Front cover of the 5th printing, February 1968

From Wikipedia:

On Aggression (German: Das sogenannte Böse. Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression, “So-called Evil: on the natural history of aggression”) is a 1963 book by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz; it was translated into English in 1966. As he writes in the prologue, “the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species.”

The book was reviewed many times, both positively and negatively, by biologists, anthropologists, psychoanalysts and others. Much criticism was directed at Lorenz's extension of his findings on non-human animals to humans.

The first Bantam Books edition was published in 1967, featuring Tension for the title.

Back cover of the 5th printing, February 1968. The secondary typefaces are Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed – heer with sign painters’ quotes – and Century Expanded.

Front cover of the 10th printing, after March 1970. The secondary typefaces here are regular-wide Franklin Gothic and Caledonia, both in all caps.

Back cover of the 10th printing, after March 1970

Spanning the vibrancy and ‘liberated creative expression’ of Africa’s mid-century cultural resurgence from its era of independence to contemporary times, Brooklyn Museum’s Africa Fashion exhibition stands as a testament to the continent’s enduring creativity and stylistic influence on a global scale. Running from June to October 2023, this premiere showcase, unparalleled in scope, brought together an eclectic mix of over 180 artefacts – including couture, photographs, and an array of multimedia displays – to narrate a story of innovation and tradition, weaving together the diverse threads of African and diaspora experiences to reflect on fashion’s integral role in societal transformations. Meanwhile, maintaining and contributing to the ongoing dialogue between past and present design sensibilities.

Courtesy of Director of Graphic Design and Brand Creative Adam O’Reilly and his team, the exhibition identity for Africa Fashion, which took over physical and creative spaces – from enormous flag signage to tactile digital films – opted for a typographic approach that mirrored the show’s confidence, consideration and vitality. With a robust sans and sans serif combination of ABC Diatype by Dinamo and Grilli Type’s GT Alpina for practical secondary text, O’Reilly leant into the dramatic versatility of NaN Holo Compressed from NaN as the headline typeface.

Unconventional in its take on neo-Grotesks, NaN Holo’s contrasting rectangular and rounded details, warm character and rigorous structure made for a hero font that embodied the uncompromising and avant-garde nature of the exhibition, offering something that feels both familiar and remarkably original. This choice of typeface mirrored the exhibition’s thematic exploration of blending tradition with modernity, reflecting the dynamic interplay of historical legacies and contemporary innovations within African fashion. Through such meticulous attention to typographic detail, the exhibition’s visual language itself became a narrative tool, encapsulating the essence of African fashion’s transformative journey.

Our cover for a New York Times special section that appeared just before the 2020 US Presidential Election. Fifteen New York Times columnists answer the question “What Have We Lost?” during the Trump administration. Early on we recognized that this question itself contains fifteen letters, so we could therefore link up each letter to a columnist’s article. Starting with a foundation of Helvetica Medium, we cut out the letters as incomplete stencils and utilized spray paint to render these broken letterforms. The result was surprisingly readable—and despite utilizing the very familiar forms of Helvetica as a foundation—the statement manages to command the reader’s attention.

Source: store.nytimes.com The New York Times. License: All Rights Reserved.

The front page of The New York Times for Sunday, May 24th, 2020, was a stark wall of type, and only type: a long and somber list of Americans who have lost their lives to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Simone Landon, assistant editor of the Graphics desk, conceived the idea of compiling brief but evocative passages from obituaries of Covid-19 victims across the country as a way to communicate the situation with more depth than numeric tallies can offer. A team of editors and other colleagues helped compile nearly 1,000 names and biographical blurbs – a number which is staggeringly grim but still just 1% of the growing Covid-19 death count in the US.

A Times Insider article offered some background on how the iconic cover was conceived as a purely typographic design:

For the front page of the paper, two ideas stood out: either a grid of hundreds of pictures of those who had lost their lives to Covid-19, or an “all type” concept, [chief creative officer Tom Bodkin] said. Whichever approach was chosen, he said, “we wanted to take over the entire page.”

The all-type concept came to the fore. Such a treatment “would be hugely dramatic,” he said.

The design references that of centuries-old newspapers, which Mr. Bodkin is keenly interested in. For many years after The Times started publishing in 1851, there were no headlines, in the modern sense. […]

Mr. Bodkin said he did not remember any front pages without images during his 40 years at The Times, “though there have been some pages with only graphics,” he said, adding, “This is certainly a first in modern times.”

Andrew Sondern, an art director, is credited as being behind the print design of the list, which continues on additional interior pages. Online, the list is presented as a long-scrolling page with human figures representing all the lives lost.

