Architecture & design / Science & invention
Charles Bigelow
born 1945 · type designer, type historian
Type designer who grew up in the Detroit suburbs and attended Cranbrook School, and co-created the Lucida and Wingdings font families.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 81- Birth name
- Charles A. Bigelow
- Also known as
- Chuck Bigelow
- Detroit years
- 1945–1960s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Bigelow grew up in the Detroit suburbs and attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, the boys' school designed by Eliel Saarinen. He went on to Reed College in Oregon, where the calligraphy tradition fostered by Lloyd Reynolds shaped his interest in letterforms. With his partner Kris Holmes he founded the Bigelow & Holmes studio and designed the Lucida family, one of the first type families created for low-resolution laser printers and screens, as well as the Wingdings symbol font long bundled with Microsoft Windows. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982, taught digital typography at Stanford University from 1982 to 1995 and organized the first international seminar on digital type design in 1983. From 2006 he held the Melbert B. Cary Distinguished Professorship at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His work bridged the calligraphic tradition and the computer age.
Highlights
- Attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills
- Co-designed the Lucida and Wingdings font families with Kris Holmes
- MacArthur Fellowship (1982)
- Professor of digital typography at Stanford, 1982–1995
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · early 1960s
Cranbrook Schools
The Saarinen-designed boys' school he attended.