Folio Background
Folio is classified as a geometric sans serif or a realist sans serif and was designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum in 1957. Like Helvetica and Univers, which were also released at the same time, it is part of the International Typographic Style and modeled after Akzidenz-Grotesk. However, Folio is more closely modeled on Akzidenz-Grotesk than the other two, which have larger x-heights. Due to good marketing, the typeface experienced moderate success in the United States. The typeface family was extended in 1963, adding an Extra Bold weight and a Bold Condensed width. Some distinguishing features of the typeface are the capital Q's tail is centered under the figure, the uppercase J has a slight hook, and there are two versions of uppercase R, one with a straight tail and one with a curved tail.
Sans Serifs can be found in history as early as the 5th century, although the classical revival of the Italian Renaissance return to old style serifed typefaces made them virtually obsolete until the 20th century. The first known usage of Etruscan sans-serif foundry types was from Thomas Dempster's De Etruria regali libri VII (1723). Later at about 1745, Caslon foundry made its the first sans-serif types for Etruscan languages, which was used by University Press, Oxford, for pamphlets written by Etruscan scholar John Swinton.
In late 18th century, Neoclassicism movement led to architects to increasingly incorporating ancient Greek and Roman designs in contemporary structures. Among the architects, John Soane was noted for using sans serif letters on his drawings and architectural designs, which were eventually adopted by other designers, such as Thomas Banks, John Flaxman. Sans-serif letters began to appear in printed media as early as 1805, in European Magazine. However, early 19th-century commercial sign writers and engravers had modified the sans-serif styles of neoclassical designers to include uneven stroke weights found in serif Roman fonts, producing sans-serif letters. The term Sans-serif was first employed in 1830 by Figgins foundry.
Their was much development of sans-serif typefaces in Germany as a revolt against the ornate lettering of the popular Blackletter styles which led to sans-serif typefaces based on the purity of geometric forms.
Sans serif type was used almost exclusively for display type and continued as such into the early twentieth century. Then, typographers associated with the German Bauhaus movement began designing and using sans serifs for texts. The oppressive German government forced many designers who used this new typography to flee. In modern typography, sans serif faces are widely used to convey a modern or progressive feeling. Sans serif was being created during the industrial revolution and communication brought posters and flyers to the forefront of society, with a need for bold printing types that could grab attention. It was proved to be effective in commanding a reader’s attention.
Geometric Sans-serif typefaces were influenced by the Bauhaus movement and feature circular or geometric letters, with little variation in stroke thickness. The area around the letters usually forms some type of geometric shape. As well, they first appeared in the early 1920s. Initially designed as an alternative to the difficult to read German fraktur, geometric types depended on clean legible forms. The first half of 20th century is the end of the Modern era, the moment when revived typefaces were flooding the typography mainstream. But it was also the time when a completely different font design was booming, called sans serif a type that does not have serifs and it is French for “without serifs.” It wasn't an absolutely new idea at that time, since first sans serif faces had appeared in the beginning of 19th century; but never before this seemingly peripheral and exotic trend claimed so much importance as in 1920s and 30s. Typefaces within each classification of sans serif usually share similarities in stroke thickness, weight, and the shapes of certain letterforms. The German Bauhaus movement of 1920s (influenced by earlier Russian constructivism), required adequate means of typographic expression. These movements stressed utilitarian aspects in design, claiming that a thing becomes beautiful only when and because it serves a practical purpose, denying any attempts to artificially "adorn" it. Also notable is the precise minimalism of these designs. The characters almost always are made up from straight horizontal and vertical lines, and arcs that are very circular ( to the point where they often look as though they were drawn with a compass ).
Bauer licensed the design to Fonderie Typographique Francaise for sale in France under the name Caravelle. Folio benefited from the promotion of the excellent sales agency that Bauer had long retained in the United States. It also became available for the linecasting machine when adopted under a royalty agreement by the Intertype Corporation. Folio was one of the first popular Swiss Sanserif; the positive black shapes of the letters appear to be locked inevitably into the correct position by the firm and positive white shapes that surround them. The typeface family was extended in 1963, adding an Extra Bold weight and a Bold Condensed width. The designers based their ideas on Helvetica but Folio did not turn out to pose the competition they had hoped. The font has the same applications as Helvetica and is an extremely legible font. Folio is particularly good for text and has an objective, neutral character. Folio is based on 19th-century German models, and Fortune, the first clarendon to have a companion italic. Geometric sans serifs have the illusion of ‘monoline’ letter construction. As well, classic proportions mostly appear in geometric sans serifs. Geometric fonts tend to be the least useful for body text. Lastly, according to some sources Folio can also be known as a realist sans serif and has some characteristics of neo-grotesque because of its letter E and O.