Source: static01.nyt.com The New York Times. License: All Rights Reserved.

Detail

The typographic composition of the front page is simple but dense. The main body of the layout utilizes six justified columns of NYT Imperial, a custom typeface designed for The Times by Matthew Carter, based on Edwin W. Shaar’s Imperial. Each entry in the list is separated by a bullet glyph, and the name of each person is set bold.

The main headline is set in NYT Cheltenham, another typeface customized by Carter specifically for The Times, based on Bertram Goodhue et al’s Cheltenham. Cheltenham has become an essential element of the typographic identity for the paper, but this headline is unusual because it:

• spans across all columns
• in a relatively large size (33 points in the PDF file)
• with all-caps
• plus bold
• and italicization

It’s a combination of typographic emphasis reserved only for very unique occasions by The Times – something approaching ‘second coming’ type, especially for a paper that is typically more restrained with its headline typography.

The typographic composition is indeed novel for the front page, but it is also by no means fun. As Sondern explains on Twitter:

Each time we’ve run a dramatic page, someone invariably says that designers are having fun. Let’s be clear that this is not fun. Nobody is rooting for this. Reading and typesetting these 1,000 names was brutal, but these are extraordinary stories that require commensurate design.

Source: store.nytimes.com The New York Times. License: All Rights Reserved.

The list continues from the front page onto additional interior pages.

The illustration by Erik Carter and art direction by Matt Dorfman make this cover of the book review one to keep.

A spoken word documentary featuring news radio clips and speeches surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, issued on its 25th anniversary.

“Within the LP sleeve is a 12-page supplement reproducing pages from The New York Times, December 6-9, 1941, that tell the Pearl Harbor story.” — Discogs

At the 2016 Oscars, The New York Times aired its first-ever television commercial. The typographic spot features nothing but black text on a white background, sentences that start with "The truth is...". It references the state of politics in mass media, a battlefield where US President Donald Trump has lunched multiple attacks specifically aimed at the Times.

Source: www.youtube.com © 2017 The New York Times. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.youtube.com License: All Rights Reserved.

NYT Franklin stands straight on the empty background, a symbol of a broken and battered American dream. Almost spindly in appearance, it takes the strong character of NYT Karnak to save us from an impending populist doom.

Source: adage.com License: All Rights Reserved.

The campaign includes this accompanying print ad appearing in the Times. It is the newspaper’s first brand campaign in a decade. More info on Ad Age.

“Giorgio and its matching sans serif were originally designed in 2007 and 2008 for Chris Martinez, the art director at T, The New York Times Style Magazine, with the idea of bringing runway proportions, and the graphic style of the 1920s & ’30s to the page.” — Village

Web version of illustration, published Dec. 29, 2015.

Print version of illustration, published Jan. 3, 2016.

Ben Koski is an assistant editor for interactive news at The New York Times. On his puristic website he presents an overview of different sections of the daily news paper using Scout for headlines and section headings, Scout RE for navigation and subheadings as well as Georgia for longer text passages.

A New York Times article on Austrian real estate re-set entirely in Henriette.

Like Hochleitner’s Ingeborg, Henriette is a design so full of character at first glance that most folks will place it firmly in the category of display type, overlooking it as a text option. But it sets quite sober, readable text.

The only thing that makes me shy away is that the italics are noticeably lighter in color than their roman companions. This may not bother others, but I like my italic to be the same general weight or the emphasis is too stark. Still, what a lovely page this makes! Note the Black weight (a sophisticated Souvenir or Cooper Black) at the top and the Compressed in the sidebar.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Fun with webfont swapping. Tools: FontShop’s WebFonter and Webtype’s Fontswapper.

I never thought I’d use the word wobbly to describe the New York Times. But here I am, looking at the announcement for the nytimes.com redesign, with crossed eyes. This one-page site is dominated by a rare instance of off-brand typography. FF Enzo has too much sway for a venerable publication. The Times wants readers to believe in an unimpeded, immersive reading experience, but Enzo contradicts that tone, waving like an excited kid.

The body copy is set in NYT Cheltenham, so I expect to see their sans, NYT Franklin, when a punch is needed. An earlier marketing page relied solely on Cheltenham and it’s quieter, perhaps too passive. This announcement is meant to reach more people, so a bolder design makes sense. The video, which also uses Enzo, is an engaging way to get people excited about things like new grids. Is it possible that the video came first, determining the type selection? Maybe; but Enzo is served via Typekit, so it’s availability there makes me think this was a simultaneous decision. Anyway, that wouldn’t explain the deviation of brand.

