Grotesque, or Grotesk in Germany, is a style of sans-serif typeface from the 19th century. The name was coined by William Thorowgood, the first person to produce a sans-serif type with lower case, in 1832. Capital-only faces of this style were first available from 1816, made by William Caslon IV of the Caslon foundry under the name 2 Line English Egyptian.
Examples of Grotesque designs are:
- Akzidenz Grotesk (1896)
- Franklin Gothic (1905), Morris Fuller Benton
- Monotype Grotesque (1926) by F.H. Pierpont
- Univers (1957), Adrian Frutiger
- Helvetica (1957), Max Miedinger, based on Akzidenz Grotesk
Later designs are sometimes classified as neo-grotesque.
Famous quotes containing the word grotesque:
““The city’s grotesque iron skeletons
Would knock their drunken penthouse heads together
And cake their concrete dirt off in the streets.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)