Greatest fonts countdown: 46 – Trinité

FontShop AG, the renowned type foundry, conducted a survey based on historical relevance, sales at FontShop.com, and aesthetic quality. With a few additions from the experts at Creative Bloq and Computer Arts magazine, the best fonts ever were selected for the new book, 100 Best Typefaces Ever.

Here we are counting down the 100 greatest fonts, but you can read interviews with some of the typefaces' creators, a brief history of type, the anatomy of a font, and much, much more in the book – find out how to get your copy in print or digital formats at the foot of this post.

But without further ado, here's the 46th best typeface…

46. Trinité

• Bram de Does, 1982

When Bram de Does was studying graphic design in Amsterdam in the 1950s, the curriculum was still very much influenced by Bauhaus and Jan Tschichold. Lectures on asymmetrical typography inspired him to rebellion, and he designed his pages symmetrically, just for the sake of doing things differently.

After graduating, he started work as art director at the respected typesetting company, Joh Enschedé en Zonen in Haarlem. He proved his talent for type design between 1980 and 1982 when he was entrusted by Enschedé with the task of producing an exclusive typeface for their Autologic phototypesetting equipment. Trinité emerged as an elegant and subtle body text font.

The digitised version of Trinité (by Peter Matthias Noordzij of the Enschede Font Foundry) has an impressive wealth of forms. Ascenders and descenders with three graded lengths, and a sleek italic font that works well with both Trinité Wide and Condensed, all bear witness to the ingenious typographical concept of the font family. It's for good reason that Trinité is one of the Netherland's favourite typefaces.

This is an extract from The 100 Best Typefaces Ever, the definitive guide to the greatest fonts ever created, in association with FontShop AG.