Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos (14 September 1877 – 3 April 1962), better known as S. H. de Roos, was a Dutch
type designer
Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below.
A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
,
book cover
A book cover is any protective covering used to bind together the pages of a book. Beyond the familiar distinction between hardcovers and paperbacks, there are further alternatives and additions, such as dust jackets, ring-binding, and older ...
designer and
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, t ...
.
Life and work

De Roos was born in
Drachten
Drachten () is a town in the northern Netherlands. It is located in the municipality of Smallingerland, Friesland. It had a population of around 45,186 in January 2017 and is the second largest town in the province of Friesland.
History Begi ...
to a cobbler, but moved to
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
at an early age. It was here that, between the ages of twelve and fourteen, he trained to be a
lithographer
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone ( lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German ...
. Later he studied at the ''Teekenschool voor Kunstambachten'' (The School of Drawing for the Arts and Crafts), part of the
Rijksakademie
The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts) was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam. It is a classical academy, a place where philosophers, academics and artists meet to test and exchange ideas and knowledge. The school support ...
.
[A. J. C. M. Gabriëls,]
Roos, Sjoerd [Hendrik] de (1877-1962)
(in Dutch), ''Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland
The ''Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland'' (BWN) is a Dutch biographical dictionary, in which short biographies of well-known and less well-known but still notable Dutch people are listed.
The BWN is the successor to the '' Nieuw Nederland ...
'', 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
In his early years De Roos was inspired by the
Arts and Crafts Movement. An example of this can be found in his edition of ''Kunst en Maatschappij'' (''Art and Society'' (1903)). As a supporter of
Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis
Ferdinand Jacobus Domela Nieuwenhuis (31 December 1846 – 18 November 1919) was a Dutch socialist politician and later a social anarchist and anti-militarist. He was a Lutheran preacher who, after he lost his faith, started a political fight ...
, De Roos attempted to create the ideal of ‘Art to the People’.
Between 1907 and 1941 he was employed by the
Amsterdam Type foundry (known previously as ''N. Tetterode''), where he further developed his lithographic skills. During this period he designed, a new
type face, the ''Hollandsche Mediæval'', the first Dutch made typeface for 150 years. In total De Roos designed twelve type faces, the most successful being the ''Hollandsche mediæval'', the ''Egmont'', the ''Libra'' and the ''De Roos Roman and Italic''.
Archive material, as well as the ''Tetterode Collection'' both attributed to De Roos, are available at the Library of the
University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...
.
Further archives are available at the City Library of
Haarlem,
the
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Sted ...
, the
Frans Hals Museum
The Frans Hals Museum is a museum located in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
The museum was established in 1862. In 1950, the museum was split in two locations when the collection of modern art was moved to the '' Museum De Hallen'' (since 2018 called ...
in Haarlem and the ''Museum Smallingerland'' in Drachten.
Typefaces

* Nieuw Javaansch No. 1 (1909)
Luc Devroye
Luc P. Devroye is a Belgian computer scientist and mathematician and a James McGill Professor in the School of Computer Science of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Devroye specializes in the probabilistic analysis of algorith ...
,
Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos
, Home Page Luc Devroye. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
* Hollandse Mediaeval (1912)
* Zilvertype (1914–1916, with Jean-François van Royen)
* Ella Cursief (1916)
* Erasmus Mediaeval (c. 1923)
* Meidoorn (1928)
*
Nobel
Nobel often refers to:
*Nobel Prize, awarded annually since 1901, from the bequest of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel
Nobel may also refer to:
Companies
*AkzoNobel, the result of the merger between Akzo and Nobel Industries in 1994
*Branobel, or ...
(1929)
* Egmont (1933)
* Simplex (1937)
* Libra Uncial (1938)
* De Roos Romein/Cursief (1947)
* De Roos Inline
References
Further reading
*
A.A.M. Stols, ''Het werk van S. H. de Roos: een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van de herleving der Nederlandsche boekdrukkunst'' (1942)
* Dick Dooijes, ''Sjoerd H. de Roos zoals ik mij hem herinner'' (1976)
* Sjoerd H. de Roos, ''Typografische geschriften 1907-1920'' (1989)
* Mathieu Lommen, ''De grote vijf: S.H. de Roos, J.F. van Royen, J. van Krimpen, C. Nypels en A.A.M. Stols'' (1991)
* Sari de Haan ...
t al.
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
''typiScH de Roos: oeuvre-overzicht'' (2004)
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roos, S.H. de
1877 births
1962 deaths
Dutch graphic designers
Dutch typographers and type designers
People from Drachten