The new Parkinson Electra typeface family is neither a remake of the original Linotype design nor a clone based on William Dwiggins’ original drawings of the typeface. Jim Parkinson immersed himself in early specimen books of Electra and various printed ephemera produced by Dwiggins. Parkinson Electra regular is slightly heavier than the Linotype original, and its serifs are more delicate. Parkinson’s design also has a softer quality and spaces somewhat tighter than the Linotype typefaces. Parkinson Electra still exudes the energetic aura of the original.
In the 75-plus years since Linotype first released Electra as a collection of fonts for machine-set metal type, it had been translated to phototype and digital technologies, and it is newly available as Web fonts. Along the way, Electra was even re-rendered for specific printing technologies – and this is when typeface designer Jim Parkinson first came into the story.
In the early 1990s, Parkinson worked part time as a type designer at the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. The paper had used the Metro™ typeface, another Dwiggins design, for more than half a century, and Parkinson was brought in to refurbish the design. He recalls, “By the early 90s, the Metro fonts the Chronicle was using were badly digitized second or third cousins of Metro. I restored the fonts, making the designs much closer to the original. As I was working on them, something unusual happened. I was no longer just interpreting a typeface. I felt like I was beginning to understand Dwiggins’ thought process. It was almost as if I knew the man.”
About this same time, the owners of the Chronicle realized that the newspaper itself would benefit from a redesign. As part of the makeover, the project’s design director decided that Electra would make a good companion to Metro for text copy. His solution presented some problems,. “Electrawas far too light for subheads and impossibly light for text,” says Parkinson, “I ended up drawing a four-font series of the design that was beefy enough to hold its own next to Metro. As I was drawing these Electra relatives, I got that same feeling I had with Metro: I know this guy. I also came to appreciate the relationship between the Electra and Metro designs – and not just because they were both drawn by Dwiggins. An affinity exists between the two typefaces that makes them work especially well together.”
Shortly after the Chronicle was redesigned, the owners purchased new printing presses as part of the upgrade process. Printing with these presses, however, made the new Electra fonts look too heavy, and Parkinson was asked to rework them again. “The trouble was,” says Parkinson, “by the time the fonts looked good when printed on the new presses, they didn't look good anywhere else. I essentially designed an Electra that only looked like Dwiggins’ design in one narrow environment. Years later, when Monotype Imaging invited me to freshen up Linotype’s Electra, I jumped at the chance.”
