Garamond

Garamond is a group of old-style serif typefaces. All of these are named after the punch-cutter Claude Garamond(ca. 1480–1561). Although they are named after Garamond, most fonts are closer in appearance to the work of Jean Jannon.

Garamond is considered to be among the most readable serif typefaces; the letterform has a sense of fluidity and consistency. The small bow of the “a” and the small eye of the “e” are some of the unique characteristics. Additionally, long extenders and top serifs have a downward slope. The typeface is one of the most eco-friendly fonts when it comes to ink usage.

At the Paris World’s Fair in 1900, “Original Garamond” was introduced. The typeface was actually based on the work of Jean Jannon. After that, many foundries began to cast similar types, beginning a wave of revivals that would continue throughout the 20^th century.

Garamond-style fonts:

Stempel Garamond (D.Stempel AG, 1925)

This font remains true to the original Garamond types with old style characteristics. The small caps is an alternative to the standard capital letters and the bold italic weight is a modern addition. The font is on of the most frequently used text fonts in the world. Stempel Garamond is available in four weights with small caps, old style figures, and euro symbols.

Adobe Garamond™ (Robert Slimbach, 1989)

This is a relatively new interpretation of Garamond, designed by Robert Slimbach and is based on the original Garamond. The family has been expanded to include small caps, expert fonts, and calligraphic caps that were typical of the 15th and 16th centuries. Adobe Garamond is available in six weights with Small Caps, Old Style Figures, and Euro symbols.

ITC Garamond (Tony Stan, 1977)

There are only a few characteristics tying ITC Garamond to Claude Garamond’s work. American designer Tony Stan applied a completely new concept in composing the lower case letters of all cuts with a larger x-height. The legibility was improved and made ITC Garamond very popular in advertisements, manuals and handbooks. ITC Garamond is available in eight normal weights, plus an additional eight condensed weights, all with Euro symbols. In 1993, ITC Garamond was introduced, made by Edward Benguiat. This is a hand-tooled version of the black italic weights. This type is used for packaging, book jackets, and posters designs.

Simoncini Garamond (Francesco Simoncini, 1961)

This font was design to be true to the original.

Garamond #3 (Morris F. Benton, 1936)

This font appeared in 1936 and is based on Jean Jannon’s work. Garamond #3 is not an old style font like several other revivals. Garamond #3 is available in four weights, with Euro symbols.

Garamond Classico (Franco Luin, 1993)

This type is also based on the work of Jean Jannon. Like Garamond #3, Garamond Classico is not an old style font like several other revivals.

Sabon (Jan Tschichold, 1967)

Sabon is another version of Garamond. Produced for three foundrys: D.Stempel AG, Linotype and Monotype. They are extremely legible, elegant and classic. Sabon is used for text and headlines in books, magazines, advertisements, business reports, corporate design, multimedia and correspondence.

Sabon Next (Jan François Porchez)

This font is a revival of a revival. The design was a double challenge: to try discern Jan Tschichold’s own schema for the original Sabon, and to interpret the complexity of a design originally made in two versions for different typecasting systems.

The first was for use on Linotype and Monotype machines, and the second for Stempel hand compositions. Because the Stempel version does not have the constraints necessary for types intended for machine compositions, it seems closer to a pure interpretation of its Garamond ancestor. The new family is large and versatile – with Roman and italic in 6 weights from regular to black. Most weights also have small caps, old-style figures, alternates (swashes, ligatures, etc); and there is one ornament font with many lovely fleurons. The standard versions include revised lining figures that are intentionally designed to be a little smaller than capitals.

Garamond typefaces is very popular to use in books, all of the American editions of J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter books are set in Adobe Garamond. All of them in twelve-point except Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it was longer than the others and was set in 11.5-points.

The Everyman's Library publication of The Divine Comedy is set in twelve-point Garamond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond

http://www.linotype.com/1419/garamond.html