View source for Impact (typeface)

{{Short description|Grotesque sans-serif typeface}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2019}}
{{Infobox font
| name            = Impact
| image           = File:ImpactSP.svg
| style           = [[Sans-serif]]
| classifications = [[Sans-serif#Neo-grotesque|Grotesque]] 
| prop            = Proportional
| creationdate    = 1965<ref name="vis-hist" />
| launchdate      = 1968
| creator = Geoffrey Lee
| foundry = [[Stephenson Blake]]
| variations = Impact Wide
| based_on = Anzeigen Grotesk/Neue Aurora IX<ref>{{cite web|title=Anzeigen Grotesk/Neue Aurora IX typeface|url=https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/6718/anzeigen-grotesk-neue-aurora-ix|publisher=Fonts In Use|accessdate=15 April 2023}}</ref>
}}
'''Impact''' is a [[sans-serif]] [[typeface]] in the [[Sans-serif#Grotesque|industrial or grotesque style]] designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965 and released by the [[Stephenson Blake]] foundry of [[Sheffield]].<ref name="vis-hist" /> It is well known for having been included in the [[core fonts for the Web]] package and distributed with [[Microsoft Windows]] since [[Windows 98]]. In the 2010s, it gained popularity for its use in [[image macro]]s and other [[internet meme]]s.

Previously, video game franchise ''[[Call of Duty]]'' used Impact typeface for their logotype until June 2023.<ref>{{cite web |title=Brands - Logos and Wordmark |url=https://brand.callofduty.com/logos-and-wordmark |website=Call of Duty |accessdate=9 April 2024}}</ref>

==Design==
Lee was an advertising design director and designed Impact with posters and publicity material in mind.<ref name="Geoffrey Lee Identifont">{{cite web|title=Geoffrey Lee|url=http://www.identifont.com/show?1KY|website=Identifont|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref> Its thick strokes, compressed letterspacing, and minimal interior counterform are specifically aimed, as its name suggests, to "have an impact". Impact has a high [[x-height]], reaching nearly to three-quarters the capital line. [[Ascender (typography)|Ascenders]] are short, and [[Descender (typography)|descenders]] even shorter. With narrow [[Counter (typography)|apertures]] and folded-up letterforms, the lower-case can be quite hard to read printed small, especially for people with vision problems. The face is intended for headlines and display use rather than body text.<ref name="vis-hist" /> As a display design, it was not released with an italic or bold weight.

