Tower was a

slab serif In typography, a slab serif (also called ''mechanistic'', ''square serif'', ''antique'' or ''Egyptian'') typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by thick, block-like serifs. Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular ( Rockwell), ...

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 ...

Morris Fuller Benton Morris Fuller Benton (November 30, 1872 – June 30, 1948) was an American typeface designer who headed the design department of the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was the chief type designer from 1900 to 1937. Many of Benton' ...

for

American Type Founders American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85% of all type manufactured in the United States. De Vinne, Theodore Low, ''The Practice of Typography,'' Century Comp ...

and based upon his earlier design for Stymie, but with straight sides to the round letters emphasizing the vertical appearance. Tower Italic was designed but not cast. In 1936, Tower Bold was started by the same designer, but was instead made into Stymie Bold Condensed.Mac MacGrew, "American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century," Oak Knoll Books, New Castle Delaware, 1993, p. 309., .

Digital type

Tower was digitized as Constructa by Elizabeth Cory Holzman for

Font Bureau The Font Bureau, Inc. or Font Bureau is a digital type foundry based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The foundry is one of the leading designers of typefaces, specializing in type designs for magazine and newspaper publishers. History ...

. Holzman's revival includes a light weight called Constructa Thin and an extra bold called Constructa Black.

References

*Blackwell, Lewis. ''20th Century Type.'' Yale University Press, 2004. . *Fiedl, Frederich; Nicholas Ott & Bernard Stein. ''Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History.'' Black Dog & Leventhal, 1998. . *Jaspert, W.; Pincus, W.; Turner Berry & A. F. Johnson. ''The Encyclopedia of Type Faces.'' Blandford Press Ltd., 1953, 1983. . *Macmillan, Neil. ''An A–Z of Type Designers.'' Yale University Press, 2006. . American Type Founders typefaces Letterpress typefaces Digital typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1936 Typefaces designed by Morris Fuller Benton Geometric slab-serif typefaces {{typ-stub