Scala Research

ffSCALA
An Introduction to the
Work of Martin Majoor
Elizabeth Harwood

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•
2 About Majoor
4 What is FontFont?
6 Historical Design Roots
8 Building Scala
10 Specimens
16 Scala Hands
17 Scala Jewels
18 Scala In Use
19 Pairings
20 Credits
Table of Contents

About Majoor
Martin Majoor is a Dutch type designer who started
his career in 1985. He spent most of his time collecting
and designing books, and his love of type design
shines throughout his work. Majoor studied at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem in 1980 and then
continued hjs studies at the URW Type Foundry in
1984. During his time there, he designed his first
typeface, Serré , that he never released. After URW,
Majoor participated in a sustained investigation into
fonts for computer monitors.
Through this and his own frustration
with web fonts when designing for
the Vrendenburg concert hall, Majoor
began his work on developing Scala.
Scala was then released at FontShop’s
first very serious typeface in 1991.
The expanded forms of Scala that included
a sans serif and condensed
version were released in 1993.
Other than FF Scala, Majoor has
designed FF Seria, FF Nexus, and
Questa, one of the best designed typefaces
of 2014. Majoor began the
Questa Project as a collaboration with
Jos Buivenga, another Dutch Designer.
Together, they worked to create the extensive face,
Questa, that acts as a derivative of Didot and Bodoni
styles with a sans serif variant. Majoor continues to
design type and his work is well regarded in his community.
Majoor believes strongly in book design and
has consistently believed that no one can be a good
type designer if they are not also a book designer.
2◃

FF Seria & Seria Italic
FF Nexus & Nexus Italic
▹3

What is FontFont?
Pictured from left to right: Jürgen Siebert, Neville Brody, Beth Russell,
Erik van Blokland and Erik Spiekermann
Before Scala was released, a foundry called FontFont
was formed by Erik Spiekermann and Neville Brody
to act as a library for all of the fonts that passed
through the legendary FontShop. Fontshop was originally
founded by Spiekermann and his wife Joan in
1989. Fontshop acted as the world’s first independent
type retailer. FontShop was founded to be a place that
sells typefaces by designers for designers and originally
focused on mail order purchases for font files
on floppy disks. In the beginning, Spiekermann, his
wife Joan, and two other artists used to sit and take
calls for orders of different typefaces.
4◃

Pictured: Joan Spiekermann
FontShop began at the cusp of two revolutions:
the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the introduction
of desktop publishing into the mainstream.
Desktop publishing allowed desgineers all over the
world to make design more accessible. This increased
accessibility meant that a need for easily accessible
typefaces was also necessary. Adobe’s new Postcript
application and the Pagemaker software allowed for
the development of a free market for newly designed
fonts. At its conception, FontShop
had around 600 font files available
and today, the library proudly boasts
around 2500 typefaces. From what
started as 2 employees in a spare office,
Fontshop has grown to be a worrldwide
design phenomenon.
Much of this global reach is thanks
to the hard work of Joan Spiekermann,
Erik Spiekermann's wife. Joan
Spiekermann was instrumental in expanding
FontShop’s reach to North
America and abroad. Joan scaled up
distribution in areas such as the UK
and Italy and helped to develop the
first font catalogue in 1990. This catalogue
was essential in presenting and selling typefaces.
This catalogue eventually became FontBook, a
massive, nearly 1760 page document with every font
availabele for purchase from FontShop. The last print
edition of this catalogue ran in 2006.
▹5

Historical Design Roots
Martin Majoor began his work on FF
Scala in 1987 on one of the first models
of the Apple Macintosh. Majoor
worked tirelessly on this extensive
old style, humanist serif in one of the
earliest desktop publishing applications,
Pagemaker 1.0. Majoor began
his work on Scala as a typeface designed
for use by the Vrendenberg
Concert Hall in Utrecht, Netherlands.
The original four fonts were
released for use in 1989. After some
time, Majoor began working with
Spiekerman and Brody to develop
Pictured: The ceilings of
Teatro alla Scala
Pictured: The Exterior of
Teatro alla Scala
the font further for their own foundry,
FontFont. FF Scala was then released
in 1991 under the FontFont
name as the foundry’s first serious
typeface and continues to be a popular
face today.
Scala was inspired by the theater
in which its name was derived: the
Teatro Alla Scala in Milan, Italy. The
typeface itself derived much of its
personality from the sweeping rows
and ceilings of the theater, but also
from the meaning of “Scala” itself. FF
Scala embodies, quite literally, “a
whole range” of what can be accomplished
in a typeface.
6◃

Above: Bodoni
Above: MT Fournier
Aside from its historical roots,
Majoor also found his inspiration in
the vertically stressed typefaces of the
mid eighteenth century French typographer,
Pierre Simon Fournier.
The famous typographer and punchcutter’s
work is today immortalized
in the Monotype font, Fournier MT.
Fournier’s work went on to inspire
other typefaces with modern flavors
such as Bodoni, another one of Majoor’s
personal inspirations for FF
Scala. Majoor also found inspiration
in the shapes and forms of Bembo.
In the Italics, Majoor derived his
principles of form from the chancery
cursives of Italian masters such as
Ludovico Arrighi and Palatino. In his
own twist, however, the typeface
more closely emulates a roman italic.
Penultimate
Fournier FF Scala Bembo
▹7

