Antique Olive is a humanist sans-serif typeface ("antique" being equivalent to sans-serif in French typographic conventions). Along the lines of Gill Sans, it was designed in the early 1960s by French typographer Roger Excoffon, an art director and former consultant to the Marseilles based Fonderie Olive.[1] In addition to a basic weight, Antique Olive was produced in medium, condensed, wide, bold, condensed bold, extra bold (known as Antique Olive Compact), and ultra bold (known as Nord).[2] The counters and bowls, especially the letter O, resemble an olive, which is one of the characteristics which make Excoffon's typefaces unique. It was used in the Sesame Street ending credits from 1978-1983 and on Cartoon Network's Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.
Lewis Blackwell later commented on the design, "An attempt to offer a more refined sans serif than presented by Helvetica and Univers, but it was too characterful and too late to be widely adopted outside France."[3]
Kontour Type designed the Utile typeface, inspired from the Antique Olive typeface.[6]
Robert Huber designed the LL Moderne typeface, which based on the Antique Olive typeface.[7]
References
^Provan, Archie, and Alexander S. Lawson, 100 Type Histories (volume 1), National Composition Association, Arlington, Virginia, 1983. pp. 16-17.
^Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983, ISBN0-7137-1347-X, p. 2408-249
