Gothic Medium BBB: Tracing the Evolution of a Classic Japanese Sans-Serif Typeface from Phototypesetting to Digital Typography
- morisawausa
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Originally released as a phototypesetting letter board, Gothic Medium BBB has endured for decades—adapting through shifts in printing, typesetting, and digital design. In this article, we look back on how this typeface transitioned across formats and technologies while preserving its timeless editorial tone.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Inheriting the Legacy of the Phototypesetting Era: Gothic Medium BBB
This is an excerpt from MORISAWA PHOTO TYPE FACES — Sample Book No.83, published by Morisawa. On the left, you’ll see the phototypesetting font lineup as it appeared at the time. If you look at the bottom right of the right-hand page, you’ll find one labeled Gothic Medium BB1—a predecessor of today’s Gothic Medium BBB.
...If you’re a font enthusiast, you might even think, “Wait, I’ve seen this before!” That’s because this was the starting point for what would eventually become Gothic Medium BBB, first developed roughly 60 years ago.
• The Design of Gothic Medium BBB
Gothic Medium BBB is classified as a functional, old-style sans-serif typeface. With its orthodox structure and distinctive accented elements, it’s one of Morisawa’s oldest and most enduring typefaces—long loved for its timeless design.
Thanks to its balanced proportions and gentle softness, Gothic Medium BBB delivers excellent readability across a range of sizes. It maintains visual clarity even when placed on the same line with Latin text, making it ideal for body copy in magazines, captions, and small-format content.
For more on old-style gothic typefaces, see our related article:
[A1 Gothic: A Human Touch to Japanese Sans-Serif Type]
When Gothic Medium BBB was first developed about 60 years ago, the original reference standard was “B1” (with the “B” indicating a sans-serif (gothic) type). As a slightly lighter variant, “BB1” was refined to provide better legibility for bold titles and headings, and this revised version became what we now know as BBB1—the current form of Gothic Medium BBB.
Since then, the font has continued to evolve alongside the shift toward digital typography. From here, we’ll explore the story behind its development.
2. From Hand-Drawn Characters to Letter Boards
• Gothic Medium BBB in the Letter Board Era
Before modern digital typesetting, Gothic Medium BBB’s predecessor was born during the phototypesetting era that dominated Japanese printing from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Phototypesetting machines worked by optically transferring characters from etched glass plates—called letter boards—onto print film.
The typeface that would later become Gothic Medium BBB was first released as “Gothic Medium BBB1,” internally nicknamed “Three B One” in the Morisawa office.
Each board held approximately 3,441 characters in total. The combined layout was created by assembling six main character boards, each measuring 350mm by 305mm (including the frame).
While each individual character ended up being quite small, the typeface was not originally designed with this tiny scale in mind...!
• How Letter Boards were Made
The Letter Board Production Process
Letter boards were created through a series of production steps. The process began with the “hand-drawn drafts,” which served as the original design reference. Each character was drawn to fit neatly within a square. First, the outline (contour) of each character was drawn by hand, then the inner portions were filled in to complete the design.
When Gothic Medium BBB1 was first being developed, these square sheets were used for writing numerous characters by hand. Each character was designed to fit into a square approximately 6 cm wide.
Over time, various improvements were made, and the workflow eventually shifted to drawing one character per sheet. These sheets—used to create tens of thousands of characters over the years—became a long-standing standard for the design process.
Next, these original drawings were photographed and transferred to film for printing.
Once the characters were printed, fine adjustments were made using white correction fluid to tweak the design with great care. After those refinements were completed, the characters were reprinted in smaller sizes to match the final required dimensions. These were used to create what’s known as the genban (original artwork).
The refined characters were then transferred one by one onto an aluminum plate using a specialized machine. During this stage, crop marks (called tonbo) were added to the top and bottom of each character on the printed sheets to ensure perfect alignment when pasting.
Fun fact: the tonbo marks were erased afterward using white correction fluid—truly a meticulous and painstaking process...!
Once each character’s aluminum plate was ready, they were carefully arranged on the boards in order—almost like assembling a puzzle.
Interestingly, this order— 「一寸の巾 」—was referred to as “Issun-no-Haba" order. It can be seen as something similar to a traditional kana-based arrangement system, such as the Iroha order.
Today, this layout is often compared to the standard typewriter keyboard layout, like QWERTY.
Because characters were arranged purely based on form, without regard to meaning or reading, this system is still used today during development to ensure stylistic consistency across character sets.
After photographing the hand-drawn masters and creating a negapositive, the final “original plate” that would serve as the source for the character board was complete.
Once this was done, the plate would be further processed and burned onto film, leading into several more production steps — but we’ll save that story for another time.
As you’ve seen, Gothic Medium BBB1 began its journey as a phototypesetting font and served in that role for many years.
3. The Shift to Digital Typography
The turning point for Gothic Medium BBB1 came in 1989, when it was included as one of the first Japanese PostScript fonts bundled with Apple’s LaserWriter II NXT-J. It appeared alongside “Ryumin L-KL" as one of the two core Japanese fonts.
This was the era when desktop publishing (DTP) was just beginning to take off. And with that momentum, Morisawa’s Sans-Serif and Mincho typefaces entered the wave of digitalization.
Driven by the DTP era, Morisawa pushed ahead into digital type development
With the rise of publishing tools enabling font creation directly on a computer, Morisawa also moved toward in-house digital production. But back then, the process was mostly trial and error due to limited tools and experience.
The original phototypesetting fonts were designed to be typeset using a method called “tightly set typesetting” (beta-kumi) —meaning just placing characters side by side was enough to achieve a clean layout. But digitizing them introduced the need to encode more detailed typographic data, such as metrics and kerning information.
Modern editors allow for fine-tuning character spacing directly in software, but at the time, Morisawa had no internal tools to test how digital fonts would appear once typeset. This made things especially difficult for temporary kana characters, where the lack of kerning support posed a challenge.
Fun Fact: The early digitization at Morisawa used Adobe Illustrator 8 and an Apple Cinema Display monitor — tools that may surprise some readers today.
That said, once digitized, any edits could be easily applied without the need for reprinting — a breakthrough that enabled Morisawa to accelerate its font development dramatically.
Unlike the days of hand-drawn designs, digital tools removed the need to print and manually revise each draft. This significantly accelerated the pace of font development, making it possible to create many more typefaces.
Eventually, the OpenType font format was introduced, and font editing tools continued to evolve. As a result, today’s fonts can include more advanced features and support a greater number of characters within a single typeface. Typography and technology have always gone hand in hand—and that relationship continues today.
Gothic Medium BBB has evolved alongside changes in technology and formats, all while staying close to the needs of those who use it. More than just a tool for conveying information, typography also preserves culture.
We hope this article has given you a fresh perspective — even a small one — on the silent history woven into the letterforms we see every day. If it sparks a new way of seeing Japanese typography or its expressive potential, we’re truly glad.
If you’re working on multilingual typography, exploring the Asian market, or want to strengthen your creative system through Japanese type design, we may be able to help.
Feel free to reach out — we’d love to hear what challenges you’re facing.
You can explore the font designs featured in this article through the links below
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