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Minion (typeface)

Serif typeface

Minion (typeface)
Summary

Serif typeface

FieldValue
nameAdobe Minion
imageMinion opticals sample.png
styleSerif
classificationsGaralde old-style
creatorRobert Slimbach
releasedate1990
foundryAdobe Systems
latinyes
greekyes
cyrillicyes

Minion is a serif typeface released in 1990 by Adobe Systems. Designed by Robert Slimbach, it is inspired by late Renaissance-era type and intended for body text and extended reading. Minion's name comes from the traditional naming system for type sizes, in which minion is between nonpareil and brevier, with the type body 7pt in height. As the historically rooted name indicates, Minion was designed for body text in a classic style, although slightly condensed and with large apertures to increase legibility. Slimbach described the design as having "a simplified structure and moderate proportions." The design is slightly condensed, although Slimbach has said that this was intended not for commercial reasons so much as to achieve a good balance of the size of letters relative to the ascenders and descenders.

Minion was developed into a large family using sophisticated interpolation or multiple master technology to create a range of weights and optical sizes suitable for different text sizes. This automation of font creation was intended to create a seamless transition of styles from solid, chunky designs for caption-size small print to more graceful and slender designs for headings. It is an early member of what became Adobe's Originals program, which created a set of type families primarily for book and print use, many like Minion in a deliberately historical, humanist style.

Minion is a very large family of fonts, including Greek, Armenian and Cyrillic alphabets, optical sizes, condensed styles and stylistic alternates such as swash capitals. As a standard font in many of Adobe's programs, it is one of the most popular serif typefaces used in books. One of the most famous uses of Minion is The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst's book about fine printing and page layout.

Releases

[[Minion Pro]] capital letters in (L-R) regular, italic and swash style

Modern Minion releases are in the OpenType (otf) format, allowing a variety of stylistic alternates such as small caps and ligatures to be encoded in the same font. The original release used additional 'expert set' fonts for these features, and may remain used by designers using more primitive software such as Microsoft Office that has limited OpenType support. Like many Adobe fonts, Minion included a 'Th' ligature derived from traditional calligraphy.

Minion

The original release. Minion Black does not have an italic counterpart. Minion Expert is a separate font package that include fonts containing small caps, ligatures, old style figures, and swash glyphs. There are also fonts for dingbats (Minion Ornaments), and a Black-weighted font (Minion Black Expert). Swash fonts are included for only the 2 lightest font weights. An 'expert set' font is used for older and simpler applications that cannot handle multiple text styles for the same letter (such as both lower-case letters and small caps) in the same font. Slimbach stated, "I saw it as being useful in text applications like newspapers, textbooks, and manuals, as well as signage and titles."

Minion Cyrillic

Minion Cyrillic was designed in 1992 by Robert Slimbach and was conceived as a non-Latin counterpart to Slimbach’s Minion typeface family. There were no Display-sized fonts, expert fonts, or Black-weighted fonts in this family.

Minion MM

The Multi Master version of the original Minion family, released in 1992. Commonly used in Adobe Acrobat to replace unknown fonts.

Minion Std Black

An OpenType version of the Minion Black font, but includes features found in Expert versions of PostScript Minion Black fonts. In addition, character set was updated to support Adobe Western 2.

Minion Pro

An OpenType update of the original family, released in 2000. The update is based on Minion MM but features slight changes to the selection of instances and modifications of the font metrics.

Minion Pro comes with 4 optical sizes (Regular, Caption, Subhead, and Display), 2 widths (Regular and Condensed), 4 weights (Regular, Medium, Semibold, and Bold), each with its respective italic, totaling 64 styles. The Black weight from Minion Black Expert was not included. Each font includes the expert glyphs and dingbats that were previously found in Minion Expert package (swashes available in italic fonts only), Cyrillic Glyphs from Minion Cyrillic. In addition, the font family supports Adobe CE, Adobe Western 2, Greek, Latin Extended, Vietnamese character sets.

Although any of the fonts may be used at any size, the intended point sizes for the designs of this family are:

Optical sizesCaptionRegularSubheadDisplayIntended point sizes
6–8.48.5–13.013.1–19.920+

Minion Pro won the bukva:raz! 2001 award under the Greek category.

Minion Web

A TrueType version of Minion, designed for screen use. It supports ISO-Adobe character set. Version 1.00 of the font was distributed with Internet Explorer 4.0.

Minion Web Pro

An updated version of Minion Web, which supports Adobe CE and Adobe Western 2 character sets.

Minion 3 (2018)

Minion Pro provides the "Th" ligature as a standard ligature, while Minion 3 does not. The Greek characters also have a number of differences.

A rerelease including Armenian, redesigned Greek and Cyrillic characters, full support for International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and other modifications. For example, Minion Pro provides the "Th" ligature by default, while Minion 3 only does so when discretionary ligatures are enabled.

Minion 3 comes with 4 optical sizes (Regular, Caption, Subhead, and Display) and 4 weights (Regular, Medium, Semibold, and Bold), each with its respective italic, totaling 32 styles.

