The smooth finish of his paper allowed fine detail to be retained on the surface. The hairline serifs and fine strokes reflected a high quality of casting, since on poor-quality printing equipment serifs had to be large to avoid wear snapping them. Although he drew inspiration from the work of these designers, above all from Didot, no doubt Bodoni found his own style for his typefaces, which deservedly gained worldwide acceptance among printers.Īlthough to a modern audience Bodoni is best known as the name of a typeface, Bodoni was an expert printer who ran a prestigious printing-office under the patronage of the Duke of Parma, and the design of his type was permitted by and showcased the quality of his company's work in metal-casting, printing and of the paper made in Parma.
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The 1818 Manuale-Tipografico specimen manual of Bodoni's press, published after his death.īodoni admired the work of John Baskerville and studied in detail the designs of French type founders Pierre Simon Fournier and Firmin Didot. In Europe, they are more often used in body text. Massimo Vignelli stated that "Bodoni is one of the most elegant typefaces ever designed." In the English-speaking world, "modern" serif designs like Bodoni are most commonly used in headings and display uses and in upmarket magazine printing, which is often done on high-gloss paper that retains and sets off the crisp detail of the fine strokes. Versions of Bodoni that are intended to be used at text size are "Bodoni Old Face", optimized for 9 points ITC Bodoni 12 (for 12 points) and ITC Bodoni 6 (for 6 points). This is very common when optical sizes of font intended for use at display sizes are printed at text size, at which point the hairline strokes can recede to being hard to see. Some digital versions of Bodoni are said to be hard to read due to "dazzle" caused by the alternating thick and thin strokes, particularly as the thin strokes are very thin at small point sizes. They came to be called 'modern' serif fonts since the mid-20th century, they are also known as Didone designs. However, these fonts were not updated versions of Roman or Renaissance letter styles, but new designs. When first released, Bodoni and other didone fonts were called classical designs because of their rational structure. Bodoni had a long career and his designs changed and varied, ending with a typeface of a slightly condensed underlying structure with flat, unbracketed serifs, extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and an overall geometric construction. Bodoni followed the ideas of John Baskerville, as found in the printing type Baskerville-increased stroke contrast reflecting developing printing technology and a more vertical axis-but he took them to a more extreme conclusion. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Actual font is the digital Bodoni Monotype published in 1999.īodoni is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Monotype Bodoni has a separate entry.Facsimile of lines from Dante's " La Vita Nuova" first published with Bodoni types by the Officina Bodoni in 1925.
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This entry is also used for typefaces that belong to the first group, including digital versions following Benton’s Bodoni such as those by Linotype/Adobe and Bitstream/Tilde (each in 3 weights in roman and italic plus a Bold Condensed). More delicate than the above re-cutting and not adapted by any other foundry or composing machine manufacturer. The Linotype (1914–16), Intertype and Ludlow versions are likewise based on this. Benton, from 1907 onwards, possibly antedated by Nebiolo’s version copied by The Monotype Corporation (slightly squarer and heavier [see Monotype Bodoni) and separately (following more closely, but on body) by Haas 1924–1939 (adopted by the Amsterdam Typefoundry, Stempel, Berthold), who also added an extra-bold with italic, and narrow extra-bold. Here are two basic models in the modern re-cuttings, Uses are tagged with this generic entry unless a specific revival is confirmed (see Related Typefaces). Many revivals of Giambattista Bodoni’s types have been released by various foundries under the name Bodoni.