Compacta (typeface)
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Category | Sans-serif |
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Designer(s) | Fred Lambert |
Foundry | Letraset |
Date created | 1963 |
Variations |
Light, Regular, Bold, Black Obliques[1] |
Compacta is a condensed sans-serif typeface designed by Fred Lambert for Letraset in 1963.[2] It is visually similar to the typefaces Impact and Haettenschweiler, though Compacta has a distinctively square shape in comparison. Letraset was a dry transfer system, widely used by amateur or small-scale lettering projects, although many professional designers used it as well.[3] Compacta was Letraset's first original typeface design, and proved widely popular.[4] Rights to it were acquired by Linotype and others, leading to it becoming available in other formats such as digitally.
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Compacta was reportedly designed to be similar to stencilled alphabets of the 1920s and to the 'much lusted-after' Schmalfette Grotesk, an upper-case only predecessor to Haettenschweiler, which had attracted attention among British designers but was not available in the UK.[5][6][7] Impact was released slightly later for similar reasons.[8] Lambert taught typography at the London College of Printing as well as working for Letraset; he also curated the Graphic Design Britain anthology, as well as a book on lettering.[9][10][11] The style of lettering Compacta is based on has been called gaspipe.[12] It is also quite similar to the masthead of Private Eye (which is caps-only), designed by Matthew Carter around the same time.[13][14] Carter would later design Helvetica Compressed for similar reasons.[15]
Popular media
The dense, industrial appearance of Compacta was a popular genre in the early 1960s, and Rolling Stones albums such as Aftermath and 12 X 5 and the Who's I Can See For Miles either use Compacta or are in a similar style, as does the first edition of The Bell Jar.[16] Compacta has remained popular on album covers, being used by Portishead and The KLF on all their albums.
Outside the UK, it was used on-screen by NBC Sports from 1991 to 1995, in the TV series Baywatch, the logotype to Devo's 2010 album Something for Everybody,[17] and in the logo of Team Fortress 2. This font has been used by the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball team since 1993.
Notes
- ↑ "Download Compacta font family". Retrieved 2013-05-02.
- ↑ "Compacta - Webfont & Desktop font". Retrieved 2013-05-02.
- ↑ Lamacraft, Jane. "Rub-down revolution". Eye. Retrieved 22 August 2015.
- ↑ Loxley, Simon. Type: the secret history of letters. p. 186. ISBN 9780857730176.
- ↑ "ITC Compacta". fonts.com. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
- ↑ Dempsey, Mike. "Schmalfette: Tall, dark and handsome". Graphic Journey. Retrieved 22 August 2015.
- ↑ Dempsey, Mike. "Frederick Lambert: Graphic Design Britain". Design Journey. Retrieved 22 August 2015.
- ↑ Lee, Geoffrey. "Comments on Typophile thread". Typophile (archived). Archived from the original on August 26, 2005. Retrieved 27 October 2014.
- ↑ Dempsey, Mike. "Frederick Lambert". Design Journey. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
- ↑ Menten, Frederick Lambert ; edited by Theodore (1972). Letter forms : 110 complete alphabets (American ed.). New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 048622872X.
- ↑ Lambert, Fred (1970). Graphic design Britain 70. London: Studio Vista. ISBN 0289798418.
- ↑ "Tungsten". Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
- ↑ Walters, John. "Matthew Carter's timeless typographic masthead for Private Eye magazine". Eye. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
- ↑ Carter, Matthew. "Carter's Battered Stat". Eye. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
- ↑ Drucker, Margaret. Re: essays by Johanna; Mosley, James (2003). Typographically speaking : the art of Matthew Carter (2. ed.). New York: Princeton Architectural. p. 53. ISBN 9781568984278.
- ↑ Raimes, Jonathan; Bhaskaran, Lakshmi (2007). Retro graphics : a visual sourcebook to 100 hundred years of graphic design. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. p. 132. ISBN 9780811855082.
- ↑ "Images for Devo - Something for Everybody". Retrieved 2013-05-02.
External links
- Examples of Compacta in use - Fonts in Use