| Date: 1969 Designer:
Hans Eduard Meier Foundry:
Stempel Location:
Germany Current equivalent:
Linotype Syntax See also:
Linotype Syntax, Syntax Lapidar, BT Humanist 531, Symphony
Technologies:
Digital Photosetting
Postscript
Truetype | | Famous for:
A landmark adaptation of renaissance structure to the sans serif style. Applications: Business and Corporate Ubiquity:
Widely used Category:
Sans Serif Humanist Stress: Almost vertical
Serifs: Sans | | Design history:
Syntax, designed in the late 1960s, was the last typeface to be issued by Stempel as a hot metal face. As with Optima, it has a subtly modulated stroke, an italic that is not cursive, and an underlying concept that prefigures the later interest in humanistic sans serifs by several decades. With a very slight (half a degree) tilt in the roman design, Syntax has a vitality that other similar faces lack, and this type is therefore viable for setting longer texts. Released initially as four weights with an italic only for the roman, an extended version of Syntax was undertaken by Meier in collaboration with Linotype in 1995 and released in 2001 as a comprehensive family of six weights with italics, small caps and non-lining numerals for all the weights. | |  |
