Minion (typeface)#Minion Math
{{Short description|Serif typeface}}
{{Infobox font
| name = Adobe Minion
| image = Minion opticals sample.png
| style = Serif
| classifications = Garalde old-style
| creator = Robert Slimbach
| releasedate = 1990{{cite web|last1=Riggs|first1=Tamye|title=The Adobe Originals Silver Anniversary Story: Expanding the Originals|url=https://blog.typekit.com/2014/06/30/the-adobe-originals-silver-anniversary-story-expanding-the-originals/|website=Typekit|publisher=Adobe Systems|accessdate=27 February 2017}}
| foundry = Adobe Systems
| latin = yes
| greek = yes
| cyrillic = yes
}}
Minion is a serif typeface released in 1990 by Adobe Systems. Designed by Robert Slimbach, it is inspired by late Renaissance-era type and intended for body text and extended reading. Minion's name comes from the traditional naming system for type sizes, in which minion is between nonpareil and brevier, with the type body 7pt in height.{{cite web|last1=Phinney|first1=Thomas|title=Point Size and the Em Square: Not What People Think|url=http://www.thomasphinney.com/2011/03/point-size/|website=Phinney on Fonts|date=18 March 2011}}{{cite web|last1=Slimbach|first1=Robert|last2=Bringhurst|first2=Robert|author-link1=Robert Slimbach|author-link2=Robert Bringhurst|title=A conversation between Robert Slimbach and Robert Bringhurst about Minion|url=https://minion.typekit.com/design/bringhurst/|website=Minion 3–Typekit|publisher=Adobe Systems|accessdate=19 April 2018}}{{cite web |last1=Slimbach |first1=Robert |title=Robert Slimbach on Minion's historical context: milestones in the evolution of old style roman typefaces |url=https://minion.typekit.com/design/slimbach/ |website=Minion 3 |publisher=Typekit |accessdate=19 June 2018}} As the historically rooted name indicates, Minion was designed for body text in a classic style, although slightly condensed and with large apertures to increase legibility.{{cite web|title=Minion|url=https://typekit.com/fonts/minion-pro|website=Typekit|publisher=Adobe|accessdate=2 July 2015}} Slimbach described the design as having "a simplified structure and moderate proportions."{{cite web|last1=Slye|first1=Christopher|title=Coming to your desktop: fonts from Adobe|url=http://blog.typekit.com/2013/06/19/coming-to-your-desktop-fonts-from-adobe/|website=Typekit Blog|publisher=Adobe}} The design is slightly condensed, although Slimbach has said that this was intended not for commercial reasons so much as to achieve a good balance of the size of letters relative to the ascenders and descenders.
Minion was developed into a large family using sophisticated interpolation or multiple master technology to create a range of weights and optical sizes suitable for different text sizes.{{cite web|title=DesigningMultiple Master Typefaces|url=https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/font/5091.Design_MM_Fonts.pdf|publisher=Adobe|accessdate=2 July 2015|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150706062642/http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/font/5091.Design_MM_Fonts.pdf|archivedate=6 July 2015}}{{cite journal |last1=Carter |first1=Sebastian |authorlink1=Sebastian Carter |title=Typeface Review: Adobe Minion |journal=Bulletin of the Printing Historical Society |issue=35 |pages=14–15, supplement issue 36 p. 15}}{{cite web |last1=Lo Celso |first1=Alejandro |title=A discussion on Type Design Revivalism |url=https://pampatype.com/blog/type-design-revivalism |publisher=PampaType |accessdate=19 June 2018}} This automation of font creation was intended to create a seamless transition of styles from solid, chunky designs for caption-size small print to more graceful and slender designs for headings.{{cite web|last1=Riggs|first1=Tamye|title=The Adobe Originals Silver Anniversary Story|url=http://blog.typekit.com/2014/07/30/the-adobe-originals-silver-anniversary-story-how-the-originals-endured-in-an-ever-changing-industry/|website=Typekit blog|publisher=Adobe|accessdate=2 July 2015}}{{efn|The original goal was that this would be controllable from inside applications using text, so a user could fine-tune the font to the exact form they needed (thickness, optical size, level of condensation, etc.){{cite web|last1=Phinney|first1=Thomas|title=Font Remix Tools (RMX) and Multiple Master Fonts in type design|date=18 March 2010|url=http://www.thomasphinney.com/2010/03/font-remix-tools-rmx-and-multiple-master-fonts-in-type-design/|publisher=Phinney|accessdate=4 July 2015}} Making apps support this proved impractical, and so instead multiple master fonts have been released in a set of styles likely to be useful.{{cite web|last1=Phinney|first1=Thomas|title=TrueType, PostScript Type 1, & OpenType: What's the Difference?|url=http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/files/typblography/TT%20PS%20OpenType.pdf|publisher=Adobe|accessdate=4 July 2015}}}} It is an early member of what became Adobe's Originals program, which created a set of type families primarily for book and print use, many like Minion in a deliberately historical, humanist style.{{efn|This describes their original design goal: with the growth of webfonts and higher-resolution displays it has become more practical to use them for onscreen use as well.}}
