Matthew Carter's definition of 'revival'

John Savard

It's interesting to note that Paul F. Gehl called attention to Bembo, among others, as not being properly characterized (as it was by Morison) as a recutting of Aldus Manutilus' type, viewing it instead as a new typeface inspired by that one.

I would not be inclined to say this was wrong, since the group of Monotype typefaces which included Bembo were definitely designed to be commercially successful at the time they were brought out - even though they were also faithful enough to their originals that I really never had any hesitancy about calling them 'revivals'.

While the Caslon revival included authentic types from the original punches, the Garamond revival, like the Monotype revivals, involved new typefaces that were reasonably faithful to the originals... and the revival of Jenson ran the gamut from the reasonably faithful Eusebius to, say, ATF's Jenson Oldstyle, with Doves and Centaur winning acclaim in their own right.

While these other cases may not be able to legitimately claim to be 'recuttings', they were indeed part of a revival - they brought back typefaces similar to ones that fell out of fashion and thus had not been in use for a long time.

So perhaps the term 'recutting' could be used to distinguish recreations of an old typeface from new ones merely inspired by their predecessors - because both of those can still correspond to the meaning of 'revival', bringing back something that went away.

Perhaps a way to think about it is that a narrow category of typefaces, those that closely resemble one specific typeface, can be revived also, in addition to a specific typeface.

Dan Reynolds

Recuttings are possible, but the term “recutting” can only be applied to, well, recuttings of individual type sizes.

There are real Garamond matrices in at least two European collections. One could, at least theoretically, revive Claude Garamond’s actual types and use them in contemporary letterpress printing. Or, one could recut individual Garamond sizes and use those in letterpress printing. But neither Monotype nor Stempel’s Garamonds can in any way be called recuttings. Gehl was right. That was just marketing speak. It was wrong at the time, and should not be perpetuated.

In the digital world, one could approximate the recutting process. Just as Justin Howes did with Founder’s Caslon or, more recently, as Edvinas Žukauskas and Jérôme Knebusch did with Koch Grotesk.

Nick Shinn

Since this thread started, I’ve come across another term I find useful— “restoration” (from Paul Shaw), which describes the notion I mentioned—of being able to produce a facsimile of typography made by the original font. So, quite different from a renovation.

Miles Newlyn

Miles Newlyn

This spectrum of the term 'revival' is from https://www.designingtyperevivals.com/

Miles Newlyn

I'm using 'restomod' for the designs I'm currently working on.