During the 1960s, there was a trend towards condensed, bold, "industrial" sans-serifs like [[Schmalfette Grotesk]] and [[Compacta (typeface)|Compacta]], largely pioneered by [[West Germany|West German]] magazine ''[[Twen]]'',<ref name="vis-hist">{{The Visual History of Type|372–373}}</ref> and Impact was intended to fit this trend.<ref name="The Nymph and the Grot, an update">{{cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|author-link=James Mosley|title=The Nymph and the Grot, an update|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/nymph-and-grot-update.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=6 March 2016}}</ref> Writing in 2004, the year before his death, Lee explained that the design goal was "to get as much ink on paper as possible in a given size with the maximum possible x-height" and to provide a home-grown metal type alternative to European designs in the style (e.g. Schmalfette Grotesk, illustrated in ''Lettera'', a contemporary anthology series of lettering), which were complicated for British businesses to license and use.<ref name="Lee Typophile">{{cite web|last1=Lee |first1=Geoffrey |title=Comments on Typophile thread |url=http://typophile.com/node/7921 |website=Typophile (archived) |access-date=27 October 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050826182110/http://typophile.com/node/7921 |archive-date=August 26, 2005 }}</ref><ref name="Graphic Journey Schmalfette: Tall, dark and handsome">{{cite web|last1=Dempsey|first1=Mike|title=Schmalfette: Tall, dark and handsome|url=http://mikedempsey.typepad.com/graphic_journey_blog/2013/04/schmalfette-tall-dark-and-handsome.html|website=Graphic Journey|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref><ref name="Frederick Lambert: Graphic Design Britain">{{cite web|last1=Dempsey|first1=Mike|title=Frederick Lambert: Graphic Design Britain|url=http://mikedempsey.typepad.com/graphic_journey_blog/2010/12/fredrick-lambert.html|website=Design Journey|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref><ref name="Blast from the past">{{cite web|last1=Dempsey|first1=Mike|title=Blast from the past|url=http://mikedempsey.typepad.com/graphic_journey_blog/2014/06/blast-from-a-distant-graphic-past.html|website=Design Journey|access-date=23 August 2015}}</ref> Lee wrote that "many of us admired the vitality and colour of what we knew only as Schmalfette, and used it by old-fashioned cut and paste. Use was limited as it was never made in metal as far as I know, and existed then in capitals and numerals only".<ref name="Lee Typophile" /> (Schmalfette Grotesk was later digitised, with an added lower-case, as [[Haettenschweiler]] by Eraman Ltd.<ref name="Haettenschweiler Microsoft">{{cite web|title=Haettenschweiler font information|url=https://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=30|publisher=Microsoft|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref>) Other designs along the same lines from around the same period included the [[Letraset]] face [[Compacta (typeface)|Compacta]],<ref name="Frederick Lambert: Graphic Design Britain" /> [[Matthew Carter]]'s slightly earlier masthead of ''[[Private Eye]]'' (which is caps-only but based on a never-released typeface with a lower case),<ref name="Carter's Battered Stat">{{cite web|last1=Carter|first1=Matthew|title=Carter's Battered Stat|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/carters-battered-stat|website=Eye|access-date=5 February 2016}}</ref><ref name="Matthew Carter’s timeless typographic masthead for Private Eye magazine">{{cite web|last1=Walters|first1=John|title=Matthew Carter's timeless typographic masthead for Private Eye magazine|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/type-tuesday26|website=Eye|access-date=24 August 2015}}</ref> and the phototypesetting [[Helvetica#Helvetica Compressed (1966)|Helvetica Compressed]], also by Carter and released a few years later.<ref name="Helvetica Compressed Flickr">{{cite web|last1=Sherman|first1=Nick|last2=Carter|first2=Matthew|title=Helvetica Compressed|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksherman/16656369014/in/photolist-rnSfd7-7pDNRB-3yHxz-2a1L5E-78Bq7N-5CTt6h|website=Flickr|access-date=30 April 2018|quote=Helvetica Compressed was planned as a three-part family [to fit into] the Linofilm’s unit system…I designed Helvetica Compressed and Helvetica Extra Compressed, on my own before Hans-Jürg joined the company. They were released in 1966. Hans-Jürg designed the Ultra Compressed under my eye. It was released in 1968…part of a craze for condensed grots in Europe in the ’60s that encouraged me to propose to [[Mike Parker (typographer)|Mike Parker]] that I should design a series when I joined Merg[enthaler] in 1965. There was no client in mind for Helvetica Compressed when we did it.}}</ref><ref name="Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter">{{cite book|last1=Drucker|first1=Margaret Re; essays by Johanna|last2=Mosley|first2=James|title=Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter|date=2003|publisher=Princeton Architectural|location=New York|isbn=9781568984278|pages=41, 53 etc.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WqXd_w4S4SsC&pg=PA41|edition= 2.}}</ref>
{{clear}}

==Release==
[[File:Impact brochure page 1.jpg|thumb|right|Impact was initially promoted with a brochure titled 'The Impact of Impact'. Shown is the front page of Geoffrey Lee's own copy.<ref name="Lee Typophile" />]]
Released at the end of the age of [[metal type]] as [[cold type|phototypesetting]] gained popularity, it was one of Stephenson Blake's last typefaces released in metal.<ref name="Stephenson, Blake Today">{{cite journal|last1=Firth|first1=Rob|title=Stephenson, Blake Today|journal=Small Printer Magazine, British Printing Society|url=http://britishletterpress.co.uk/type-and-typography/type-founders/stephenson-blake/stephenson-blake-today/|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref>

