Myriad (typeface)

Adobe Myriad
Category Sans-serif
Classification Humanist
Designer(s) Robert Slimbach
Carol Twombly
Foundry Adobe Type
Date released 1992
"Word" set in roman, italic, and bold

Myriad is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems. The typeface is best known for its usage by Apple Inc., replacing Apple Garamond as Apple's corporate font since 2002. Myriad is easily distinguished from other sans-serif fonts due to its special "y" descender (tail) and slanting "e" cut. Myriad is similar to Frutiger.

Variations

Myriad (Type 1)

This PostScript Type 1 font family was released after the original Myriad MM. It initially included four fonts in two weights, with complementary italics. All these Type 1 versions supported the ISO-Adobe character set; all were discontinued in the early 2000s.

Myriad Condensed
It was a condensed version, released around 1998. The condensed fonts comprise three weights, with complementary italics.
Myriad Headline
A "Headline" version was also released, which has the weight of Myriad Bold, but slightly narrower.

Myriad Web

Myriad Web is a version of Myriad in TrueType font format, optimized for onscreen use. It supports Adobe CE and Adobe Western 2 character sets. Myriad Web comprises only five fonts: Myriad Web Pro Bold, Myriad Web Pro Regular, Myriad Web Pro Condensed Italic, Myriad Web Pro Condensed, Myriad Web Pro Italic. Myriad Web Pro is slightly wider than Myriad Pro, while the width of Myriad Web Pro Condensed is between Myriad Pro Condensed and Myriad Pro SemiCondensed.

The family is bundled as part of the Adobe Web Type Pro font pack.

Myriad Pro

Myriad Pro is the OpenType version of the original Myriad font family. It first shipped in 2000, as Adobe moved towards the OpenType standard. Additional designers were Christopher Slye and Fred Brady. Compared to Myriad MM, it added support for Latin Extended, Greek, and Cyrillic characters, as well as oldstyle figures.

Myriad Pro originally included thirty fonts in three widths and five weights each, with complementary italics. A "semi-condensed" width was added in early 2002, expanding the family to forty fonts in four widths and five weights each, with complementary italics.

Myriad Pro Regular, Bold, Italic and Bold Italic are bundled with Adobe Reader 7 and 8. In Adobe Reader 9 and onwards, the fonts are included, but not installed in the system fonts directory.

Myriad Wild

Myriad Wild is an Adobe font package comprising the Myriad Sketch and Myriad Tilt fonts in Type 1 format. Myriad Sketch is a slightly irregular outline version of Myriad, while Myriad Tilt incorporates irregular stroke weight and paths. The family supports ISO-Adobe character set.

Myriad Wild Std

Myriad Wild Std is the OpenType version of Myriad Wild. It supports Adobe Western 2 character set.

MyriadCAD

MyriadCAD is included in Adobe Reader 9 and is thought to be an implementation of the ANSI CAD lettering.[1]

Myriad Currency

Myriad Currency is included in Adobe Reader 9 and is thought to be the company's embedded font for their currency typefaces. It can be found in the Fonts subfolder of the Resources folder under Adobe Reader 9 from the Program Files folder in the Local Hard Disk Drive.

Myriad Arabic

Myriad Arabic is an extension of Adobe’s popular humanist sans-serif typeface Myriad, bringing the sensibility of Myriad into another language and another writing system. Myriad Arabic is one of the first Arabic sans serif typefaces suitable for use in text. The family comprises five weights, from Light to Black, each with an accompanying italic. Myriad Arabic was designed by Robert Slimbach, with the help of Adobe’s technical team as well as outside Arabic experts. The principal outside consultant was Dr. Mamoun Sakkal. .[2]

Myriad Hebrew

Myriad Hebrew is an extension of Adobe’s popular humanist sans-serif typeface Myriad, bringing the sensibility of Myriad into another language and another writing system. Myriad Hebrew is one of the most extensive families of Hebrew typefaces available today, comprising twenty different digital fonts: four weights, each with two italic complements; plus an informal cursive version, also in four weights, with both upright and slanted variants. Myriad Hebrew was designed by Robert Slimbach, with the help of Adobe’s technical team as well as outside Hebrew experts. The principal outside consultant was Scott-Martin Kosofsky. .[3]

Myriad Apple

Myriad Apple was designed for Apple Inc. to complement the Myriad Pro typeface and allow it to be used as a system font for Apple Inc.'s Macintosh computers that were non-compatible to the lettering format of the Myriad Pro typeface.

Myriad Set Pro

The Myriad Set Pro font family was first embedded into Apple Inc.'s corporate website. Myriad Set Pro is available in Regular, Bold, Thin, Italic, Ultrabold and Ultralight weights, and can be found in most of Apple's websites.

Kozuka Gothic

Kozuka Gothic is a Japanese typeface, designed as a sans-serif companion to Kozuka Mincho family. The Japanese letters were designed by Masahiko Kozuka and Adobe’s Japanese type design team. The Latin letters in Kozuka Gothic were adapted from Myriad.

Adobe Heiti

Adobe Heiti is a simplified Chinese typeface that borrows its Latin glyphs from Myriad. It is included with Adobe Illustrator CS3,[4] Adobe Reader 8 Simplified Chinese font pack, Adobe Creative Suite 4.0.[5]

Usage

Adobe's Myriad is the typeface used in Apple's modern marketing.
Myriad is used in Rolls-Royce's text based logo.
Gmail's old logo uses Myriad Pro for the last three letters. The "G" uses Catull, along with the rest of the Google logo.

