Johnston Sans

visual reference

• Trajan's Columnnot yet generatedgenerate →

  johnston based the capital letter proportions in johnston sans on the roman square capitals inscribed at the base of trajan's column. frank pick's brief specified sans serif not serifed trajan capitals, so johnston stripped the carved letterforms to their geometric skeleton, keeping the three width groupings and classical ratios while removing serifs and stroke modulation.

  “drawing inspiration from the classical Roman square capitals of Trajan's Column for its proportions and clarity”

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• Caslon · William Caslonnot yet generatedgenerate →

  johnston had worked on a book printed in caslon shortly before designing the underground typeface and reproduced caslon's lowercase structure in his 1906 textbook. justin howes noted the similarity of johnston's lowercase letters to caslon's eighteenth century serif design, which johnston adapted for his sans serif by removing serifs while keeping the basic letter architecture.

  “Justin Howes, author of the leading work on the Johnston Sans design, Johnston's Underground Type, has highlighted the similarity of the design to the eighteenth-century Caslon type designed by William Caslon in particular, noting that Johnston had worked on a book printed using this typeface shortly before starting work on his design and reproduced their structure in a textbook.”

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• medieval manuscripts at the British Museumnot yet generatedgenerate →

  william lethaby sent johnston to study manuscripts at the british museum in 1898, which led johnston to adopt the broad edged pen and study half uncial scripts and later the tenth century ramsey psalter. these manuscript forms taught him the structure of lowercase letters and the principle that letterforms emerge from the writing tool, both foundational to the design of johnston sans.

  “After seeing samples of Johnston's written illuminated work, Lethaby commissioned a work from Johnston and urged him to study manuscripts at the British Museum.”

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