The design rights were acquired by [[Monotype Imaging|Monotype]], which ultimately licensed the design to Microsoft as part of a package of fonts for use with Windows in the 1980s and 1990s.<ref>{{cite web|last1=McDonald|first1=Rob|title=Some history about Arial|url=http://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2011/09/blue-pencil-no-18%E2%80%94some-history-about-arial/|website=Paul Shaw Letter Design|access-date=22 May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Shaw|first1=Paul|title=Arial Addendum no. 3|url=http://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2011/10/blue-pencil-no-18%E2%80%94arial-addendum-no-3/|website=Blue Pencil|access-date=1 July 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Shaw (& Nicholas)|title=Arial addendum no. 4|url=http://www.paulshawletterdesign.com/2011/11/blue-pencil-no-18%E2%80%94arial-addendum-no-4/|website=Blue Pencil|access-date=1 July 2015}}</ref>

The original design contained wider [[Font#Character variants|alternate forms]] for the letters 'J' and 'r', intended for letter positions at the start and end of words, which have generally not been included in digitisations.<ref>{{cite web|title=Impact poster|url=http://impact.idesignandwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/StephensonBlakeImpact2.jpg|archive-url=https://archive.today/20141227214918/http://impact.idesignandwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/StephensonBlakeImpact2.jpg|url-status=usurped|archive-date=27 December 2014|publisher=Stephenson Blake|access-date=27 December 2014}}</ref> The common digitisation also simplifies the design somewhat, omitting the subtle bevelling of [[tittle]]s on 'i' and 'j' and flared stroke ends seen on the original metal type release. An eccentricity preserved in the digitisation is the [[ampersand]], which is only as high as the x-height, not the cap height.

Lee digitised and self-released a variant, Impact Wide, in 2002 for online sale. This release includes the alternate characters and an italic style.<ref>{{cite web | last1=Lee | first1=Geoffrey | title=Impact Wide | url=https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/geoffreylee/impact-wide/ | publisher=MyFonts | access-date=27 October 2014}}</ref>

In July 2010, Ascender Corp introduced Impact 2010, an enhanced version with additional [[OpenType]] typographic features designed by Terrance Weinzierl and [[Steve Matteson]]. These included quirky interlocking characters, [[text figures]] and proportional and tabular figures.<ref>{{cite web|title=Ascender 2010 font pack|url=https://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2010/06/29/91042/UserGuideAscender2010FontPack.pdf|website=PRWeb|publisher=Ascender|access-date=29 July 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/07/prweb4208244.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100709181403/http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/07/prweb4208244.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 July 2010 |title=Ascender Releases New OpenType Font Pack for Microsoft Office 2010 |publisher=Prweb.com |date=2010-07-06 |access-date=2011-05-26}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Compacta (typeface)|Compacta]]
* [[Haettenschweiler]]

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}
{{notelist|30em}}

==External links==
* Original Impact brochure "The Impact of Impact": pages [https://web.archive.org/web/20050115144633/http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/__Svr-l901_Redirected_My_Documents_geraintf_My_Pictures_impact4-55632.pdf 1], [https://web.archive.org/web/20051109171017/http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/__Svr-l901_Redirected_My_Documents_geraintf_My_Pictures_impact3-55629.pdf 2], [https://web.archive.org/web/20050115160115/http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/__Svr-l901_Redirected_My_Documents_geraintf_My_Pictures_impact2-55626.pdf 3], [https://web.archive.org/web/20050115181634/http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/__Svr-l901_Redirected_My_Documents_geraintf_My_Pictures_impact1-55622.pdf 4]
{{Microsoft Windows Typefaces}}
{{OS X typefaces}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Impact (Typeface)}}
[[Category:Grotesque sans-serif typefaces]]
[[Category:Neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces]]
[[Category:Windows XP typefaces]]
[[Category:Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1965]]
[[Category:Display typefaces]]
[[Category:Stephenson Blake typefaces]]
[[Category:Internet memes]]