Similar to Minion Pro, although any of the fonts may be used at any size, the intended point sizes for the designs of this family are:

Optical sizesCaptionRegularSubheadDisplayIntended point sizes
6–99–1414–2424+

Reception

Minion has generally received praise for its effectiveness as a clean, neutral book face with a very comprehensive range of features and styles. Slimbach himself has described it as "an exercise in restraint", noting that his other old-style serif designs, Arno and Jenson, are more eccentric.

Type designer Matthew Butterick mildly criticised it for being overused: "Minion is beautifully made—it’s balanced, it’s clean, it’s handsome, it’s conservative. It’s easy to like. And it’s been hugely successful as a book font, meaning you will not get fired for using Minion ... [but] Minion succeeds so well in being noncontroversially good-looking that I find it sort of dull."

Usage

  • DreamWorks Animation LLC uses Minion Black as its primary logo
  • In 2003, Brown University adopted Minion as the typeface for the University logo.
  • In 2008, Wake Forest University adopted Minion Pro as its primary serif typeface as part of its project to update the university's visual identity, noting that the font "... exhibits warmth and balance ...".
  • Leiden University uses Minion Pro as its primary font, including in its logo.
  • Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks, 2008) uses Minion as its body face.
  • University of Otago uses Minion as its serif typeface, including in its logo.
  • The logo of the Smithsonian is Minion Pro.
  • The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is printed in Adobe Minion.
  • In 2019, the Daughters of the American Revolution adopted Minion as their primary font, especially for their logo.
  • University of Rome Tor Vergata uses it for its new logo

References

References

  1. "The Adobe Originals Silver Anniversary Story: Expanding the Originals". [[Adobe Systems]].
  2. (18 March 2011). "Point Size and the Em Square: Not What People Think".
  3. "A conversation between Robert Slimbach and Robert Bringhurst about Minion". Adobe Systems.
  4. "Robert Slimbach on Minion's historical context: milestones in the evolution of old style roman typefaces". Typekit.
  5. "Minion". Adobe.
  6. "Coming to your desktop: fonts from Adobe". Adobe.
  7. "DesigningMultiple Master Typefaces". Adobe.
  8. "Typeface Review: Adobe Minion". Bulletin of the Printing Historical Society.
  9. "A discussion on Type Design Revivalism". PampaType.
  10. "The Adobe Originals Silver Anniversary Story". Adobe.
  11. (18 March 2010). "Font Remix Tools (RMX) and Multiple Master Fonts in type design". Phinney.
  12. "TrueType, PostScript Type 1, & OpenType: What's the Difference?". Adobe.
  13. "Adobe Typography Primer". Adobe.
  14. "Top Ten Typefaces Used by Book Design Winners".
  15. Bringhurst, Robert. (1996). "The elements of typographic style". Hartley & Marks.
  16. Shaw, Paul. (May 12, 2011). "Flawed Typefaces".
  17. Shaw, Paul. "Classic Study: The Type Faces of Robert Slimbach". Print.
  18. [http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype/T1_to_OTF_FAQ.htm Type 1 ("PostScript") to OpenType font conversion]
  19. "Minion Font".
  20. "Minion Pro Opticals".
  21. [http://www.tdc.org/news/2001bukvaresults.html Type Directors Club : News : bukva:raz! Results] {{webarchive. link. (2008-09-18)
  22. "A classic for 30 years, updated: Introducing Minion 3". Adobe.
  23. "Minion 3: Design". Adobe Systems.
  24. Berry, John. "Minion 3: History". Adobe Systems.
  25. "Minion 3: Usage". Adobe Systems.
  26. (29 April 2019). "Minion 3 – (re-)enable Th-ligature without using dlig?".
  27. "Minion 3 Font".
  28. "Minion 3 Usage - "Optical sizes"".
  29. (2007). "Arno Pro". Adobe Systems.
  30. "Minion".
  31. "Brown University: Visual Identity and Graphic Standards - The New Logo".
  32. "Section 4: Typography". Wake Forest University.
  33. "House style guidelines: Fonts". Universiteit Leiden.
  34. (10 March 2013). "The Elements of Typographic Style, 4th Edition by Robert Bringhurst".
  35. [http://www.otago.ac.nz/administration/service_divisions/mandc_communications/otago017269.html University of Otago Brand Guide]
  36. "Smithsonian Visual Identity Program - Logo Specifications".
  37. ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (CUP, 2002), p. iv.
  38. "Uso del logo di Ateneo".
  39. "Adobe Arabic Font".
  40. "Adobe Hebrew Font".
  41. "Adobe Thai Font".
  42. "Adobe Song Font".
  43. "Adobe Song in use - Fonts In Use".
  44. (17 May 2018). "typoma".
  45. "Minion® Math – Character Set Release Version 1.026".
  46. "MnSymbol – Mathematical symbol font for Adobe MinionPro".
  47. "MnSymbol – A Math Symbol Font".
  48. "mathspec – Specify arbitrary fonts for mathematics in XeTeX".
  49. "The mathspec package".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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