Bodoni Type Specimen Book

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HISTORY................4 FONTS....................6 ORNAMENTS........6 ANATOMY..............8 USAGE....................9

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“The letters don’t get their true delight when done in haste and discomfort, nor merely done with deligence & pain, but first when they are created with love and passion.”

-Giambattisa Bodoni

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Giambattisa Bodoni 1740-1813

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H ISTO R Y t was first designed by Giambattisa Bodoni in 1798 and is generally considered a “transitional” font type. Bodoni was a prolific type font designer and this particular font was highly influenced by the work of John Baskerville, a designer whose work Bodoni followed. The font, with its highly recognizable centered “Q” tail and slight hook in the “J”, was widely accepted by printers and can be seen in a broad variety of publications and uses since the late 1700s.

American Type Founders came out with a variant designed by Morris Fuller in 1909, followed by an italic and book version in 1910, italic and bold+italic in 1911, a bold shaded version in 1912 and shaded initials in 1914. These were followed by subsequent versions in 1915 through 1926 to create a full family of fifteen font variations on Bodoni’s original font style.

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FONTS

ABC ABC ABC AB abc abc abc abc 123 123 123 123

ORNAMENTS

BC ABC ABC ABC c abc abc abc 3 123 123 123

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ANATOMY As in any profession, type designers have a specialized vocabulary to talk about the differ-

ent parts of letters. It isn’t necessary to commit the entire list to memory, but familiarizing your-

self with this terminology will make it easier to communicate about typeface and their charac-

teristics It will also help educate your eye to recognize the underlying structure of various designs and the differences among them.

Cen Sits m

A Thi

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Ball terminal

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ntered tail mid-counter

No Spur

R AO Flat Serif

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Vertical Stress

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USAGE One of the earlier publications using Bodoni was Dante’s La Vita Nuova in 1925. A good example of the design capabilities is Chauncey H. Griffin’s Poster Bodoni™ used in neon signs and most recognizably in the poster for the movie and play Mama Mia! as well as the movie poster for Black Dahlia. The 1950 Museum of Modern Art publication What is Modern Design? was designed by leading modern designer Jack Dunbar and features Bodoni as its title font.

In advertising Bodoni has been used in many logos because of its classic style including Guerlain, Elizabeth Arden, Giorgio Armani and the classic “CK” for Calvin Klein. In magazine publications such icons as Harper’s Bazzar and the classic architecture magazine Metropolis both use Bodoni as their basic text font. In addition Elle magazine ahs used it for logo and titles.

Variations on the Bodoni font have appeared in many places in the entertainment media including the cover slip for the single Britney Spears 3 was Bodoni Stn-Poster Italic as well as the show logo for The News Hour with Jim Lehr which is in Bodoni TS-Demi Bold

MODERN Stylish Boutique DAZZLE Creative Trend Retro Lifestyle

ELEGANT Couture ITALIAN SLEEK Designer CLASSIC GLAMOROUS CLEANNESS

Reference: A type primer by John Kane, Designhistory.org, Brittanicca.com This book was designed by Aswanth A in typography assignment 2020 at College of fine arts Kerala, Thiruvanathapuram.

The font used in this book Bodoni.

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