Since Mommie I gradually got more into swirly ornaments. The massive contrast in the neoclassic style is perfect for thin swirly extensions to the characters. Even in an upright typeface. Narziss is very elegant in big headline sizes.

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This family was inspired mainly (Normal and Italic style ) by a Didot pattern font used in Rennes (France, Britanny) by Cousin-Danelle, printers, for Antiquités historiques et monumentales ‡ visiter de Montfort ‡ Corseul, par Dinan... Saint Malo... etc. an historic guidebook for journey through a part of (French) Britanny 1820, and many other books.

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Jeanne Moderno is a revisionary type family.

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Narziss is a very popular display typeface. People really love the thin hairlines and the swirls.

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"Always intrigued by Bodoni’s original work, I was set out—back in 2000—to examine his work and study Manuale Tipografico, one of the greatest specimen books ever printed. Issued in 1818 at Parma, Italy by Bodoni’s widow, the two-volume work shows an impressive array of 142 roman alphabets and some foreign ones such as Greek and Cyrillic.

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The Filosofia Regular family is designed for text applications. It is somewhat rugged with reduced contrast to withstand the reduction to text sizes.

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A display typeface, a didot in upper case only, but with a set of decorative alternate characters mixing semi-cyrillic and lower case influences.

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ALS Mirta is a clean text type well-suited for use in typesetting of smart volumes and kids’ books.

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Compass TRF is a reevaluation of an existing Compass typeface dated 2002. Compass is a geometric contrast serif typeface - “contemporary Didone”.

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Designed by Jean François Porchez in 2001, Ambroise is a contemporary interpretation of various typefaces belonging to Didot’s late style, conceived circa 1830, including the original forms of g, y, &; and to a lesser extent, k. These characters are found in Vibert’s typefaces. Vibert was the appointed punchcutter of the Didot family during this period.

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Ambroise Std Francois is the extra condensed variant of the Ambroise Std family.

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Giambattista Bodoni of Parma, Italy, designed and cut his typefaces at the end of the eighteenth century. The Bodoni types were the culmination of nearly 300 years of evolution in roman type design, in which fine hairlines contrast sharply with bolder stems, and serifs are often unbracketed. Bodoni is recognized by its high contrast between thick and thin strokes, pure vertical stress, and hairline serifs. This particular version of Bodoni was first created by Morris Fuller Benton for American Type Founders between 1908 and 1915. It brings elegance and sparkle to any graphic image, including headlines, text, and logos.

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Lavigne Display is the first release of a type-family aimed at publications such as interior design and women magazines—anywhere a touch of distinction is to be desired. In the opinion of its designer, glossy magazines have been boring us with the same type families for years, with only a small group of fonts being used to denote refinement and sophistication.

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All of a sudden, everything must be reasonable, serious; even the minute details of serifs are now rectangular, subordinated to an “idea”. The composition of a book comes closer to architecture; everywhere there is an abundance of blank space; the casting of both type faces and cannons advances towards perfection. The lack of emotions gave rise to desperate Romanticism, which did not manifest itself in book typography at all, as if the division of work in art had marked the industrial revolution. At the same time, at the beginning of the 19th century, when Caspar David Friedrich paints his snow-covered graves with forked, mutilated trees, Justus Erich Walbaum sits quietly in his Weimar workshop, establishing the German branch of Neo-classical typography. Beside Didot and Bodoni, Walbaum seems to stand rather on the margin of glory. His typeface, when judged according to the Neo-classical rules, is even a little bit “impure”. But this is precisely the reason why it is much more legible, softer and more humane than it would have been, if it had merely, blindly, aimed at an ideal.

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In spite of its name, this font family embodies the ultimate classic modern advertising typeface, rather than concern itself with revivalism or Didone authenticity. Naturally the spirit of the original Didot faces still exists in this family, but over twelve years of work on it have made it more fitting to the luxurious expression of our day and age, rather than nineteenth century Europe.

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Firmin Didot cut the first modern face about 1784 in Paris; Giambattista Bodoni followed prolifically on his heels; his punches and matrices survive in Parma. Bauer has produced the most faithful and delicate contemporary version of his types.

