Ronald Arnholm’s interest in letterforms goes back to his childhood in Barre, Vermont, where he spent hours watching his brother do pin-striping and lettering on antique cars and trucks. Arnholm would look on in wonder as the letters appeared to transfer themselves directly from the brush to the vehicles; the process struck the youngster as nothing short of magic.
Not coincidentally, Arnholm’s first real job was as a sign painter in a small two-person shop in his hometown. “It was during this time that I started to develop a deep interest in type,” he writes. “I thoroughly enjoyed analyzing the design structure of individual typefaces and incorporating them into all kinds of signage whenever I could.”
Arnholm designed his first typeface during his second year of study at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since that time he’s been creating designs for major type foundries, as well as on a custom order basis. To date, there are more than fifty typefaces to his credit.
His most successful creation is ITC Legacy, a design that was many years in the making. The process began when Arnholm was in a graduate design program at Yale University. Here, he was able to study, first hand, a copy of the 1470 Eusebius, set in the roman type of Nicolas Jenson. Typographically speaking, it was love at first sight.
Arnholm was inspired. He decided that a revival design of Jenson’s work would be an exciting and worthwhile challenge – not to mention the perfect subject for his master’s thesis.
Years later, in 1982, Arnholm decided that his thesis design had not captured all the qualities of Jenson’s original. He also felt a companion italic was needed to complete the family. Arnholm went back to work, again using the 1470 Eusebius for his model (this time access was provided by Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia).
Arnholm was able to photograph the book at very close range, and made hundreds of trial drawings just to get a proper “feel” for the type. Next came more drawings, test fonts, revisions, and still more test fonts. The final result, after countless hours of labor, was ITC Legacy Serif.
ITC Legacy Serif is available in Book, Medium, Bold and Ultra weights, with corresponding italics for all weights except Ultra. Small caps have been created for the Book and Medium weights; old style figure are available for the roman and italic designs in all weights of the family.