Speaking of Type

By Marjorie Crum

Did you ever wonder why there are so many versions of the Garamond typeface?

Some of the most popular typefaces in history are those based on the types of the sixteenth-century printer, publisher, and type designer Claude Garamond, whose types were modeled on those of Venetian printers from the end of the previous century. Redesigned by many designers over the years including Morris Fuller Benton and Thomas Maitland Cleland—who based their work, in turn, on seventeenth-century copies of Claude Garamond’s types by Jean Jannon— Garamond typeface falls into the Garalde or Oldstyle classified type.

Claude Garamond was apprenticed to Antoine Augerau, one of the founders of the French typographic style. Augerau’s fate was doomed because he was hanged and burnt for printing a poem without permission. Garamond also worked with the typefounder Geoffroy Tory, who put forward the idea of accents, the apostrophe, the cedilla, and simple punctuation marks and was appointed imprimeur du roi (“printer to the king”) by Francis I in about 1530. Garamond was one of the first punch cutters to work independently of printers. His roman fonts, cut from 1531 onward, surpassed the best existing romans in grace and clarity and influenced European punch cutters for 150 years. His Greek type set the pattern for Greek printing until the early 19th century. Garamond was the first to make type available to printers at an affordable price. He created multiple sets of his type designs and sold these complete sets to printers.

For all his accomplishments one thing eluded him—he did not appear to be a very good businessman. When he died he was penniless, forcing his widow to sell off all of his type design matrices thus giving the world his designs.

More Thoughts on Garamond

» I Hate ITC Garamond by Michael Bierut
» Claude Garamond Promotes His Old Style Typefaces Interview by Jason A. Tselentis
» Garamond by Typophile

Posted by newyorkupstate in Design Education | November 1, 2009