Minion is a very large family of fonts, including Greek, Armenian and Cyrillic alphabets, optical sizes, condensed styles and stylistic alternates such as swash capitals.{{cite web|title=Adobe Typography Primer|url=http://info.ils.indiana.edu/~katy/S637-S11/Adobe-type-primer.pdf|publisher=Adobe|accessdate=2 July 2015}} As a standard font in many of Adobe's programs, it is one of the most popular serif typefaces used in books. One of the most famous uses of Minion is The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst's book about fine printing and page layout.{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|title=Top Ten Typefaces Used by Book Design Winners|url=http://fontfeed.com/archives/top-ten-typefaces-used-by-book-design-winners/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120228035307/http://fontfeed.com/archives/top-ten-typefaces-used-by-book-design-winners/|url-status=dead|archive-date=28 February 2012|website=FontFeed (archived)|accessdate=2 July 2015}}{{cite book|last=Bringhurst|first=Robert|title=The elements of typographic style|date=1996|publisher=Hartley & Marks|location=Point Roberts|isbn=0881791334|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780881791327/page/49 49]|edition=2.|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780881791327/page/49}}
Releases
Image:Regular italic swash cap.png capital letters in (L-R) regular, italic and swash style]]
Modern Minion releases are in the OpenType (otf) format, allowing a variety of stylistic alternates such as small caps and ligatures to be encoded in the same font. The original release used additional 'expert set' fonts for these features, and may remain used by designers using more primitive software such as Microsoft Office that has limited OpenType support. Like many Adobe fonts, Minion included a 'Th' ligature derived from traditional calligraphy.{{cite web | last=Shaw | first = Paul | title=Flawed Typefaces | url=http://www.printmag.com/featured/flawed-typefaces/ | website = Print | date = May 12, 2011 | access-date= February 16, 2019}}
=Minion=
The original release. Minion Black does not have an italic counterpart. Minion Expert is a separate font package that include fonts containing small caps, ligatures, old style figures, and swash glyphs. There are also fonts for dingbats (Minion Ornaments), and a Black-weighted font (Minion Black Expert). Swash fonts are included for only the 2 lightest font weights. An 'expert set' font is used for older and simpler applications that cannot handle multiple text styles for the same letter (such as both lower-case letters and small caps) in the same font. Slimbach stated, "I saw it as being useful in text applications like newspapers, textbooks, and manuals, as well as signage and titles."{{Cite journal | last=Shaw | first=Paul | title=Classic Study: The Type Faces of Robert Slimbach | journal=Print | volume=54 | issue=5 | page=46}}
= Minion Cyrillic =
Minion Cyrillic was designed in 1992 by Robert Slimbach and was conceived as a non-Latin counterpart to Slimbach’s Minion typeface family. There were no Display-sized fonts, expert fonts, or Black-weighted fonts in this family.
= Minion MM =
The Multi Master version of the original Minion family, released in 1992. Commonly used in Adobe Acrobat to replace unknown fonts.
= Minion Std Black =
An OpenType version of the Minion Black font, but includes features found in Expert versions of PostScript Minion Black fonts. In addition, character set was updated to support Adobe Western 2.
= Minion Pro =
An OpenType update of the original family, released in 2000. The update is based on Minion MM but features slight changes to the selection of instances and modifications of the font metrics.[http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype/T1_to_OTF_FAQ.htm Type 1 ("PostScript") to OpenType font conversion]
Minion Pro comes with 4 optical sizes (Regular, Caption, Subhead, and Display), 2 widths (Regular and Condensed), 4 weights (Regular, Medium, Semibold, and Bold), each with its respective italic, totaling 64 styles. {{cite web|title=Minion Font |url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/minion|accessdate=2022-02-19}} The Black weight from Minion Black Expert was not included. Each font includes the expert glyphs and dingbats that were previously found in Minion Expert package (swashes available in italic fonts only), Cyrillic Glyphs from Minion Cyrillic. In addition, the font family supports Adobe CE, Adobe Western 2, Greek, Latin Extended, Vietnamese character sets.
Although any of the fonts may be used at any size, the intended point sizes for the designs of this family are:{{cite web |title=Minion Pro Opticals |url=https://cdnimg.fonts.net/CatalogImages/44/215825-Minion%20Pro%20Opticals%20ReadMe.pdf |accessdate=2022-02-15}}
| class="wikitable" | ||||
| Optical sizes | Caption | Regular | Subhead | Display |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intended point sizes
| 6–8.4 || 8.5–13.0 || 13.1–19.9 || 20+ |
Minion Pro won the bukva:raz! 2001 award under the Greek category.[http://www.tdc.org/news/2001bukvaresults.html Type Directors Club : News : bukva:raz! Results] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080918043557/http://www.tdc.org/news/2001bukvaresults.html |date=2008-09-18 }}
= Minion Web =
A TrueType version of Minion, designed for screen use. It supports ISO-Adobe character set. Version 1.00 of the font was distributed with Internet Explorer 4.0.
