Times Roman

Category	Serif
Classification	Transitional PANOSE: 2263545234
Designer(s)	Timothy Ketcher Victor Lardent
Commissioned by	The Times
Foundry	Monotype
Date released	1931

Size and spacing comparisons of the Georgia and Times New Roman typefaces.

Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned by the British newspaper The Times in 1931, designed by Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent at the English branch of Monotype.^[1] It was commissioned after Stanley Morison had written an article criticizing The Times for being badly printed and typographically behind the times.^[2] The font was supervised by Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of The Times. Morison used an older font named Plantin as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space. As the old type used by the newspaper had been called Times Old Roman, Morison's revision became Times New Roman and made its debut in the 3 October 1932 issue of The Times newspaper.^[3] After one year, the design was released for commercial sale. The Times stayed with Times New Roman for 40 years, but new production techniques and the format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004 have caused the newspaper to switch font five times since 1972. However, all the new fonts have been variants of the original New Roman font.

Some experts believe that the design was based on an earlier original work of William Starling Burgess.^[4] This theory remains controversial.^[5]

Because of its ubiquity, the typeface has been influential in the subsequent development of a number of serif typefaces both before and after the start of the digital-font era. One notable example is Georgia, shown below on the right, which has very similar stroke shapes to Times New Roman but wider serifs.

Although no longer used by The Times, Times New Roman is still widely used in book typography, particularly in mass-market paperbacks in the United States. Especially due to its adoption in Microsoft products, it has become one of the most ubiquitous typefaces in history.

Times 4-line Mathematics Series 569

This is a variant designed for printing mathematical formulae, using the 4‑line system for mathematics developed by Monotype in 1957. Developed from Times New Roman Series 327, it contained many new glyphs that were drawn to reduce the need for kerning and enable, where appropriate, the reuse of matrices for both superior and inferior characters. Greek characters, operators, and other mathematical symbols previously cut for other series were added to Series 569 and redrawn to harmonize with its overall design. New matrices were also made for oversized fence characters (brackets, braces, parentheses, etc.) in sizes up to 72 point. The italic glyphs have a reduced slant of 12 degrees to minimize the need for kerning. The family includes Greek, fraktur, and script alphabets; alternate versions of many glyphs; numerous versions with attached accent marks or maths symbols; and a vast selection of maths symbols. Originally between 700 and 800 different matrices were prepared for the initial release, but by 1971 this number had grown to over 8,000, with up to 5 new matrices still being added each week.

Monotype/Linotype retail versions

Times New Roman

This family includes Times New Roman (roman, bold), Times New Roman Medium (roman, bold), Times New Roman Semi Bold (roman, bold), Times New Roman Bold (roman, bold), Times New Roman Extra Bold, Times New Roman PS (roman, bold, italics), Times New Roman Condensed (roman, bold, italic), Times New Roman Small Text (roman, bold, italic), Times New Seven (roman, bold, italics).

Times New Roman WGL

It includes fonts in WGL character sets, and only sold in TrueType format. It includes Times New Roman regular, bold, italic, bold italic.

Times New Roman World

It is a version based on Windows Vista fonts. It includes fonts in WGL character sets, Hebrew, Arabic characters. Similar to Helvetica World, Arabic in italic fonts are in roman positions.

Variants

Times Roman and Times New Roman

Times Roman and, and its licenses like Adobe and Apple, is the font family used by Linotype. Times New Roman, and its licenses like Miscrosoft, is licensed from Monotype. Linotype classifies Times Roman as the upright (Roman) font of the Times family.

Linotype received registration status for Times Roman in 1945. In the 1980s, there was an attempt by unknown entrepreneurs to seek Rupert Murdoch, who owned The Times, the right to use the Times Roman name; separately, a legal action was also initiated to clarify the right of Monotype to use the name in the US despite Linotype's registration. As a result of legal action, Linotype and its licensees continue to use the name Times Roman, while Monotype and its licensees use the name Times New Roman.^[6]

Although Times and Times New Roman are variations on a theme from the Times family, various differences developed between the versions marketed by Linotype and Monotype when the master fonts were transferred from metal to photo and digital media. For example, Linotype has slanted serifs on the capital S, while Monotype's are vertical, and the addition of a serif on the number 5 in Linotype's that is absent in Monotype's. Most of these differences are invisible in body text at normal reading distances, or 10pts at 300 dpi. (Vivid differences between the two versions do occur in the lowercase z in the italic weight and in the percent sign in all weights.) Subtle competition grew between the two foundries, as the proportions and details as well as the width metrics for their version of Times grew apart.^[7]

Microsoft's version of Times New Roman licensed from Monotype matches the widths from the Adobe/Linotype version (a PostScript core font by Linotype). It has the lighter capitals that were originally developed for printing German (where all nouns begin with a capital letter). Versions of Times New Roman from Monotype exist which vary from the Linotype metrics (i.e. not the same as the version for Microsoft).

