popular in the United States. It is named for William Miller, founder of the long-lasting Miller & Richard
type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and ...
of
Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
. The general purpose versions of Miller are Miller Text and the Miller Display
optical size In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regula ...
for display printing, though since their release they have given rise to a number of variants, including Miller Daily, Miller Headline and Miller Banner, as well as some variants commissioned for use in specific publications. The Miller family is widely used, mostly in newspapers and magazines. Miller is closely related to Carter's previous Scotch Roman revival, the very popular
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
family for Microsoft. Carter had been working on plans for what became Miller when contacted by Microsoft but put them temporarily on hold to work on Georgia, which is adapted to digital display. Font Bureau in marketing have called Miller "the debonair cousin of Georgia". Miller was one of 23 typefaces included in MoMA's first acquisition of historically significant typefaces.


Background

The Miller family was designed by Matthew Carter and developed with the assistance of the Font Bureau's
Tobias Frere-Jones Tobias Frere-Jones (born Tobias Edgar Mallory Jones, August 28, 1970) is an American type designer who works in New York City. He operates the company Frere-Jones Type and teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program. Among his t ...
and Cyrus Highsmith, and the encouragement of
James Mosley James Mosley (born 1935) is a retired librarian and historian whose work has specialised in the history of printing and letter design. The main part of Mosley's career has been 42 years as Librarian of the St Bride Printing Library in London, whe ...
, a librarian at the St Bride Library of the history of printing in London. Miller is a "Scotch Roman"—a style which originated in types sold by Scottish type foundries of Alexander Wilson and William Miller in the period of 1810–1820. According to
Thomas Curson Hansard Thomas Curson Hansard (6 November 17765 May 1833) was an English pressman, son of the printer Luke Hansard. Early life and education Hansard was born in Clerkenwell, currently within the borders of London but at the time part of Finsbury divisio ...
these were mostly cut by
punchcutter Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional typography to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making metal type. Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp matrices into copper, which were locked into a mould sh ...
Richard Austin of London. This attribution is accepted by Austin's biographer Alastair Johnston (Hansard was writing in 1825, during Austin's lifetime) although Mosley had earlier expressed caution on the attribution. Although Miller remains faithful to the Scotch Roman style, it is not based on any single historical example. The flat-topped lowercase "t" is not original to Miller's or Wilson's types, but a "wrong font" Didone sort introduced later — possibly by mistake — that became entrenched in the style in the latter half of the 19th century. Certain other letters, such as the lowercase "k" and the Text cut's default capital "R", are drawn from other faces cut by Richard Austin, such as his type for John Bell. Mosley described Carter's revival of Miller as follows:
Matthew Carter's Miller is not a facsimile of Miller's Scotch Roman, any more than his
Galliard The ''galliard'' (; ; ) was a form of Renaissance dance and Renaissance music, music popular all over Europe in the 16th century. It is mentioned in dance manuals from England, Portugal, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Dance form The ''gal ...
was a facsimile of any one type by
Robert Granjon Robert Granjon (Paris, c. 1513 - Rome, 1590) was a French punchcutter, a designer and creator of metal type, and printer. He worked in Paris, Lyon, Antwerp, and Rome. He is best known for having introduced the typeface style Civilité, for his ...
. What it has done is to capture the good color, and the generous breadth and modelling of its model, and to bring a valid version of 'Scotch Roman' back into current use after a lapse n Englandof some decades. Miller was made with current production needs in mind, of which the two versions, 'Display' and the more robust 'Text' versions are evidence, and so is its relatively large x-height.
Speaking in 2013 about the development of Georgia and Miller, Carter said, "I was familiar with Scotch Romans, puzzled by the fact that they were once so popular...and then they disappeared completely." Carter as a companion digitised a Greek typeface based on British printing of the same period, based on the spare Porson typeface cut (in this case certainly) by Richard Austin and based on the handwriting of British classicist Richard Porson. Miller's default numerals are historically appropriate "hybrid" or "semi-lining" figures, slightly shorter than upper-case and in some cases descending below the baseline, although alternative more conventional full-height lining or
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 ...
styles are offered.


Variants

As well as the general purpose versions of Miller, Miller Text and Miller Display, numerous variants designed by Carter and others have been added to the Miller family. Variants include: *Miller Daily is an expanded series of Miller News, an adaptation of Miller designed by Carter for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''. It was released by the Font Bureau in 2002 alongside the Miller Headline series. *Miller Headline was designed by Carter and Highsmith specifically for use in newspaper headlines. It was released by the Font Bureau in 2002 with the Miller Daily series. *Miller Banner was designed by Richard Lipton for use in large settings, over 100
points A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...
. It has sharper hairlines and softer contrast.


Usage

Miller and its variants are widely used in newspapers, magazines and other publications around the world. Miller Daily is used for body copy in ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', while Miller Banner features in '' Glamour'' magazine. Another Miller variant, Miller News, was commissioned by Simon Esterson of ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' for his 1998 redesign of the newspaper, Miller Globe was designed for ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
'', and Bibliographical Miller was commissioned by the
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
for use in its
Aldine Press The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was d ...
incunable collection. The Miller family has also been used in the ''
National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper and the flagship publication of the American-owned Postmedia Network. It is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Monday released as a digital e-edition only.
'', ''
The Straits Times ''The Straits Times'' (also known informally by its abbreviation ''ST'') is a Singaporean daily English-language newspaper owned by the SPH Media Trust. Established on 15 July 1845, it is the most-widely circulated newspaper in the country and ...
'', ''
The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation in 2022 of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885, by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ' ...
'', ''
Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English language, English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media Limited, an entity controlled by the Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia, the daughter o ...
'' and the ''
San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
''. A 2005 survey by
Ascender Corporation Ascender Corporation was a digital typeface foundry and software development company in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois. It was founded in 2004 by a team of software developers, typographers, and people previously involved in dev ...
found Miller to be the tenth most popular typeface featured in American newspapers. , it is Carter's biggest source of royalties amongst the fonts to which he owns the rights.


References


External links


Carter and Cone website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller (Typeface) Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1997 Transitional serif typefaces Newspaper and magazine typefaces Typefaces with optical sizes Typefaces designed by Matthew Carter Font Bureau typefaces Collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York City)