1. trebuchet VINCENT CONNARE
Trebuchet MS is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed
by Vincent Connare for the Microsoft Corporation in
1996. It is named after the trebuchet, a medieval siege
engine. The name was inspired by a puzzle question
that Connare heard at Microsoft headquarters: “Can
you make a trebuchet that could launch a person from
main campus to the new consumer campus about a mile
away? Mathematically, is it possible and how?” Connare
“thought that would be a great name for a font that
launches words across the Internet”.
The Trebuchet typeface family, like Verdana and Georgia,
was created for use on the screen. Designed and
engineered in 1996 by Microsoft’s
Vincent Connare, it has a
strong and unmistakable
appearance. Its letter forms,
loosely based on sans serif
typeface designs of the
1920s and 1930s, carry a
large x-height and clean
lines designed to promote
legibility, even at small sizes.
Perhaps Connare’s greatest
achievement
with
the
Trebuchet family is to have
created a font that works at
heading and display sizes as
well as small sizes and low resolutions; no mean task given
the low resolution of the computer screen, which tends
to dilute the characteristics of letterforms, rendering
them dull and boring. After all, a lower case, which at
8pt on the screen can be at most four or ve pixels high,
can only be drawn in a limited number of ways.
One of Connare’s intentions when designing Trebuchet
was Trebuchet is well-suited to use for extended texts,
User Interface scenarios and spreadsheet design, given
the font’s narrow letterforms. Trebuchet works brilliantly
on the screen and has quickly become a classic
choice for Web page design.