Typografie als voertuig van de wetenschap - Universiteit Leiden

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printers, which made it possible to typeset letters with very refined typefaces,
which beforehand only appeared in quality printing such as books.
On one occasion it took some time before a colleague – who it was I don’t
know anymore – realized that he was holding an angry letter in his hands.
Upon reading it he only had eyes for Palatino, a type design from 1950 by
Hermann Zapf (1918). This typeface merely triggered pleasant thoughts in
my colleague’s mind, and this unfortunately did not exactly match the
letter’s content. Of course I would be happy to join such cheerful optimism,
but typography has limits.
Personally I can practice typography as a science only by periodically
returning to the roots of my fascination for letters and typography, to the
origin of my love of letters. Why did I become interested in typography
and letters in the first place? I have been unable to track down when,
exactly, it started. Yet the excitement I must have felt at one point for the
first time when consciously looking at letters is still there: how beautiful
letters are! What wonderful, exciting shapes they have. Let’s briefly consider
four different R’s: Lutetia (1925) designed by Jan van Krimpen (1892–
1958), Vendôme (1952), after an idea by François Ganeau (1912–1983) and
made by Roger Excoffon (1911–1983) (cf. Blanchard, Mendoza 1983, p. 21, 22),
Century Schoolbook (1919–1924) by Morris Fuller Benton (1872–1948), and my
own Swift (1985). And by way of comparison let’s look at two pieces of
QLutetia