The Times New Roman Empire Trivia Quiz

Answer: Swiss

Helvitca was created in 1957 by the Swiss designers Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. It was originally called Neue Haas Grotesk but the name was changed to Helvetica, after the home country of its designers, in 1960 in order to market the font internationally.

Answer: Blackletter

Gothic or blackletter typefaces are based on the writing style used in Western Europe between the 12th and 17th centuries. These typefaces are sometimes incorrectly referred to as Fraktur typefaces after a popular gothic typeface called Fraktur; however, this name refers just to the specific typeface and not the blackletter typefaces in general.

Answer: Gill Sans

The British designer Eric Gill created Gill Sans in 1926. It became a well used font in the UK and was used by the rail company LNER for their posters and timetables as well as on the covers of books published by Penguin.

Answer: 1930s

Times New Roman was first used in 'The Times' on 3rd October 1932. The typeface was designed by Stanley Morrison and Victor Lardent. Although Times New Roman is still a widely used font it has not been used by 'The Times' newspaper since 1972.

Answer: 'The Dark Knight Returns' and 'Watchmen'

Vincent Connare, a font designer for Microsoft, designed Comic Sans as a more appropriate font for use in speech bubbles in 'Microsoft Bob'; however, Comic Sans was not used in this program as the font was not completed in time. To get inspiration for the font, Connare used the two comic books he happened to have on desk at the time which were 'The Dark Knight Returns' and 'Watchmen'.

Answer: Roman typefaces

A serif is a little line present at the edges of letters in some typefaces. They often look like little flicks or tails. Times New Roman as an example of a serif or Roman typeface. They are sometimes called Roman typefaces because they are based on capitals used in writing in ancient Rome and minuscules (non-capitals) used in the Holy Roman Empire.

Answer: Road Signs

Transport was designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert in the late 1950s / early 1960s. By law it is the only typeface that can be used on UK road signs, the only exception is certain motorway signs for which the typeface Motorway is used instead.

Answer: Dyslexics

The Dutch designer Christian Boer, himself dyslexic, created his dyslexic friendly typeface, called Dyslexie, in 2008. It uses heavier and lighter lines and is designed to emphasise the differences between letters to assist in distinguishing between them.

Answer: Dingbat typefaces

Dingbats are symbols or pictures that were originally used by typesetters as spacers or just for ornamentation. The term is now used for computer fonts made up of symbols rather than letters. Some more common dingbat typefaces are Wingdings and Webdings, which are found in some Microsoft Windows programs.

Answer: Type Foundry

Companies which design and distribute typefaces are called type foundries - the term foundry stems from the time when type had to be cast from metal for use in printing presses. Although typefaces are now digital the name foundry is still used for these companies.