Designed in 1975 by the Dutch typographer Gerard Unger, Demos™ was one of the first digital typefaces. It was initially developed for use on the Digiset composing machine manufactured by the German firm Dr.-Ing Rudolf Hell GmbH, where coarsely pixelated letters were formed by a cathode ray tube. Early digital technology had a weakness that metal type did not have, regarding the optical differences in design of large letterforms versus small letterforms. Punchcutters adjusted the shapes of the same letterforms for each different size they cut in metal. With the newer technology, both large and small variations in type sizes were created by scaling up and down from the same original master, which could result in non-optimal letterforms at either end of the spectrum.
Unger experimented with design solutions for this problem, and he found that when he shaped the forms of Demos to have very little thick/thin variation, this facilitated linear enlargement and reduction. Demos is a robust, modern-looking typeface with open counters, a tall x-height, and blunt serifs. Because it was originally intended for use in the typesetting of newspapers, Demos is both legible and economical with space, making it suitable for book typography as well. The word "Demos" comes from Greek, and means "the populace." In the late 1990s, Demos and Praxis (also designed by Gerard Unger), along with Univers 57, were selected as the official typefaces of the German Government. More info. In 1990, Linotype AG merged with Dr.-Ing Rudolf Hell GmbH, forming the Linotype-Hell AG (today Linotype GmbH). Since then, Linotype has been the official source of all fonts that were originally designed for the Hell Corporation. Linotype has also improved the typefaces using new digital technologies, including OpenType.
