FROM OLD TO NEW

Trajan was a Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. who ruled over the most significant military expansion in Roman history, leading the empire to attain its maximum territorial extent by his death.

Trajan's Column, 107~113 AD, Rome, Italy, commemorates Trajan's victory. The Column was initially flanked by two libraries, containing Trajan's scroll-written despatches from his Roman-Dacian Wars. Filippo Coarelli suggests that such scrolls are the basis of the Column's design and its spiralling, sculpted narrative. The Column shows 2,662 figures and 155 scenes; Trajan himself appears on the Column 58 times.

Below: A drawing and photographed carving of the "Trajan" capitals on the Column of Trajan made by Eric Gill in the early twentieth century.

In the 1980s, at Adobe, California, Sumner Stone wanted to expand on his earlier exploration of ITC Stone. Stone was inspired to create this font by seeing the classical lettering on the sacral buildings on the campus of Reed College. He hired Carol Twombly (yay, a woman)! to create the type by borrowing the classical lettering and adapting it for digital use. Below Sumner Stone & Carol Twombly.

Trajan is an all-capitals typeface as the Romans did not use lower-case letters. Here's some more on the font as well as a good article on typeface design. Below are other places where it’s been put to use, including some of our own work.