Howard Kettler

Courier New 12, created in 1955 by IBM, is perhaps the most recognizable typeface of the 20th century—a visual symbol of typewritten bureaucratic anonymity, the widespread dissemination of information (and a classification of documents), stark factuality, and streamlined efficiency. Designed by Howard "Bud" Kettler, a small-town printer and typographer hired by the company to create typefaces for its products, it became the country's reigning typewriter font almost immediately—not only because of IBM's dominance in the industry but because IBM failed to take a proprietary stake in the font. Soon adopted by other typewriter makers, Courier was an early version of shareware. Compared to previous typewriter fonts, Courier looked streamlined, rational, efficient, a move away from the "Antique" past—the perfect face for IBM. With its "modern, progressive look," Courier exemplified the "trend toward the long, low and extended in an age of ranch houses and stretched-out cars," according to one ad. Kettler was a natural, innovative typographer, as one co-worker recounted: "One thing he did that no other font designer did was to rotate the mock-up page a full 180 degrees. I asked him why he did that. His answer was that he wanted to make sure that no one character stood out." In its prototype phase, Courier was called Messenger. But as Kettler later said in an interview, "A letter can be just an ordinary messenger, or it can be the courier, which radiates dignity, prestige, and stability."Kettler was successful in his mission. By the 1960s, Courier had become the herald of all stripes of dignified officialdom; indeed, it is still de rigueur for filing certain types of legal documents. It is not surprising, as Rick Poynor points out, that Courier should play a starring role in Errol Morris' recent documentary The Fog of War about former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Anyone who has done Freedom of Information Act research will inevitably find black marker lines obscuring lines of Courier type.