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Norberto, a CastleType original, is based on a Russian design from the late 19th century that in turn appears to be based on Bodoni. However, Norberto is a much warmer design than most Bodonis, with many soft touches such as very gentle curves from the serif at the top of B, D, P, and R; a jaunty cap on the ‘A’ (and Cyrillic ‘El’, ‘De’, etc); charmingly quaint numerals; hairline accents, and other subtleties that make it a wonderful addition to the Modern typefaces.

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In spite of its name, this font family embodies the ultimate classic modern advertising typeface, rather than concern itself with revivalism or Didone authenticity. Naturally the spirit of the original Didot faces still exists in this family, but over twelve years of work on it have made it more fitting to the luxurious expression of our day and age, rather than nineteenth century Europe.

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Giambattista Bodoni created this modern typeface in 1790 which served as the structural model for Sol Hess’s faithful rendition. Hess made necessary adjustments for mechanical typesetting on Lanston’s Monotype composition system.

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Vinegar Pro is a modern, legible serif typeface.

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Before Bodoni, there was Didot. With the publication by Francois Ambroise Didot of Paris in 1784 of his prospectus for Tasso’s La Gerusalemme Liberata, the rococo typographical style of Fournier de Jeune was replaced with a spartan, neo-classical style that John Baskerville pioneered. The typeface Didot used for this work was of Didot’s own creation and is considered by both G. Dowding and P. Meggs to be the first modern face. Three years later, Bodoni of Parma is using a very similar face. Just as Bodoni’s typeface evolved over time, so did that of the Didot family. The eldest son of Francois Ambroise Didot, Pierre, ran the printing office; and Firmin ran the typefoundry. Pierre used the flattened, wove paper, again pioneered by Baskerville, to permit a more accurate impression and allow the use of more delicate letterforms. Firmin took full advantage of the improved paper by further refining the typeface introduced by his father. The printing of Racine’s Oeuvres in 1801 (seen in our gallery image #2) shows the symbiotic results of their efforts, especially in the marked increase in the sharpness of the serifs when compared to their owns works of only six years earlier. It has been suggested that one reason Bodoni achieved greater popularity than Didot is the thinner hairlines of Didot were more fragile when cast in metal type and thus more expensive for printers to use than Bodoni. This ceased to be a problem with the advent of phototypesetting, opening the door for a renewed interest in the work of the Didot family and especially that of Firmin Didot.

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Andrade is a new typeface designed by Dino dos Santos in 2005.

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An elegant take on Bodoni, with its subtle flared serifs that give it a very beautiful distinguished look.

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Inspired by Sol Hess’s 1938 typeface of the same name.

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Ambroise Std Firmin is the condensed variant of the Ambroise Std family.

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Typographer and graphic designer Pavel Teimer (1935-1970) designed a modern serif roman with italics in 1967. For the drawing of Teimer he found inspiration in the types of Walbaum and Didot, rather than Bodoni. He re-evaluated these archetypes in an individual way, adjusting both height and width proportions and modifying details in the strokes, thus effectively breaking away from the historical models he used as a starting point. Teimer’s antiqua has less contrast; the overall construction of the characters is softer and more lively. The proportions of the italics are rather wide, making them stand out by their calm and measured rhythm. This was defined by the purpose of the typeface, as it was to be utilised for two-character matrices. The long serifs are a typical feature noticeable throughout the complete family of fonts. In 1967, a full set of basic glyphs, numerals and diacritics of Teimer’s antiqua was submitted to the Czechoslovak Grafotechna type foundry. However, the face was never cast.
At the beginning of 2005 we decided to rehabilitate this hidden gem of Czech typography. We used the booklet "Teimer’s antiqua - a design of modern type roman and italics", written by Jan Solpera and Kl‡ra Kv’zov‡ in 1992, as a template for digitisation. The specimen contains an elementary set of roman and italics, including numerals and ampersands. After studying the specimen, we decided to make certain adjustments to the construction of the character shapes. We slightly corrected the proportions of the typeface, cut and broadened the serifs, and slightly strengthened the hair strokes. In the upper case we made some significant changes in the end serifs of round strokes in C, G and S, and the J was redrawn from the scratch. The top diagonal arm of the K was made to connect with the vertical stem, while the tail of Q has received a more expressive tail. The stronger hairlines are yet more apparent in the lower case, which is why we needed to further intervene in the construction of the actual character shapes. The drawing of the f is new, with more tension at the top of the character, and the overall shape of the g is better balanced. We also added an ear to the j, and curves in the r have become more fluent.
To emphasise the compact character of the family, the lining numerals were thoroughly redrawn, with the finials being replaced by vertical serifs. The original character of the numerals was preserved in the new set of old-style figures.