Tomorrow the redesign goes live. At which point this promo will be moot — no previews or leaks have revealed that new fonts like Enzo will be introduced in the redesign. Too many of us know that marketing pieces are often produced separately from a publication’s design department. Nonetheless, this should serve as a reminder that the wrong typeface will hijack the mood. And nobody wants to read when they’re being held hostage.

Update: On the new homepage, a link to this promotional site is front and center. And FF Enzo is being used in promotions, like banner ads, post-launch (show below).

“The year’s best big-screen performers in 11 original (very) short films.”

The New York TImes Magazine’s June 9, 2013 edition pays tribute to creative innovations, from brunch to the turnstile, and those who created them. It even credits a typeface on the cover: LL Circular. The Stymie is NYT’s custom version that has been used in the magazine for years, and now on the newspaper’s website. 

See the online edition of this issue.

The New York Times Magazine did something new with the online edition of their 2013 Innovations Issue, building a dedicated section of their site for the 48 short essays, with color schemes and type to match the print edition designed by Arem Duplessis.

The typefaces are LL Circular, a new release from Lineto which even gets a mention up front, A2 Beckett for headlines, Georgia for text, and just a dash of the NYT’s custom bold condensed Stymie on the front page. The format isn’t complex, but it feels like a pretty special edition of the magazine due to the unique packaging, navigation, colors, and especially the type. The design also responds quite well to narrow window sizes

I have only two complaints. Some of the color backgrounds are a little too strong for reading, especially when they also include a halftone image like the “Sleep-Away Camp” article below. To counteract this, the designers added a tiny white drop shadow to the text (an increasingly popular practice on the web), but I think this does more harm than good — though the effect is sharper and more distracting in some of these screenshots (shown at reduced size) than as I experienced it in the browser.

The other beef is minor: the right margin is slightly cropped for me (see the comments link at top of all pages), probably because they only tested on a Mac which had the default hidden OS X scrollbars that only appear when scrolling. Oops.

Props for hanging the quote!

I don’t want to read this. That background image is just too intrusive.

Stymie has been chosen to set headlines and titles in magazine pieces and longer articles that require a louder, heavier display face.

The New York Times recently announced an update to their article pages which highlight many distinct typographic changes since the last update in 2006.

NYT Cheltenham is used throughout this redesign as the primary headline typeface. It was originally commisioned by Tom Bodkin, the assistant managing editor and design director, who called on none other than Matthew Carter to create multiple widths and weights of Cheltenham specifically for the newspaper.

NYT’s Stymie and Karnak have been chosen to set headlines and titles in magazine pieces and longer articles that require a louder, heavier display face

NYT Franklin sets meta information, captions and navigational text that replaces the old site’s heavy dependence on Arial and all caps Georgia.

Georgia is still in use for the running text which is quite peculiar. I wonder why the designers would choose to stick with this typeface when historically the others are so prominently defined as turn of the century ‘New York typefaces’.

You can read more about the design over on The Verge.

NYT Franklin sets meta information, captions and navigational text that replaces the old site’s heavy dependence on Arial and all caps Georgia.

New York Times:

Scientific terms like “organism” and “photosynthesis” have no widely accepted equivalent in sign language, so deaf students and professionals have unexpected hurdles when talking about science. Here, Lydia Callis, a professional sign language interpreter, translates a shortened version of an article by Douglas Quenqua, explaining how new signs are being developed that may enhance scientific learning and communication.

The typeface used here is the New York Times’ own Cheltenham, customized by Matthew Carter.

Screenshot taken of the nytimes.com homepage shortly after they called Obama’s victory.

The night of the 2012 presidential elections was the first time the New York Times used webfonts for the headlines on their homepage. Specifically, their custom version of Cheltenham was used to report the news of the election results.

The Times has been using webfonts for their Opinion section and other less-prominent pages (served with the help of technology from Typekit), but this seems to be the first time that webfonts have shown up front and center on their homepage.

While the use of custom typefaces for headlines helps the Times tie their online presence more tightly with the rest of their existing (mostly printed) visual brand, there is still much room for improvement in the rest of the type palette and overall layout of their website. Most of the current site consists of Arial and Georgia arranged on a relatively generic and static grid.

Hopefully this new prominence of webfont headlines for some of the year’s biggest news (as well as webfonts in the wonderful accompanying info graphics – a topic for a separate post on its own) points to upcoming improvements in nytimes.com’s typography. They could take a lesson from their sister site, bostonglobe.com, which recently underwent an overhaul with webfonts and responsive layout throughout.

Despite webfont headlines, there’s still a disparity between the overall look and feel of the layouts for the paper and web editions of the Times. Shown here is a sneak peek of the Nov 7 print edition shared by @nytimes on Twitter.