Design DNA

Monotype designer Terrance Weinzierl argues that whatever typeface you choose, the clues stored in a capital ‘R’ make it the most vital letter. Being a type designer, I’m frequently asked what my favourite typeface is, or what my preferred letter is. There are many that I like, for various reasons, and my taste continues to develop the more I study and create. But if I’m honest, my favourite typeface changes all the time depending on the day, week, or month. The same thing goes for music and food. Sometimes that curry pad thai is just the thing.

A favourite letter though, which I am enduringly fond of, is the capital ‘R’. I like it because it carries a lot of DNA for the typeface. It has straight, diagonal, and round anatomy, all balanced in one drawing. It’s exemplary. The proverbial mosquito stuck in amber. You could reasonably extrapolate all of the other capitals from it, and make an educated guess at the appearance of the rest of the typeface.

There is always a fine line to walk when designing type. A good typeface needs to have distinctive details, harmony and differentiation in shapes, and proper optical adjustments when required. The ‘R’ is rather flexible in its design and skeleton. It can feature a geometric straight leg or it could have a calligraphic influence, and sport a complex curve and finishing flick. If the leg is not quite right, you can tell. It has a delicate balance, like a sculpture.

Because it carries so much personality, the ‘R’ becomes one of the letters I look to for typeface identification. Think about it; the Gill Sans ‘R’, the Helvetica ‘R’, the Frutiger ‘R’. Noticeable and distinctive, like the front grill on a BMW. But as I have to pick, today my favourite ‘R’ is Eric Gill’s Perpetua Bold Italic.
The letter ‘R’

Referred to as the canine letter because in Latin it was sometimes trilled to sound like a dog growling, the letter ‘R’ most likely comes from the Egyptian hieroglyph for ro, a pictogram of the human head. This symbol was greatly simplified by the ancient Semitic language to look like a person in profile before being adopted by the Phoenecians who transformed it into something resembling the modern letter P. The Etruscans were the ones to add an extra stroke (to distinguish it from ‘P’), but it was the Romans that elongated the second leg to bring it down to the baseline. Today it’s the only letter which has a closed uppercase and an open lowercase, and is the eighth most common letter in the English language.
Terrance Weinzierl

Type designer Weinzierl specialises in creating bespoke typefaces for Monotype’s commercial clients, creating fonts for the likes of Microsoft, Google and Barnes & Noble. Particularly impressive are his custom fonts for Domino’s Pizza (with art directions for CP+B), which have a distinctly retro feel inspired by 19th century condensed gothic sans serif typefaces. This project, with its layered letterforms and striped shadowing, was recently awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design from the Type Directors Club.