Building Scala
Scala is an extensive humanist serif typeface
that affords its user an incredible range to be used
in their work. Majoor designed not only a serifed
typeface with multiple weights, but also a sans serif
version and a decorative version called “FF Scala
Jewels.” The original four weights included in Scala
has been expanded to 28 styles. One of the interesting
aspects of the sans serif and serifed versions
are that they are both built using the same skeleton.
Essentially, the sans serif version of Scala was
constructed by cutting the serifs off of the serifed
version. Scala is a bit bottom heavy as a typeface
and has a larger x-height than other humanist faces.
Aside from the incredible choices between serif
and sans serif, the typefaces also
include both old-style and lining numerals,
allowing Scala to be used in
even more professional situations.
Another aspect of Scala is that adjusting
the “color” of the typeface (for example
substituting the Roman for the
Bold font) will not affect the set
widths of the characters, making
switching between the two smooth.
Chancery
Chancery
Chancery
Chancery
The serifed and sans serif
versions are both built from
the same skeleton, as
demonstrated below. Above,
one can see that weight does
not affect width in Scala.
8◃

n n
d d
Some small portions of the
roman closely resemble the
italic version.
Aside from the traditional weights, Scala also
includes a carefully designed set of Italics and
small caps. The authenticity of these aspects of the
typeface ensure that when committing to Scala in a
project, the typeface can handle everything one
could throw at it in a beautiful way. Scala features
true italics, meaning that the letters are specially
designed for that orientation and are not just
oblique versions of the Roman characters. In Majoor’s
font, the italics are based upon the chancery
cursive letterforms of sixteenth century Italian
masters such as Arrighi and Palatino. Chancery
cursives also follow the humanist style and was one
of the first forms of handwriting that evolved into
italics. However, when looking closely, the letterforms
of Scala italic more closely resemble the Scala
roman.
A section of Chancery
cursive letterforms.
▹9

Specimens
FF Scala (Serifed)
10◃

FF Scala Sans
▹11

12◃
FF Scala Italic

FF Scala Sans Italic
▹13

14◃
FF Scala Italic Bold

FF Scala Sans Italic Bold
▹15

Scala Hands
Scala hands are
also known as
printer's hands.
The typeface also included a set of special characters,
signs, and printer’s fists also known as Scala
Hands. The Scala Hands were inspired by the original
1530 printer’s hand casts from Claude Garramond
and Fournier . Originally, these hands were
used to show the moral in Aesop’s fables and have
since then been used to denote important parts of
written text. Scala also includes multiple special
characters and signs including squares, stars, circles,
and triangles both in solid and outlines.
★
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▪ ◇
16◃
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Scala Jewels Pro
B
B
B
B
B
Scala Jewels is based upon the
Bold font of the Serifed Scala.
•••
FF Scala Jewels is a decorated, all caps typeface that
is included in the Scala family. The versions (called
Crystal, Diamond, Pearl, and Saphyr) are all derived
from Scala bold. They build upon this font
using inspiration from Remy Peignot’s typeface,
“Cristal” from 1955, and Richard Austin’s 1796
typeface “Fry’s Ornamented.” Within these jewels
also exist their own corresponding border elements
that can be set by setting the word space to 100%.
•••
Above: A demonstration of
the border elements.
• •
•••
•
B
▹17

Scala in Use
Scala has found its home in publications,
posters, and books around the world. Its
flexibility within the superfamily make it easy
to pair with other typefaces. Scala often is seen
paired with different versions of itself.
18◃

Pairings
Because of Scala’s range as a superfamily, the typeface lends itself
well to multiple different font pairings. However, in many situations,
simplicity is the best route to take when using Scala. Scala
Pro and Scala Sans pair well with eachtoher and themselves. They
also pair well with the condensed version of both Scala Pro and
Scala Sans. Aside from itself, Scala pairs well with other humanist
style fonts or fonts that have hints of calligraphy within them. Many
of these fonts can be found within the FontShop library, such as FF
Sanuk. FF Sanuk uses plain shapes and calligraphic flourishes to
create high legibility that pairs well with Scala. Adobe Garamond
also plays well with Scala. The French influences in Scala pair well
with the French mastery present within Claude Garamond’s famous
typeface. The Old Style characteristic of ITC Mendoza also go
together well with the Old Style numerals and glyphs present within
Scala Sans.
FF Scala
FF Scala Sans
FF Scala Sans
Adobe Garamond
Is that Scala?
Scala is a unique typeface but has
two cousins that mimic its Old
style proclivities: José Mendoza y
Almeida's ITC Mendoza and William
Dwiggins' Electra.
▹19

Typeset in Scala Pro Regular
by Martin Majoor
Copy written and designed
by Elizabeth Harwood
Images and Information sourced from:
www.fontshop.com
www.martinmajoor.com
www.juliacai.com
www.teatroallascala.org
lluc.devroye.org
20◃

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