Biography of Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum
The designers of the font, Folio were Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum. Konrad Bauer was a mid-twentieth century director of the Bauer type foundry in Germany, where he was deeply involved in the production of new typographic designs. Bauer was born into a printing family in Hamburg, Germany in 1903, he trained as a typesetter and studied art history. He finished his studies with a doctorate, specialized in the history of lettering, and learned calligraphy, before serving a printer’s apprenticeship. His whole working life was concerned with type and printing; he even continued to work with the Bauer Type foundry after his retirement. The Bauer Type Foundry was a German type foundry founded in 1837. The company nearly went bankrupt at the end of the 19th century because the company's administration assumed that type founding, rather than typesetting, would be automated. The new owner, Georg Hartmann succeeded in saving the company. Subsequently, the company grew, also due to several takeovers, e.g. in 1916 by Frankfurt's type foundry Flinsch, itself a global player. In 1927, an office was opened in New York.He died in Schönberg, Germany in 1970, aged 66.
Bauer first began working at the Bauersche Gießerei in Frankfurt am Main in 1928, and he continued to be associated with the foundry throughout his life, rising to become its art director in 1948. He also worked in various other positions, including from 1932 until 1936, as a member of the editorial staff for the Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde (a monthly magazine for bibliophiles) and between 1938 and 1940 he was the editor of the Imprimatur yearbook. From its inception in 1952 until 1964, he headed the jury of Die schönsten Bücher Deutschlands, a competition searching for the most beautiful book in Germany. He also taught book design, type and printing at the University of Mainz in the late 1940s. Bauer was interested in the history of printing and wrote several books, pamphlets and articles. He taught book design and printing at the University of mainz.
Walter Baum was born in Gummersbach, Germany in 1921 and died in 2007, he worked variously as a type designer, graphic artist, and teacher. He trained as a typesetter before studying at the Meisterschule für das gestaltende Handwerk (school for creative trades) in Offenbach. With his studies complete, he joined Frankfurt's Bauersche Gießerei, where he eventually became director of its graphic studio. in 1949, Baum joined Bauersche Giesserei in Frankfurt am main, where he became dierector of the graphics studio and collaborated with Konrad F Bauer on many type projects. From 1972 until 1986 he was the owner and director of Kunstschule Westend (Westend Art School) in Frankfurt am Main.Overall, Walter Baum was known as a type designer, graphic artist, and a teacher.
Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum, he designed several fonts, including Alpha, Beta, Folio, Imprimatur, Volta, Verdi, and Impressum. As well, they designed fonts with each other and did not design any individually. Lastly, they also designed the font Impressum together in 1963, which became very popular with newspaper publishers.
What happened around 1957
The Korean war went on from 1950-1953. The Vietnam War began in 1959. The world's first nuclear power plant was opened in Obninsk near Moscow. An immunization vaccine is produced for polio. Rock and Roll emerged in the mid-50s as the teen music of choice with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Fat Domino, Little Richard, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens , and Ricky Nelson being notable exponents. In the mid-1950s Elvis Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. In the early 1950s Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning were enormously influential. Pop Art used the iconography of television, photography, comics, cinema and advertising. With its roots in Dadism, it started to take form towards the end of the 1950s when some European artists started to make the symbols and products of the world of advertising and propaganda the main subject of their artistic work.
Overall, I do believe that what was happening influenced the design of Folio, because the world was changing rapidly and becoming more involved with art. People were starting to express themselves more and were starting to change the world through art and music. Since Folio was made in 1957, I believe that Bauer and Baum were influenced by all of the new media that was starting to come out and so they wanted to make a font to fit well in communicating messages through the media.
Bibliography
An A-Z of Type Designers by Neil Macmillian
Anatomy of a Typeface by Alexander S. Lawson
Designing Type by Karen Cheng
http://www.identifont.com/show?196
http://www.webreference.com/dlab/9802/sansserif.html
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