Bodoni
ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPOR STUVWXYZ
“The letters don’t get their true delight, when done in haste & discomfort, nor merely done with diligence & pain, but first when they are created with love and passion.” — Giambattista Bodoni
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPOR JKLMNOPORSTUVWXYZ
ni
dO
O
Giambattista Bodoni was born on 16 February 1740 at Saluzzo in Savoy (now the Piedmont region of Italy). He came from a printmaking background, his father and grandfather both being in that trade. He worked for a time in Rome as an apprentice in the Roman Catholic Church's Propaganda Fide Printing House. There he produced Italian, Greek, and Latin books and printed materials for court use and it was said, he impressed his superiors so much with his eagerness to learn, studiousness in mastery of ancient languages and types, and energy of effort, that he was allowed to place his own name on his first books. He was gradually won over to the typographical theories of a French printer, Pierre Didot, however, and by 1787 was printing pages almost devoid of decoration and containing modern typefaces of his own design. The typeface that retained the Bodoni name appeared in 1790. Of the many books that he produced during this period, the best known is his Manuale tipografico a folio collection of 291 roman and italic typefaces, along with samples of Russian, Greek, and other types. With John Baskerville in Britain and the Didot family in France, Bodoni became a leader in originating pseudo classical typefaces. These were distinguished from the "old style" of Caslon by emphasizing the contrast of light and heavy lines and by long, level serifs. Bodoni's most notable publications include folio editions of Horace (1791), Vergil (1793), The Divine Comedy (1795), and Homer (1808). His coldly elegant books were made to be admired for typeface and layout, not to be studied or read. 3
This is an image of Manuale Tipographico in which the full alphabet of the Bodoni typeface was printed and published. This book highlights the evolution of his typefaces and style.
Origin Bodoni admired the work of John Baskerville and studied in detail the designs of French type founders Pierre Simon Fournier and Firmin Didot. 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 gained worldwide acceptance among printers. The typeface is classified as modern. Bodoni followed the ideas of Baskerville, as found in the printing type Baskerville: increased stroke contrast and a more vertical, slightly condensed, upper case; but took them to a more extreme direction. Bodoni had a long career and his designs evolved and varied, ending with a typeface with a narrow underlying structure with flat, unbracketed serifs, extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and an overall geometric construction. Though these later designs are rightfully called “modern”, the earlier designs are “transitional”. 5
o e gR 1
Q
Contrast between thick and thin strokes to the vertical axis combining with thin ‘hairlines’ resulted in an attractive, delicate font.
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An imaginary line drawn from the top to the bottom of a glyph bisecting the upper and lower strokes is called an axis. Bodoni uses a vertical stress which is especially evident when comparing the lowercase “o” to Baskerville or Didot Typefaces.
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The descender is a unique element of the Bodoni Uppercase “Q” in which the stroke tapers from thick to thin.
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The ball terminals on the lowercase “g” vary from the double storey lowercase “a.” Typically found on the lowercase “g” an ear is a decorative flourish on the upper right side of the bowl.
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Bodoni uses unbracketed hairline serifs.
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The “e” has a large eye, which refers specifically to the enclosed space, and has a small aperture, which is the somewhat rounded negative space found in some characters as, “C,” “S,” and the upper part of a double storey “a”.
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The tails of the lowercase “a” as well as the uppercase “R” in Bodoni are curled upward.
IIxI Baskerville
Bothe Bodoni and Baskerville utilize contrast, however Baskerville is a trasitional typeface that is not as high in contrast as Bodoni. The serifs used in the Baskerville typeface family are the most important difference between baskerville and bodoni . They are asymmetrically bracketed and the head serifs on the ascenders are horizontal. The bases of the letters are also flat in form. Some of the letters in Baskerville Italic (J, N, T, Z, Y, and &) lose their bracketed serifs for a more cursive look, while the Bodoni Italic’s serifs remain the same. Other distinguishing feeatures of the typeface are the lowercase “a” of Baskervile uses a flat upper stroke and large aperture and features a larger x- height than Bodoni.
