Dante
The first Dante fonts were the result of the collaboration of two men: Giovanni Mardersteig, a printer, book designer and typeface artist of remarkable skill and taste; and Charles Malin, one of the great punch-cutters of the 20th century.
Dante was Giovanni Mardersteig’s last and his most successful design. Monotype wanted to enlarge the family from just the roman and italic of the original but Mardersteig had no interest in drawing the additional weights Monotype wanted. The gentle persistence of Monotype, and the help of the then 20-year old Matthew Carter, who cut sample punches for the design, eventually changed his mind.
Rotis
The Rotis family uses a numbering system to identify weight and width variations. In this system, light weights are numbered in the 40s (45 roman, 46 italic), regular in the 50s, bold in the 60s and extrabold in he 70s.
Proportionally, all the Rotis faces are somewhat condensed. Aicher, however, took special care to ensure that counters and serifs were constructed open and full. The result is a design that is economical with space and still remarkably legible.
Rotis is named after the place, a converted mill site southwest of Munich, where Aicher and a small design group worked several years developing the extended typeface family.