Miller (typeface)

Background

The Miller family was designed by Matthew Carter and developed with the assistance of the Font Bureau's Tobias Frere-Jones and Cyrus Highsmith, and the encouragement of James Mosley, a librarian at the St Bride Library of the history of printing in London.

Miller is a "Scotch Roman"—a style which originated in types sold by Scottish type foundries of Alexander Wilson and William Miller in the period of 1810–1820. According to Thomas Curson Hansard these were mostly cut by punchcutter Richard Austin of London. This attribution is accepted by Austin's biographer Alastair Johnston (Hansard was writing in 1825, during Austin's lifetime) although Mosley had earlier expressed caution on the attribution.

Although Miller remains faithful to the Scotch Roman style, it is not based on any single historical example. The flat-topped lowercase "t" is not original to Miller's or Wilson's types, but a "wrong font" Didone sort introduced later — possibly by mistake — that became entrenched in the style in the latter half of the 19th century. Certain other letters, such as the lowercase "k" and the Text cut's default capital "R", are drawn from other faces cut by Richard Austin, such as his type for John Bell. Mosley described Carter's revival of Miller as follows:

Speaking in 2013 about the development of Georgia and Miller, Carter said, "I was familiar with Scotch Romans, puzzled by the fact that they were once so popular...and then they disappeared completely." Carter as a companion digitised a Greek typeface based on British printing of the same period, based on the spare Porson typeface cut (in this case certainly) by Richard Austin and based on the handwriting of British classicist Richard Porson. Miller's default numerals are historically appropriate "hybrid" or "semi-lining" figures, slightly shorter than upper-case and in some cases descending below the baseline, although alternative more conventional full-height lining or text figures styles are offered.

Variants

As well as the general purpose versions of Miller, Miller Text and Miller Display, numerous variants designed by Carter and others have been added to the Miller family. Variants include:

• Miller Daily is an expanded series of Miller News, an adaptation of Miller designed by Carter for The Guardian. It was released by the Font Bureau in 2002 alongside the Miller Headline series.
• Miller Headline was designed by Carter and Highsmith specifically for use in newspaper headlines. It was released by the Font Bureau in 2002 with the Miller Daily series.
• Miller Banner was designed by Richard Lipton for use in large settings, over 100 points. It has sharper hairlines and softer contrast.

Usage

Miller and its variants are widely used in newspapers, magazines and other publications around the world. Miller Daily is used for body copy in The Washington Post, Miller Globe was designed for The Boston Globe, and Bibliographical Miller was commissioned by the University of California, Los Angeles for use in its Aldine Press incunable collection. The Miller family has also been used in the National Post, The Straits Times, The Dallas Morning News, Hindustan Times and the San Jose Mercury News.

A 2005 survey by Ascender Corporation found Miller to be the tenth most popular typeface featured in American newspapers. , it is Carter's biggest source of royalties amongst the fonts to which he owns the rights.

References

References

1. (2003). "Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter". Princeton Architectural.
2. "Scotch Roman".
3. Paul Shaw. (April 2017). "Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past". Yale University Press.
4. Bill Bell. (23 November 2007). "Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 3: Ambition and Industry 1800-1880". Edinburgh University Press.
5. "Miller".
6. "Comments on Typophile thread...".
7. John L Walters. (2 September 2013). "Fifty Typefaces That Changed the World: Design Museum Fifty". Octopus.
8. "Set on the Web-part 2". Jack Yan & Associates.
9. "New: Miller Text from Font Bureau". Font Bureau.
10. (2002). "Indie fonts: a compendium of digital type from independent foundries". Rockport Publishers.
11. (2010). "Matthew Carter's Type Revivals Talk at the TDC". American Printing History Association.
12. Hansard, Thomas Curson. (1825). "Typographia: an historical sketch of the origin and progress of the art of printing; with practical directions for conducting every department in an office: with a description of stereotype and lithography illustrated by engravings, biographical notice and portraits".
13. Lew, Kent. (October 29, 2009). "New Faces in Washington". [[Font Bureau]].
14. (2014). "Transitional Faces: The Lives & Work of Richard Austin, type-cutter, and Richard Turner Austin, wood-engraver". Poltroon Press.
15. "Miller". [[FontShop]].
16. “Typefounder” ([[James Mosley]]). (16 February 2007). "Scotch Roman".
17. (November 10, 2002). "Font Bureau Announces Miller Daily & Miller Headline". [[Font Bureau]].
18. "Matthew Carter interview". Monotype.
19. "Porson's Greek type design".
20. (23 September 2005). "Numbers Don't Lie".
21. "Comments on Typophile thread–Lining numerals to match with Georgia?".
22. "Miller Text expansion". Font Bureau.
23. "Miller Daily". [[Font Bureau]].
24. "Miller Headline". [[Font Bureau]].
25. "Miller Banner". [[Font Bureau]].
26. Schwartz, Christian. "Guardian Text Egyptian". www.christianschwartz.com.
27. Glaister, Dan. (April 19, 1999). "Design to create pages people want to read". [[The Guardian]].
28. (8 February 2017). "About the typefaces not used in this edition".
29. Apple, Charles. (September 18, 2010). "A profile on typeface designer Matthew Carter". [[American Copy Editors Society]].
30. Berry, John D.. (January 10, 2005). "Front-Page Fonts". www.creativepro.com.
31. (December 2, 2010). "The most-read man in the world". [[The Economist]].