Typeface Review: "Garamond"

What It Looks Like:

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It's History: "Garamond is an old-style serif typeface, named after punch-cutter Claude Garamond. Adobe Garamond and Stempel Garamond were both based on this original typeface from the 16th century, and Granjon and Sabon were heavily influenced by it. There are a few unique characteristics of Garamond, including the small bowl of the lowercase 'a' and the small eye of the 'e'." (Source #1)

Claude Garamond's
portrait using the font
Garamond.
Picture found here.

"Robert Slimbach redesigned Garamond for Adobe in 1989. "Moderate contrast, and a more rounded form and evenness of stroke than Linotype or Stempel versions, make Slimbach's one of the most readable Garamonds. It is available with swash italics, some elegant terminal letters, ornaments, and titling capitols." (Source #2)

What Type of Font It Is: Garalde - "Garaldes include some of the most attractive and well-designed text faces in current use. They are highly legible but visually lively. As with most historically based faces, the adaptation of these letters for changing print technologies has had varying effects upon their integrity of form.

"All typefaces originating in hand-cut punches showed a considerable variation of form according to size, with the serifs relatively heavier and the modulation of stroke width less pronounced at smaller sizes. These considerations are crucial to the effective design or adaptation of Garalde faces, and distinguish quality recuts and original faces in the Garalde tradition."(Source #3)

Picture found here.

How You Can Design With It: "Garamond’s greatest strength is its legibility and readability. Garamond is one of the most legible serif typefaces, especially for use in print applications. It’s also one of the most eco-friendly typefaces in terms of ink usage. The original punches and matrices were sold to Christopher Plantin upon the death of Claude Garamond, and were in turn used in many printers, adding to its rise in popularity. Garamond revivals were created as early as 1900. Garamond is an excellent choice for printed materials, including books and reports, due to its high legibility in print." (Source #1)

Where You Can Get It: You can buy the font at FontShop. There is also an Apple site that let's you try it out before purchasing it, located here. Or download from a range of cheaper versions of it at DaFont.

Descriptive Terms for It: Book copy, Garalde, large blocks of text, large bodies of text, legible, Old Style, Old Style Serif, readable, redesign, variety, and whole family.

Sources:
- #1 - http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/08/the-most-popular-fonts-used-by-designers/
- #2 - The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 80
- #3 - The Complete Typographer: A Manual for Designing with Type" by Will Hill, 2nd Edition, p. 72

Examples:

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Picture found here and also available for purchase.

Picture found here.

Picture found here and also available for purchase.