Since the launch of the eMac in 2002, Myriad has replaced Apple Garamond as Apple Inc.'s corporate font. It is now used in all of Apple's marketing and on its products (See Apple typography). More recent iterations of the iPod (from the iPod photo onward) used Podium Sans, which has similarities with Myriad (as opposed to Chicago), for its user interface. However, the iPod Touch and iPhone 3G replaced Podium Sans with Helvetica, which became the system font for OS X starting with OS X Yosemite. Myriad was included with the third generation of iPod.[6]

Adobe ships a large subset of the Myriad Pro family with a number of their products, including Adobe Reader.

Myriad is also used in the corporate identities of Wells Fargo, Walmart, and Modern Telegraph, as the primary headline typefaces of those companies.

Rolls-Royce uses Myriad in its text-based logo.

The current Gmail logo uses Myriad for the last three letters.

The Linkedin and Mashable text based logo uses Myriad font.

Myriad MM is the official font for the Tata group of companies.

The metro company of Hong Kong, MTR, uses Myriad as its corporate identity font. KCRC (a former rail transport company in Hong Kong) developed Casey in 1996, which uses Myriad Condensed for English and Formata Condensed for numbers. Today the KCRC is part of the MTR and Myriad is used on much of the MTR.

The font was adopted in 2005 by the London Borough of Redbridge as its primary font for use in publications, as part of the overall rebrand of the council.

Myriad Black is one of two official standard fonts of the University of Virginia[7] and Loyola University Chicago.[8]

Myriad is also one of the two official standard fonts of Cambridge University.[9]

Myriad Pro is the wordmark logo font for The University of Iowa and the primary typeface for University of Nevada, Reno [10] and the University of Ottawa[11] and Foxtranslate.

Myriad Pro Light is also chosen by Visa Inc. as the official company font since 2014.

Myriad Roman, Myriad Italic, and Myriad Headline are primary sans-serif fonts at The George Washington University.[12]

Two variants of Myriad MM are used as the primary typefaces for the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany).[13]

CBS affiliate KPHO and FOX affiliate WDRB use Myriad for their third-lower graphics.

A variety of fonts from the Myriad family are used on most CT Transit schedules.

All Nippon Airways, a Japanese airline, also uses the Myriad font for their new international cabin class logos as well as promotional materials of its new "Inspiration of Japan" in-flight service concept.[14]

The Order of St John adopted the new St John logo in 2005, choosing Myriad Regular (Roman) and Myriad Bold as the approved organization's typeface for all external artwork, communications and publications. They have been using the new logo since 2005, and the organization's typeface since 2008 in their external publications.[15] Establishments are following the order to change their organization's logo to the new St John logo and using the new typeface, like St John New Zealand,[16] St John Ambulance in Wales,[17] Hong Kong St. John Ambulance[18] and The Order of St John USA.[19]

Sauber's number seat also use Myriad Pro Bold in the nosecones.

Since 2006 on vehicle registration plates in Norway[20]

Australian department store, Myer, has used Myriad as one of its corporate fonts since the late 1990s.

Woolworths (Australia) has used Myriad in its branding and logo since 2008.

Also worthy of mentioning is the fact that the 2008 edition of Guinness World Records used Myriad for the text.

In 2010, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas release the current series of their banknotes.

The video games Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 use Myriad in their user interface and cinematic subtitles.

Awards

Myriad Pro won bukva:raz! 2001 under the Greek and Cyrillic categories.[21]

Myriad Pro Greek won TDC2 2000 (Type Directors Club Type Design Competition 2000) in the Text/display type systems category.[22]

References

  1. ↑ "Adobe Myriad CAD inside Acrobat Reader 9...". Typophile. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  2. ↑ "Myriad Arabic". Adobe. Retrieved 2014-09-22.
  3. ↑ "Myriad Hebrew". Adobe. Retrieved 2014-09-22.
  4. ↑ "Adobe Illustrator CS3 Read Me" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  5. ↑ "Fonts supplied with Adobe Creative Suite 4.0". Microsoft.com. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  6. ↑ "Modifying Apple's Myriad Pro". Retrieved 2008-10-03.
  7. ↑ "Usage Guidelines, U.Va. Logo". University of Virginia. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
  8. ↑ "Loyola University Chicago Brand & Graphic Standards". Loyola University Chicago. Retrieved 2009-07-19.
  9. ↑ "Guidelines: Typography". Retrieved 2009-09-25.
  10. ↑ "UNR Fonts & Colors". Retrieved 2010-08-29.
  11. ↑ "uOttawa Fonts". Retrieved 2010-10-23.
  12. ↑ "GW Graphic Standards Manual". Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  13. ↑ "Hausschrift Myriad". Retrieved 2011-06-23.
  14. ↑ "Ana Sky Web". Ana.co.jp. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  15. ↑ "2008 Annual Review of the work of the Order Secretariat". The Order of St John. Retrieved 2010-04-28.
  16. ↑ "St John St John New Zealand". Stjohn.org.nz. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  17. ↑ "St John : St John Cymru Wales". Stjohnwales.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  18. ↑ "Hong Kong St. John Ambulance Brigade Cadet Command". Stjohn.org.hk. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  19. ↑ "The Order of St. John". Saintjohn.org. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  20. ↑ "Skrift på bilskilt". Typografi.org. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
  21. ↑ "News: bukva:raz! Results". Type Directors Club. 2001-12-02. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
  22. ↑ "TDC2 2000: The Competition". Type Directors Club. Retrieved 2008-10-03.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Myriad.

Further reading