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    Dr. Blokland

        More than 3.6 million copies of Gotteslob were printed in dtl Documenta in 2014

Frank E. Blokland made the first drawings for dtl Documenta in 1986. The idea was to develop a typeface that on the one hand would present a recognizable, contemporary, and powerful image, and on the other hand would work well in small text sizes, irrespective the applied resolution. In the second half of the 1980s the resolution of for instance laser printers was only 300 dpi and in combination with the unhinted PostScript Type3 format this put high demands on digital typefaces.
        The very first sketches for dtl Documenta from around 1985

The first range of letters were drawn by Blokland with a marker on an x-height of roughly 3.5 centimeters. Subsequently he experimented with the design size, by scanning the drawings and enlarging these via a matrixprinter to an x-height of roughly 15 centimeters. These enlargements were touched up with a Rotring pen and white gouache and these formed the basis for working drawings in outline, which Blokland later digitized in the ikarus format. Prior to the ikarus version Blokland developed –pixel by pixel– a range of complete fonts as high-resolution bitmaps on the 9-inch screen of a Macintosh Plus. This way roman, italic, bold and bold italic versions were created, besides swash variants.
        Originally bitmap fonts for print purposes were designed pixel for pixel on the screen

The bitmap versions were actually used around 1990 for the typesetting of books. Blokland himself used it for a book that accompanied an exhibition at the museum De Lakenhal in the city of Leiden. Also it was used for the publication Letters] & techniek, with a foreword by Huib van Krimpen. This book was awarded as one of the fifty ‘best designed books’ of the Netherlands of 1990. The text on the back of Blokland’s television course Calligraphy, the Art of Writing was typeset too in the bitmap version of dtl Documenta in 1990.
        Also a swash version in bitmap format was made

The development of the first range of weights/styles of dtl Documenta took seven years. In 1993 the typeface became available in the PostScript Type1 and TrueType formats. Around 1997 a small range of sans-serf versions were added on request of the municipal museum in The Hague, especially for accompanying texts on the walls of the rooms of museum. Almost immediately after releasing dtl Documenta its quality was recognized. In the second edition of his international bestseller The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst calls dtl Documenta a ‘sturdy open text face’ with an ‘equally unpretentious and well-made sanserif companion.
        Large metal versions of dtl Documenta were applied in the ‘Volkswagen Bibliothek’ in Berlin

In 2002 Charles Hedrick, director of the New Brunswick Computing Services of the university of New Jersey described dtl Documenta as ‘[..] It is in the Dutch tradition of type design, which means that it has letter shapes based on Renaissance designs, but with an increased x height. It appears to be an attempt to produce a font with classical roots that works well with digital technology. […] However the “finish” is rather different than typical revivals of Renaissance fonts: It has lower contrast and more robust serifs. These features make for a very even texture.[…].’ Although no Renaissance nor any other model formed the basis of dtl Documenta, this description confirms the pursued combination of elegance and robustness.
        dtl Documenta was the corporate typeface of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for ten years

The versatility of dtl Documenta is underpinned by its applications. It was the corporate-identity typeface of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum for more than a decade and it is part of the house style of the city of Amsterdam still. Also it has been the corporate typeface for the Diamond Trading Company. It was and is used for the lettering on many book jackets, as body text in magazines like the New Statesman and it was used for typesetting the Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper of Finland, for a long time.

Currently Blokland is working on additional weights and styles. The medium and bold italics, including small caps and old-style figures, have been added after 22 years now. Next the sans-serif version will be expanded.

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Last update: 20 December 2023. Copyright © Dutch Type Library, 1998–2023. All rights reserved

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