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An interpretation of the modern serif.

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Chittenden is a painstakingly hand-crafted, hand-drawn decorative font that get its inspiration from classic serif fonts, and adds some double-stroked panache of its own.

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Designed at ParaType in 1989 by Alexander Tarbeev. A modern replica of the typeface by Giambattista Bodoni, the Italian punchcutter and typographer of the late 18th century.

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A slightly more refined revival of the Fat Face, as supervised by Chauncey Griffith at Mergenthaler one year after ATF’s Ultra Bodoni.

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Designed at ParaType in 1992 by Vladimir Yefimov. Based on letterforms of Firmin Didot, a French typographer from the 18th century, ITC Didi, of 1970, by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, and Russian typefaces of the 18th–19th centuries. For use in headlines, in advertising and display typography.

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In the late 18th century, Bodoni, Walbaum and Didot removed the angled, broad pen stress of the old style and invented the vertically-stressed modern style of type. However, they kept most of the conventions as to which parts of the letterforms should be stressed (thick) and which should be unstressed (thin). Following type’s origins in pen writing, the notion persisted that “downstrokes” should be heavier than “upstrokes”, so that one side of the cap A is thick (as in the oldstyle), and the other is not.

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Celebrate the Revolution that brought about our great country and freedoms!

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Based on the original Stephenson Blake drawings.

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A French form of Fat Face, derived from the British; matrices survive at Berthold in Berlin.

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William A. Dwiggins designed Caledonia for Linotype in 1939. Initially, he had intended to blend the elements of Scotch Roman and Bulmer typefaces, but ended up with a design that bettered both his models. Dwiggins describes it as having “something of that simple, hard-working, feet-on-the-ground quality that has kept Scotch Roman in service for so many years.”

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Monotype Modern is a Victorian adaptation of the popular modern designs of Didot and Bodoni; the austere, formal qualities inherent in these designs have been softened with a little less contrast between thick and thin strokes, a slightly larger x-height, and terminals with accentuated hooks.

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Released by the Monotype Corporation about 1932, Inflex Bold is a Scotch Roman fat face design similar to many others popular in the nineteenth century.

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This is almost a necessity if you are doing reproductions of mid-19th century posters and playbills.

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An Adobe Originals design first released in 1992, Myriad has become popular for both text and display composition.

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Scotch Modern is a revival of the typeface used in the book New York State Cabinet of Natural History.

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Dalliance Script is based on the elegant handwriting found on a map of a horrific battle between the Habsburg Coalition and France which took place at Ostrach, in southwest Germany, in 1799.

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A set of square capitals developing from the interest in geometric forms stimulated by the Bauhaus, Bank Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1930, the same year that Georg Trump designed City for Berthold.

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Worldwide is a typeface in the Century idiom, designed with present day newspaper usage in mind. That’s to say, it’s somewhat condensed, and combines strong, traditional form with subtle finish.

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The Filosofia Regular family is designed for text applications. It is somewhat rugged with reduced contrast to withstand the reduction to text sizes.

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Inspired by the Froben capitals believed to have been cut by Peter Schoeffer the Younger, son of Gutenberg’s apprentice, this design is neither strictly a Venetian nor an Aldine. The archaic approach and lack of the Aldine model lead us to place the face in the Venetian group. The design owes more to Goudy than to Schoeffer.

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An ultra heavy redesigned Bodoni look, extremely powerful but yet very elegant.

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In 1931, The Times of London commissioned the Monotype Corporation, under the direction of Stanley Morison, to design a newspaper typeface.

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Mittwoch is an extended modern serif and a new companion to insigne’s Montag and Dienstag extended sans serifs.

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The typeface family known as Didot was designed by Firmin Didot in Paris in 1783. The Didot types defined the characteristics of the modern (or Didone) roman type style, with their substantial stems flowing into extremely thin hairlines; the serifs are straight across with virtually no bracketing. Because of the very fine hairlines that are characteristic of modern romans, their use was somewhat restricted in metal types.

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This enthusiastic and friendly serif display typeface was created by Jim Parkinson, an Oakland, California, lettering artist and designer who is best-known for logos such as the one he redrew for Rolling Stone magazine in the late 1970s.