= Minion Web Pro =
An updated version of Minion Web, which supports Adobe CE and Adobe Western 2 character sets.
=Minion 3 (2018)=
A rerelease including Armenian, redesigned Greek characters, full support for International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and other modifications.{{cite web|last1=Kerrigan|first1=Sally|title=A classic for 30 years, updated: Introducing Minion 3|url=https://blog.typekit.com/2018/04/18/a-classic-for-30-years-updated-introducing-minion-3/|website=Typekit Blog|publisher=Adobe|accessdate=19 April 2018}}{{cite web|title=Minion 3: Design|url=https://minion.typekit.com/design/|website=Typekit|publisher=Adobe Systems|accessdate=19 April 2018}}{{cite web|first=John|last=Berry|title=Minion 3: History|url=https://minion.typekit.com/history/|website=Typekit|publisher=Adobe Systems|accessdate=19 April 2018}}{{cite web|title=Minion 3: Usage|url=https://minion.typekit.com/usage/|website=Typekit|publisher=Adobe Systems|accessdate=19 April 2018}} For example, Minion Pro provides the "Th" ligature by default, while Minion 3 only does so when discretionary ligatures are enabled. {{cite web |title=Minion 3 – (re-)enable Th-ligature without using dlig? |date=29 April 2019 |url=https://community.adobe.com/t5/type-typography-discussions/minion-3-re-enable-th-ligature-without-using-dlig/td-p/10399431 |accessdate=2022-02-15}}
Minion 3 comes with 4 optical sizes (Regular, Caption, Subhead, and Display) and 4 weights (Regular, Medium, Semibold, and Bold), each with its respective italic, totaling 32 styles. {{cite web|title=Minion 3 Font |url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/minion-3/|accessdate=2022-02-19}}
Similar to Minion Pro, although any of the fonts may be used at any size, the intended point sizes for the designs of this family are:{{cite web |title=Minion 3 Usage - "Optical sizes" |url=https://minion.typekit.com/usage/ |accessdate=2023-01-10}}
| class="wikitable" | ||||
| Optical sizes | Caption | Regular | Subhead | Display |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intended point sizes
| 6–9 || 9–14 || 14–24 || 24+ |
Reception
Minion has generally received praise for its effectiveness as a clean, neutral book face with a very comprehensive range of features and styles. Slimbach himself has described it as "an exercise in restraint", noting that his other old-style serif designs, Arno and Jenson, are more eccentric.{{cite book|last1=Twardoch, Slimbach, Sousa, Slye|title=Arno Pro|date=2007|publisher=Adobe Systems|location=San Jose|url=http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/type/pdfs/ArnoPro.pdf|accessdate=14 August 2015}}
Type designer Matthew Butterick mildly criticised it for being overused: "Minion is beautifully made—it’s balanced, it’s clean, it’s handsome, it’s conservative. It’s easy to like. And it’s been hugely successful as a book font, meaning you will not get fired for using Minion ... [but] Minion succeeds so well in being noncontroversially good-looking that I find it sort of dull."{{cite web|last1=Butterick |first1=Matthew |title=Minion |url=http://typographyforlawyers.com/minion.html |website=Typography for Lawyers |accessdate=15 August 2015 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150501231020/http://typographyforlawyers.com/minion.html |archivedate=1 May 2015 }}
Usage
- DreamWorks Animation LLC uses Minion Black as its primary logo
- In 2003, Brown University adopted Minion as the typeface for the University logo.{{cite web | url=http://www.brown.edu/webmaster/visual_identity/logo.html | title=Brown University: Visual Identity and Graphic Standards - The New Logo | accessdate=2009-12-15 }}
- In 2008, Wake Forest University adopted Minion Pro as its primary serif typeface as part of its project to update the university's visual identity, noting that the font "... exhibits warmth and balance ...".{{cite web | url=http://www.wfu.edu/identity/guide/wfu_identity.typography.pdf | title=Section 4: Typography | accessdate=2008-09-03 | work=Identity Standards, Standards Guide | publisher=Wake Forest University | page=2}}
- Leiden University uses Minion Pro as its primary font, including in its logo.{{cite web|url=https://huisstijl.leidenuniv.nl/en/basic-elements/fonts/ | title= House style guidelines: Fonts|publisher=Universiteit Leiden|accessdate=2020-11-09}}
- Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style (Hartley & Marks, 2008) uses Minion as its body face.{{cite web|last1=Coles|first1=Stephen|title=The Elements of Typographic Style, 4th Edition by Robert Bringhurst|url=https://fontsinuse.com/uses/3377/the-elements-of-typographic-style-4th-edition|website=Fonts in Use|date=10 March 2013|accessdate=17 March 2018}}
- University of Otago uses Minion as its serif typeface, including in its logo.[http://www.otago.ac.nz/administration/service_divisions/mandc_communications/otago017269.html University of Otago Brand Guide]
- The logo of the Smithsonian is Minion Pro.{{cite web | url=http://www.logo.si.edu/specs.cfm | archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130819183415/http://logo.si.edu/specs.cfm | url-status=dead | archive-date=2013-08-19 | title=Smithsonian Visual Identity Program - Logo Specifications | accessdate=2012-12-13 }}
- The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language is printed in Adobe Minion.The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CUP, 2002), p. iv.
