Scene/Rockwell

Scene

Sebastian Lester spent several years designing for the music and games industries and dabbling in 3D animation before joining Monotype Imaging, where he creates fonts for both on-screen and print uses.

Work on Scene began after Lester had developed several corporate identity fonts for Monotype Imaging. The family is the result of two years of after-hours and weekend work. “It started off as a part-time project,” says Lester, “but ended up as virtually a second full-time job.”

Also included with the basic character set is a set of “semi-sans” characters that introduce more expressive word rhythms into headlines and blocks of copy. In addition, aligning and old style numerals were drawn for all six weights.

Rockwell

The first successful Slab, or “Square,” serif typeface was released by the London type founder, Vincent Figgins, in 1815. The face was a cap-only design called “Antique” and was offered in three sizes. About the same time, William Caslon IV brought out a single mono-weight sans serif typeface called “Egyptian.” This term, however, was soon used to label all slab-serif typefaces and is still used today.

By 1825, slab-serif typefaces were issued with lowercase characters. The popularity of these designs waned in the first three decades of the Twentieth century until geometric sans serif typefaces became popular. Soon, new slab-serif typefaces patterned after geometric shapes began to be released. The Rockwell family, first issued in 1933, is Monotype’s answer to this typographic style.

• Allan Haley is Director of Words & Letters at Monotype Imaging. Here he is responsible for strategic planning and creative implementation of just about everything related to typeface designs. He is also responsible for editorial content for the company’s type libraries and Web sites.
• Prior to working for Monotype, Mr. Haley was Principal of Resolution, a consulting firm with expertise in fonts, font technology, type and typographic communication. He was also executive vice president of International Typeface Corporation.
• Mr. Haley is ex officio Chairman of the Board of the Society of Typographic Aficionados, and past President of the New York Type Directors Club. He is highly regarded as an educator and is a frequently requested speaker at national computer and design conferences.
• Mr. Haley is also a prolific writer, with five books on type and graphic communication and hundreds of articles for graphic design publications to his credit.