Times New Roman

Times New Roman is a serif typeface. It was made for legibility (easy reading) in body text. It was created by the British newspaper The Times in 1931. It was made by Stanley Morison, the artistic advisor to the British part of the newspaper. Victor Lardent, a lettering artist at Times advertising department, helped him make it.

The font is no longer used by the Times newspaper. It is used mostly in books and general printing. It has become a regular typeface used on most computers.

What Times New Roman looks like.

As a typeface used for newspapers, Times New Roman allows tight line-spacing and a smaller appearance. It was first seen in the Times on 3 October 1932.

Design

Times New Roman is packed together, with tall lowercase letters. These things make it easier to read.

Times New Roman Media

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  A digitisation of Times New Roman below the three typefaces originally considered as a basis for the Times project: Perpetua, Baskerville and Plantin. Times is most based on Plantin, but with the letters made taller and its appearance "modernised" by adding eighteenth- and nineteenth-century influences, in particular enhancing the stroke contrast.

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  Times compared with its influences in italic. The italic was made simpler than Plantin's, losing flourishes on the 'w' and 'v', but less radically than that of Perpetua.

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  In the roman style that the high serifs of the 'v' do not sit well with the lower shape of the 'i'.

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  Linotype's Legibility Group typefaces were becoming popular for newspaper printing around the time Times New Roman was created

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  Times compared to a modern-face and the wide, monoline Excelsior, part of Linotype's Legibility Group.

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  A Ludlow Typograph specimen of Times New Roman Type Specimen from the metal type period. The design was altered in smaller sizes to increase readability, particularly obvious in the widened spacing of the six and eight-point samples at centre right of the diagram. The hollows at the top of upstrokes are also not seen in the standard digitisations.

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  Working drawings for a Linotype release of "Times Roman". Various accents are drawn together on the same sheet.