Researching newspaper conditions for Meret

Before continuing to work on the typeface I did some research on typical newspaper faces and the use of type in different newspapers. My research was based on practical test analyses: learning by doing. Beginning with a collection of newspapers from different countries (The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Die Welt, Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, sme Kultura, De Pers Nederlands Dagblad, De Volkskrant, svd Kultur and Stockholm City Helg), I started to analyze them by comparing general paper sizes, columns, character of the typefaces, line-spacing and how weights are used.

Since I wanted to make a typeface that would work really well in German, I had a special look at German newspapers. They have a rather large format of 400 to 570 mm. On this format I made some tests with different typefaces. I analyzed the use of the columns, point size and line spacing plus compared English to German and a lot of typefaces on the same grid to see how many characters fit on one page. I did this with the same point size and another test where I adjusted all x-heights to the same level.

Another analysis compared the x-heights of several typefaces. For newspapers, the most used had a rather large x-height which was between 470 units to 540 units.