| Lithos Pro | |
| Style: | Sans-serif |
| Classifications: | Incised, Display |
| Releasedate: | 1989 |
| Creator: | Carol Twombly |
| Foundry: | Adobe Type |
Lithos is a glyphic sans-serif typeface designed by Carol Twombly in 1989 for Adobe Systems. Lithos is inspired by the unadorned, geometric letterforms of the engravings found on Ancient Greek public buildings. The typeface consists of only capital letters, no lowercase, and comes in five weights, without italics.
According to Twombly, Lithos only used Greek inscriptions as inspiration, making Lithos more of a modern reinterpretation than a faithful reproduction. Twombly also designed Trajan and Charlemagne based respectively on ancient Roman and Byzantine inscriptions. Those typefaces, unlike Lithos, were modeled more directly upon their historical counterparts. One example of Lithos' departure from historical accuracy is the inclusion of bold weights, which never existed in historical Greek inscriptions.
In 2000, Adobe released the OpenType version called Lithos Pro, which included Adobe CE, Adobe Western 2, Greek character sets support, and small caps in the lowercase positions. OpenType features include alternates, case forms, proportional lining figures, small caps.
Lithos was the resident typeface of MTV during the late 1980s and early 1990s.[1] [2]
Lithos is also used in the title typeface of the Very Short Introductions published by Oxford University Press.
Lithos is used in the California State Parks logo.[3]
Lithos is widely used in South Park, e.g. the flag with the text "Welcome Kathie Lee" in "Weight Gain 4000", the Terrance and Phillip Show logo", etc.
Lithos is used in the Banjo-Kazooie game logo, as well as in-game HUD and signage.
Lithos is used by Sludge Metal band Crowbar for the logo on many of their albums.