Jan van Krimpen

Jan van Krimpen (12 February 1892 in Gouda – 20 October 1958 in Haarlem) was a Dutch typographer and type designer. He worked for the printing house Koninklijke Joh. Enschedé; he also worked with Monotype in England, who issued or reissued many of his designs outside the Netherlands.

Type designs

Haarlemmer, a text typeface designed by Van Krimpen in 1938.

Spectrum, a text typeface designed by Van Krimpen between 1941 and 1943.

Van Krimpen's type designs are elegant book typefaces, originally made for manual printing and the Monotype machine. Although a good few have been digitised (Romulus, Haarlemmer, Spectrum), the typefaces are only rarely used in publications. Van Krimpen had a strong interest in the sharp-seriffed designs of traditional Dutch Baroque type design, although he preferred to avoid direct revivals. His approach was continued by Sem Hartz, his successor at Enschedé, and has been of interest to more recent Dutch designers such as Martin Majoor.^[1][2]

Of special note is the Romulus 'superfamily', consisting of a seriffed font, a cursive, a chancery italic (Cancelleresca Bastarda), a sans-serif, and a Greek in a range of weights. Such an extensive family would have been a first, comparable to today's Scala family by Majoor. The outbreak of the Second World War disrupted the project before completion. After the war, Van Krimpen was not interested in resuming it.

Foundry Type

These foundry types were designed by Jan van Krimpen:^[3]

• Lutetia (1925 Enschedé Foundry, 1928 Monotype)^[4]
• Romanée (1928-1949, Enschedé)
• Open Roman Capitals (1929, Enschedé)
• Romulus type family^[5]
  • Romulus (1931, Enschedé, also 1936 Monotype)
  • Cancelleresca Bastarda (1934, Enschedé)^[6]
  • Romulus Sans (never released)
  • Romulus Greek
• Van Dijck Roman (1935, Monotype); Van Krimpen's level of involvement in this project was apparently mostly that of a consultant.^[7][8]
• Haarlemmer (1938, Monotype); release cancelled due to the war^[9][10]
• Sheldon (1947), designed for a Bible made by Oxford University Press and named for Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon.^[11]
• Spectrum (1952 Enschedé, also 1955 Monotype)^[12]

Some initials designed by van Krimpen for the Curwen Press have also been digitised by ARTypes of Chicago.^[13] ARTypes also digitised some sets of van Krimpen initial designs that are no longer on sale.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Van Krimpen was renowned for his perfectionism and temper. Monotype's archives preserve a letter to Stanley Morison to say that 'I do not want to be taken for the man who designed something so ridiculously poor as the sloped Romulus bold' that Monotype had produced without his involvement while he was trapped in the Netherlands during the war.^[18] Some of his papers are held by the University of Amsterdam.^[19]

References

Initials designed by Jan van Krimpen

External links

• J. van Krimpen, On designing and devising type (New York: The Typophiles 1957).
• R. Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style 3rd ed. (Vancouver Hartley & Marks: 2004).
• Klingspor Museum, notes on van Krimpen's career with samples of several designs not digitally available
• Dutch Type Library, a company which has digitised several van Krimpen designs
• Jan Middendorp, "Dutch Type" (010 Publishers, 2004) (pages 54–64)
• Michael Russem, "A Checklist of the 100-Cent Postage Stamps Designed by Jan van Krimpen" (Kat Ran Press, 2015)

Monotype typefaces 1900s Binny Old Style 1910s Imprint Plantin 1920s Garamond Bodoni Poliphilus Blado Fournier Engravers Baskerville Horley Old Style Grotesque Colonna Bernard MT Gallia Pastonchi Gill Sans Othello Lutetia Solus Perpetua Centaur with Arrighi Bembo 1930s Bell Braggadocio Leysbourne Placard Kino Script Falstaff Inflex Littleworth Times New Roman Walbaum Monoline Script Rockwell Colmcille Runic Menhart Ashley Crawford Felix Titling Tempest Titling Van Dijck Emerson Gwendolin Gill Kayo Romulus Albertus Joanna (for private use) Twentieth Century Ehrhardt Pegasus Matura Sachsenwald Haarlemmer Bulmer 1940s Figaro 1950s Festival Titling Spectrum Angelus Klang Ashley Script Fontana Swing Castellar Headline Bold Mercurius Script Joanna (general release) Dante Pepita 1960s Octavian Forte Apollo Traveller Albertina Cartier New Berolina Fleet Titling Sabon Barbou 1970s Photina 1980s Calvert Nimrod Arial Footlight Calisto Cantoria 1990s Amasis Century Gothic Book Antiqua Curlz Carré Noir Gill Facia Cachet 2000s Neo Sans Slate 2010s Joanna Sans Release dates are approximate only. Not all typefaces shown.

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