Others

• Times Ten is a version of Times by Linotype, specially designed for smaller text (12 point and below). It features wider characters and stronger hairlines.
• Times Eighteen is the headline version of Times by Linotype, ideal for point sizes of 18 and larger. The characters are subtly condensed and the hairlines are finer.
• URW++ produced a version of Times New Roman called Nimbus Roman in 1982. Nimbus Roman No9 L, URW's PostScript variant, was released under the GNU General Public License in 1996^[8][9], and available in major free and open source operating systems.
• FreeSerif, a free font descending from URW++ Nimbus Roman No9 L, which in turn descends from Times.^[10][11] It is one of free (GPL) fonts developed in GNU FreeFont project, first published in 2002. It is used in some free software as Times Roman replacement or for Times Roman font substitution.
• Liberation Serif is metrically equivalent font to Times New Roman developed by Ascender Corp. and published by Red Hat in 2007 under the GPL license with some exceptions.^[12] It is used in some GNU/Linux distributions as default font replacement for Times New Roman.^[13]
• CG Times is a variant of Times family made by Compugraphic Corporation foundry.
• Pelham is a version of Times Roman by DTP Types of Britain, which also cut an infant version with single-story versions of the letters a and g.
• Times Europa Office is an update to Times Europa, designed by Akira Kobayashi (released 2006). It contains tabulated numbers, mathematical signs, and currency symbols. Each character has the same advanced width in all the fonts in the family. In addition, cap heights and x-heights are the same.^[14]

Other typefaces used by The Times

The Times newspaper has commissioned various alternatives to Times New Roman:

• Times Europa was designed by Walter Tracy in 1972 for The Times, as a sturdier alternative to the Times font family, designed for the demands of faster printing presses and cheaper paper. The typeface features more open counter spaces.
• Times Roman replaced Times Europa on 30 August 1982.^[15]
• Times Millennium was made in 1991,^[16] drawn by Gunnlaugur Briem on the instructions of Aurobind Patel, composing manager of News International.
• Times Classic first appeared in 2001.^[17] Designed as an economical face by the British type team of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, it took advantage of the new PC-based publishing system at the newspaper, while obviating the production shortcomings of its predecessor Times Millennium. The new typeface included 120 letters per font. Initially the family comprised ten fonts, but a condensed version was added in 2004.
• Times Modern was unveiled on 20 November 2006, as the successor of Times Classic.^[15] Designed for improving legibility in smaller font sizes, it uses 45-degree angled bracket serifs. The font was published by Elsner + Flake as EF Times Modern. The font was designed by Research Studios, led by Ben Preston, Deputy Editor of The Times, in partnership with Neville Brody, former art director of The Face, and lead designer on Actuel, City Limits and Arena magazines. The design team included Ben Preston, David Driver, Mike Prowse, Chris Davalle, Kathleen Wyatt Research Studios: Neville Brody, Jon Hill, Luke Prowse.^[18]

Uses

• Microsoft has distributed Times New Roman with every copy of Microsoft Windows since version 3.1, and the typeface is used as the default in many applications for MS Windows, especially word processors and Web browsers.
• Linotype's Times Roman is the default Apple Mac OS X font for serif/roman generic font family. Monotype's Times New Roman is installed by default in latest versions of Mac OS X (e.g. 10.4).^[19]
• In 2004, the United States Department of State announced that as of 1 February 2004, all US diplomatic documents would use 14-point Times New Roman instead of the previous 12-point Courier New.^[20][21]
• Researchers in 2008 found that satirical readings of text printed in Times New Roman were perceived as more funny and angry than those printed in Arial. ^[22]

William Starling Burgess

In 1994, the printing historian Mike Parker published evidence that the design of Times New Roman was based on a 1904 design of William Starling Burgess.^[4] This theory remains controversial.^[5] The Times Online web site credits the design to "Stanley Morrison, Victor Lardent and perhaps Starling Burgess".^[23]

See also

• Arial
• Core fonts for the Web
• Helvetica
• Liberation fonts
• List of typefaces
• MathTime
• Unicode fonts
• Verdana

References

External links

• Type trading card: Times New Roman/Albertus (Monotype)
• Times New Roman (Linotype purchase page)
• Goodbye to the Courier font? – Tom Vanderbilt, Slate.com, 20 February 2004.
• A conversation with Times Modern designer Luke Prowse