Robert Hunter Middleton (May 6, 1898 – August 3, 1985) was an American book designer, painter, and typeface designer.[1] Born in Glasgow, Scotland he came to Chicago in 1908 where he studied at the School of the Art Institute. He joined the design department of the Ludlow Typograph Company in 1923 and served as director of the department of typeface design from 1933–71. In 1944 he began operating a private press, The Cherryburn Press. He died in Chicago.[2]
Middleton also added twenty faces to the Record Gothic type family for Ludlow between 1956 and 1961 including:[20]
Record Gothic Condensed Italic
Record Gothic Extended + Italic
Record Gothic Bold + Italic
Record Gothic Bold Condensed
Record Gothic Bold Extended + Italic
Record Gothic Bold Extended Reverse
Record Gothic Thinline condensed
Record Gothic Heavy Condensed
Record Gothic Light Medium-Extended
Record Gothic Medium-Extended + Italic
Record Gothic Bold Medium-Extended
Record Gothic Heavy Medium-Extended
Andromaque was a face begun by Victor Hammer and completed after his death by his friend Middleton in the early 1980s. It was privately cast by Paul H. Duensing.[21]
While cited as America's second most prolific (metal type era) type designer after Morris Fuller Benton, many of Middleton's fonts have never been digitised. This may be because many were display or script designs which dated after their time of greatest popularity.
References
Rollins, Carl Purlington American Type Designers and Their Work. in Print, V. 4, #1.
Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. ISBN0-7137-1347-X.
MacGrew, Mac, "American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century," Oak Knoll Books, New Castle Delaware, 1993, ISBN0-938768-34-4.
Friedl, Ott, and Stein, Typography: an Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Throughout History. Black Dog & Levinthal Publishers: 1998. ISBN1-57912-023-7.
^Shaw, Paul (30 June 2022). "Chicago Modernism and the Ludlow Typograph: Douglas C. McMurtrie and Robert Hunter Middleton at Work". Journal of Design History. 35 (1): 92–94. doi:10.1093/jdh/epab046.
