Bell Centennial

I have Pentagram's 2008 Typography Calendar near my desk. Today I ripped off August to reveal September: 30 dates, all set in Bell Centennial.

1978 When At&T commissioned a new type for it's phone directories, the original idea was to base it on Helvetica, the face used by designer Saul Bass for AT&T's then-new corporate identity. The realities of directory production—printing tiny type at high speed on newsprint—made Helvetica an unusable choice. In the end, functional demands outweighed stylistic preferences. Bell Centennial was designed in four versions for different purposes: Name and number, subcaption, address and bold listing. Shown here [on the calendar] is the address font.