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| Typeface | Trajan |
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| Category | Serif |
| Classifications | Inscriptional |
| Designer(s) | Carol Twombly |
| Foundry | Adobe Type |
| Variations | Goudy Trajan |
Trajan is an old style serif typeface designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe. The design is based on the letterforms of capitalis monumentalis or Roman square capitals, as used for the inscription at the base of Trajan's Column from which the typeface takes its name. Since lower case forms were not in use in Roman times, Trajan is an all-capitals typeface. Instead, small caps are commonly used, and a more complete set of glyphs contained in Trajan Pro (a 2001 update of the original typeface) includes a lower case of small caps.
Although Twombly was the first to do a very literal translation of the Trajan inscription into type, a number of interpretations (with added lowercase alphabets) predate Twombly's, particularly Rudolf Weiss's eponymous typeface of 1926, Frederic Goudy's 1930 "Goudy Trajan," and Warren Chappell's "Trajanus" of 1939. There are also numerous prominent typefaces are not in any way revivals, but owe a very clear debt to the Trajan letterforms, most notably Hermann Zapf's 1955 Optima.
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Adobe version
Designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe, it is a very literal translation of the Trajan inscriptions. The design is based on the letterforms of capitalis monumentalis or Roman square capitals, as used for the inscription at the base of Trajan's Column from which the typeface takes its name. Since lower case forms were not in use in Roman times, Trajan is an all-capitals typeface.
Trajan Pro (2001)
It is an OpenType version of the PostScript Trajan fonts. Lower case letters are included in the form of small caps. OpenType features include proportional lining figures, small caps. It supports Adobe CE, Adobe Western 2 character sets.
Usages
Twombly's cut of Trajan has become very popular, as seen in its nearly constant presence on American movie posters, television shows and book covers. For example, Trajan Bold was used for the film poster for Titanic, and Trajan Pro Bold is used in the titles and captions for The West Wing, and the covers of many John Grisham paperbacks. The typeface was adopted in 2000 by Canada's second largest political party, the Canadian Alliance and used until the party's dissolution in 2003.
External links
- Typowiki: Trajan
- Trajan's Column, including detail of the capitalis monumentalis inscription.
- Etched in Stone, a humorous animation regarding the use (or overuse) of Trajan in film titles.
- Trajan is the Movie Font, a satirical video poking fun at the omnipresence of Trajan in the movie world.
- Trajan Sucks, a website dedicated to the return of the circus-style font to the University of Kansas Men's Basketball uniforms.
- Adobe-Fonts: Trajan
- Adobe-Fonts: Trajan Pro