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Akimoto is a fat slab typeface.

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Another version of the Century family was produced when Ginn & Company, a textbook publisher, commissioned American Type Founders to design a typeface with maximum legibility. Morris Benton researched the subjects of eyesight and legibility, then created Century Schoolbook, which was released between 1918 and 1921. Century Schoolbook is still seen in elementary school texts, and can be used for text work where legibility is a primary consideration.

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Dalliance Script is based on the elegant handwriting found on a map of a horrific battle between the Habsburg Coalition and France which took place at Ostrach, in southwest Germany, in 1799.

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BAQ Rounded is a fully developed solid typeface which contains full Latin characters, is highly legible, and always good for extra impact.

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The Corporate ASE typeface trilogy was designed by Prof. Kurt Weidemann, a well-known German designer and typographer, from 1985 until 1990.

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Originally produced by the Berthold foundry in 1977, Fenice was designed by Aldo Novarese and licensed by International Typeface Corporation in 1980. With its large x-height and condensed proportions and spiky vertical terminals, ITC Fenice is a contemporary interpretation of the crisp moderns produced by Bodoni and Didot.

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ITC Mona Lisa, designed in 1991, is an interpretation of Albert Auspurg’s 1930 design for the German Ludwig & Mayer foundry.

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See also BF Fiona Script and BF Fiona Slab.

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John Baskerville spared no effort to create the ultimate typographic book. He prepared deep black inks and smoothed paper to show to full effect the letters that he had John Handy cut from his own brilliant designs, based on a lifetime of calligraphy and stonecutting. Punches and matrices survive at the Cambridge University Press.

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The Aviano series returns with a Didone or Modern face.

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Lazar takes its inspiration from the designs of early Russian designers like El Lissitzky.

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Designed in 1792, the Bulmer types are named not after their designer, William Martin, but after the printer who used them so well in his Shakspeare [sic] Press editions. In fact, it was Morris Fuller Benton who gave them the name back in 1928 when he was creating revivals for American Type Founders. Originally, Martin’s type was the English answer to the sharp, fine letterforms of Italy’s Bodoni and France’s Didot type foundries. But the Bulmer types did more than imitate the starkness of the modern-style Didot-Bodoni types. By condensing the letterforms, giving the strokes higher contrast, and bracketing the serifs slightly, Martin made his typefaces both beautiful and practical. You’ll often see Bulmer in use as a display face because of its high contrast and distinctive letter shapes. As a text face, it adds elegance to any page, and in combination with its expert set, you can use Bulmer for text settings of virtually any subject, from novels to mathematical treatises.

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Morris Fuller Benton started the Bodoni revival with this version for ATF in the early years of the 20th century. We consider it the first accurate revival of a historical face for general use. Sturdy and a little mechanical in the 19th century tradition, this is the Bodoni series familiar to us all.

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Parma is a typewriter style face with the form and elegance of a Bodoni. Functional beauty was the aim of mating the two ideas in one type, creating a utilitarian type with graceful features unlike most typewriter faces which have a mechanical feel. This avoids that inelegant, klugey appearance and makes it possible to have an attractive italic version.

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PT Octava™ was designed at ParaType in 2001 by Vladimir Yefimov.

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In 1931, The Times of London commissioned the Monotype Corporation, under the direction of Stanley Morison, to design a newspaper typeface. According to Morison: “The Times, as a newspaper in a class by itself, needed not a general trade type, however good, but a face whose strength of line, firmness of contour, and economy of space fulfilled the specific editorial needs of The Times.” Times New Roman, drawn by Victor Lardent and initially released in 1932, is the result.

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Pevensey comes in 7 weights with gradual weight-changes between them for ease of selection, and each weight has Regular, Italic and Oblique versions. The weights that are intended for large bodies of text are Regular and DemiBold. In keeping with the house style, the fonts are numbered (unconventionally but helpfully we think) in ascending order from 1 Regular to 7 Black, which makes font selection so much easier in your software’s font menu. In full the weights are: 1 Regular 2 DemiBold 3 Bold 4 ExtraBold 5 Heavy 6 ExtraHeavy 7 Black . We hope you agree that the font is very readable on the page, and there’s an example on the web-page which gives a brief overview.

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