San Marco™ was one of the featured fonts from the 1990 program "Type before Gutenberg," which included the work of twelve contemporary type designers and represented styles from across the ages. The noted calligrapher and teacher, Karlgeorg Hoefer, designed San Marco. For inspiration, he looked to the Italian rotunda style of blackletter writing from the fifteenth century, and the blackletter rotunda types of Nicolas Jenson. Though we often eulogize Jenson's beautiful early roman typeface, we sometimes forget he actually designed many more blackletter types than roman or greek. He used his fine blackletter types in the history and medicine books he printed in Venice. The San Marco typeface was named for the San Marco cathedral in the center of Venice, and reflects its curvaceous arches and round-vaulted spaces. Its highly stylized characters make the San Marco typeface a good choice for compelling and potent display typography.
