Grotesque

When commonly used, grotesque means strange, fantastic, ugly or bizarre, and thus is often used to describe shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks or gargoyles on churches. More specifically, the grotesque forms on buildings which are not used as drainspouts should not be called gargoyles, but rather referred to simply as grotesques.

In typography

Grotesque (generally with an upper-case G) is the style of the sans serif types of the 19th century. The name was coined by William Thorowgood, the first to produce a sans serif type with lower case, in 1832. (Capital-only faces of this style were available from 1816.) Examples of Grotesque designs are:

Related Topics:
Sans serif - 19th century - Lower case - Capital

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• Akzidenz Grotesk (1898)
• Franklin gothic (1905), Morris Fuller Benton
• Univers (1957), Adrian Frutiger
• Helvetica (1958), Max Miedinger, based on Akzidenz Grotesk

The later designs are sometimes classified as neo-grotesque (see: typeface).

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