- In 2019, the Daughters of the American Revolution adopted Minion as their primary font, especially for their logo.
- University of Rome Tor Vergata uses it for its new logo {{Cite web|url=https://web.uniroma2.it/index.php/it/contenuto/uso_del_logo_di_ateneo|title=Uso del logo di Ateneo}}
Related typefaces
=Adobe=
The Latin glyphs of Minion are also used in other Adobe font families created to support non-Latin languages, including Adobe Arabic,{{cite web | url=https://www.myfonts.com/collections/adobe-arabic-font-adobe | title=Adobe Arabic Font | accessdate=2022-08-15 }} Adobe Hebrew,{{cite web | url=https://www.myfonts.com/collections/adobe-hebrew-font-adobe | title=Adobe Hebrew Font | accessdate=2022-08-15 }} Adobe Thai,{{cite web | url=https://www.myfonts.com/collections/adobe-thai-font-adobe | title=Adobe Thai Font | accessdate=2022-08-15 }} and Adobe Song.
==Adobe Song==
Adobe Song is marketed as a Simplified Chinese font, but it does contain Traditional Chinese and Japanese characters.{{cite web | url=https://www.myfonts.com/collections/song-font-adobe?tab=glyphs | title=Adobe Song Font | accessdate=2022-08-15 }}{{cite web | url=https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/121632/adobe-song | title=Adobe Song in use - Fonts In Use | accessdate=2022-08-15 }}
The Latin characters of Adobe Song are lighter variants of Minion's. Interestingly, the main versions of Minion itself (e.g., Minion Pro and Minion 3) do not include any Light weight.
=Third-party=
Typefaces included in this section are related to Minion, but are not released by Adobe.
==Minion Math==
Minion Math is a mathematical font designed by Johannes Küster from typoma GmbH.{{cite web | url=http://www.typoma.com/en/fonts.html | title=typoma | date=17 May 2018 | accessdate=2022-02-11 }} It provides Minion with additional glyphs such as mathematical symbols.{{cite web | url=http://www.typoma.com/data/MinionMath_Release_1_026.pdf | title=Minion® Math – Character Set Release Version 1.026 | accessdate=2022-02-11 }}
Minion Math family includes 20 fonts in 4 weights and 5 optical sizes. Minion Math provides an additional optical size 'Tiny', which is not part of Minion. Version 1.026 contains about 3,300 glyphs in each font style; OpenType math features were added in version 1.020. Minion Math had a working title, typoma MnMath. The final form is expected to include all Unicode mathematical symbols and many additional symbols.
==MnSymbol==
A math companion to Minion is Achim Blumensath's MnSymbol, typically (but not necessarily) used from TeX.
MnSymbol is not a full math font, as such it provides mathematical symbols in the style of Minion{{cite web | url=https://www.ctan.org/pkg/mnsymbol | title=MnSymbol – Mathematical symbol font for Adobe MinionPro | accessdate=2022-02-11 }} but not glyphs for Latin characters.{{cite web | url=https://mirrors.rit.edu/CTAN/fonts/mnsymbol/MnSymbol.pdf | title=MnSymbol – A Math Symbol Font | accessdate=2022-02-11 }} A common setup is to use a TeX package which allows users to set an arbitrary font (in this case, Minion) as a math font, then supplement mathematical symbols from MnSymbol.{{cite web | url=https://www.ctan.org/pkg/mathspec | title=mathspec – Specify arbitrary fonts for mathematics in XeTeX | accessdate=2022-02-11 }}{{cite web | url=http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/CTAN/macros/xetex/latex/mathspec/mathspec.pdf | title=The mathspec package | accessdate=2022-02-11 }} Although MnSymbol has a packaging as OpenType, it only provides TeX font metrics for math.
References
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Category:Old style serif typefaces
Category:Typefaces with text figures
Category:Mathematical OpenType typefaces
Category:Typefaces with optical sizes