Linn Boyd Benton, 1844-1932
Linn Boyd Benton – born 1844 in Little Falls, New Jersey, died 1932 in Plainfield, New Jersey.
The American engineer Linn Boyd Benton founded ATF (the American Typefounders Company) in 1892. In the 1880s, Benton invented a pantographic punch-cutting machine, industrializing typeface production. Benton’s invention simplified the process of matrix production, and paved the way for future technologies, such as Ottmar Mergenthaler’s Linotype Machine (1886). Benton’s skill as an inventor and businessman changed the American typographic landscape forever.
ATF was a conglomeration of over 20 American type foundries. Its most famous employee was probably Benton’s son, Morris Fuller Benton [see below] who worked for ATF for most of his life. The Bentons and ATF are largely responsible for the bringing of sans serif type into mainstream design usage. Throughout the 1800s, sans serif typefaces were limited to advertising and display purposes; they were almost always set very large and black on the page. Today, sans serif typefaces are used all over the world to set text as well as headlines. The breadth of the sans serif medium has grown to rival serif typography in overall usage.
The invention of the pantographic punch-cutting machine separated the designing of typefaces from their production as fonts for the first time. As the 20th Century began, increasing numbers of typefaces appeared that were drawn by type designers (a new profession) but produced by separate punch cutters. This trend continued through several technological developments, and only began to wane during the digital revolution of the 1980s, when many type designers began using personal computers to produce and distribute their fonts.
From Geni.com, a genealogical search engine and the recently published book about the Bentons, father and son, by Patricia A. Cost and the RIT Press.
Click on these links for Linn Boyd Benton's design of the Century typeface for Century Magazine and its publisher and typophile Theodore Low De Vinne in 1894.
Morris Fuller Benton, circa 1915
I used these two faces along with their italic versions for my early Polaroid designs. I'll show-and-tell in my next posting and we can end this brief interlude concerning typography.
Patricia Cost's book, and even the link to it, will tell the story of this gifted father-and-son team at ATF. It's my opinion that they were the greatest force to be reckoned with in this country's typography and printing. It's gratifying to know that the story of their lives allows us all to know so much about them.
These links will add more pertinent information for you:
From The Font Bureau, Inc., Typophile, and a comprehensive list of their ATF type faces from Wikipedia.
News Gothic meets Polaroid, 1958
The original mark which I did for Stan Calderwood in 1958 which Land willingly approved.
It was used as corporate identity for the main business office at 549 Technology Square, Cambridge
It was used as product identity as well to fight Kodak yellow in the photo marketplace
It was perfectly compatible with the color stripes product identification
Product ID for all models at a later date
And perfectly harmonious with the introduction of SX-70, 41 years ago today
More, later
