Separate the early bitmap design from the OpenType family
Mark Simonson’s Grad resource credits Phil Martin’s early-1990s redesign of Century Schoolbook, made by editing bitmap fonts on a DOS computer. Simonson worked with Martin to develop the 2004 OpenType family. His 2004 production account identifies Martin’s newsletter Re:Language and explains that Simonson returned to American Type Founders specimens rather than tracing an existing digital Century Schoolbook.
Compare the actual three-style set
The current resource lists Regular, Regular Italic and Bold. Set Reconsidering the ordinary in Regular and its supplied italic, then compare Bold on a copy of the same heading. Do not assume a Bold Italic or a condensed resource from the historical discussion of future plans. A planned style and a currently supplied style are different pieces of evidence.
Include the numeral and capital decisions in the proof
The creator documents small caps, oldstyle figures, ligatures and swash capitals. Add a year and a short small-cap label, then test one capital alternate without changing the rest of the title. Bitter and Lora here are independent comparisons; Graduate is a different family. The homepage’s portable Unicode styles substitute characters and do not reproduce Grad’s glyphs or preserve those OpenType selections.
Compare the separate SchoolBook guide when researching another schoolbook-related lineage. A related reference category does not make Grad and ParaType SchoolBook the same design.
Your questions, answered.
Who designed Grad?
Phil Martin developed the early design; Mark Simonson worked with him on the later OpenType family.
Is Grad the same as Graduate?
No. The full family names and original resources identify separate designs.
Sources & background
Sources supporting this page’s explanations. Practical examples are our editorial suggestions.