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Article written by
Graham

 

Behind the face

Apple’s corporate typeface is a font called Myriad. This is the font you see when you read the word iPod or iPhone on those little miracle machines. Designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe the font is now used worldwide for other corporations such as Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo. But back to Robert Slimbach. Who is he? A type designer, aged 54 this year, who has worked with Adobe since 1987, with a string of awards and accolades from the typographic world. He spent his youth in Southern California where he ran a screen printing printshop for posters and greeting cards. With contacts he moved into type design and came up with Caflisch, Adobe Garamond (based on his studies at the Plantin-Moretus museum in Antwerp, Belgium, to study the original Garamond typefaces), Adobe Jenson, Kepler, and Minion amongst others. He now directs Adobe’s type design programme.

Here is the hunk (early version)



And he works here



A corporate man. So far, so boring.

Now to Carol Twombly. She studied sculpture at Rhode Island Design School then changed to graphic design, was employed at Adobe and won awards, etc. It’s thought that Carol isn’t married, the last that was heard, though she does have a partner. She’s left Adobe, retired and moved to Nevada to weave. And from work colleagues it’s apparent she hated working for Adobe. In the end she just wasn’t interested in Adobe or typography. The fire went out. She was hemmed in at Adobe by huge designers like Slimbach and she didn’t have the chance to really flourish. Her name is put to Adobe Caslon but it’s thought Sumner Stone, her art director, probably had the biggest pull on that. In the end a work friend says she was glad to get out. How odd that her name is attached to some of the best designed faces last century (Trajan, Adobe Caslon, Charlemagne, Lithos and others amongst which was ... Myriad).

This is her, on the 1989 Trajan specimen sheet.



She now weaves here...



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  • Burglary campaign
  • Talking Bollocks
  • Tackling Drugs Week
  • Casino photography
  • Rock Awards
  • e2v Brand Book
  • Cromwell Place
  • Neighbourhood Policing
  • Punch Taverns
  • Quarterly campaign
  • ICS brand development
  • Social media campaign