Bodoni
Q
g
The uppercase “Q” of the Baskerville typeface is on of the most unique letters of the typeface as the tail of the “Q” is curled and styled in a graceful, elegant and distinguished way.
The lowercase “g” of Baskerville differs from the lowercase “g” of Bodoni in that the bowl of the “g” in Baskerville is left open. Both the uppercase “Q” and the lowercase “g” within the Bodoni typeface have counters that are more rectangular and have a more pronounced vertical stress than the counters within the Baskerville typeface.
Didot
Like Bodoni, Didot is a modern typeface meaning it was designed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and was considered, like many modern typefaces, radical for the time. It utilizes an unbracketed hairline serif which is similar to Bodoni, however the contrast between the thicker stem and the thinner serif is more pronounced within the Bodoni typeface. Bodoni moves more gradually between shifts in weight. Another distinguishing feature of Didot is its use of a higher cross bar in such letters as the uppercase “A.”
Didot has a taller x-heaight than Bodoni. The extreme contrast coupled with the extremely thin harline serifs, used throughout the Didot typeface, make printing difficult as a high quality printing and paper are required in order to reach maximum legibility.
The terminals on the lowercase “t” within the Didot typeface has a scalloped terminal unlike the flat terminal of the Bodoni typeface.
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{
ITC Bodoni
Bodoni Type Family
Bauer Bodoni
Bodoni {
Bodoni Bold Italic
Regular
Bod
Bodon Bodoni Ultra Bold Italic
Different Bodoni Types
ITC Bodoni is one of the most carefully researched and
accurate interpretations of Bodoni’s typefaces ever attempt-
ed. The process involved two trips to Parma, Italy, hundreds of hours of research, and thousands more hours carefully
designing fonts using one of the original copies of Bodoni’s
1818 Manuale Tipografico as a benchmark for accuracy. ITC Bodoni is quite faithful to Bodoni. All of the fonts deliberately avoid the rigid precise lines of many modern Bodonis, even
including the capital R with the ball terminal on the leg and the curly italic lower-case s.
Ultra Bold
Bauer Bodoni was originally released in 1926 from the Bauer
Book Italic
Type Foundry in Frankfurt. The forms are closely related to
the original Bodoni typefaces, and are considered to be more delicate than many other Bodoni interpretations. Long ad-
mired by typographers as the best of available Bodoni display types, this version looks especially fine at large sizes.
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Bodoni
Italic
Bodoni Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPOR JKLMNOPORSTUVWXYZ STUVWXYZABCDEFGHI Bibliography Blackwell, Lewis. 20th-Century Type. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
(A&A: Z250.A2 B59 1998 and Vault)
Kunz, Willi. Typography: Macro- and Microaesthetics. Sulgen: Verlag Niggli AG,
2000. (A&A: Z246 .K86 2000 and Vault)
Carter, Sebastian. Twentieth Century Type Designers. Great Britain: Lund Hum
phries, 2002. (A&A: Z250 A2 C364 1995 and Vault)
Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classic Typefaces, essays by Carolyn
Annand ... [et al.]; edited by Philip B. Meggs and Roy McKelvey, New
York: RC Publications, 2000. (A&A: Z250.R45 2000)
Colophon This book was made by Margaret Flatley at Washington University in St. Louis using the fonts Bodoni, Helvetica, Minion Pro, Baskerville, and Didot. This book explores Giambattista Bodoni, the origins of the typeface, the characteristics of the typeface and the comparisons to Baskerville and Didot typefaces.
www.linotype.com www.fonts.com www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/71084/Giambattista-Bodoni www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/bodoni-giambattista.html www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Bodoni www.graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/type_basics/modern.htm www.rightreading.com/typehead/bodoni.htm www.susanellsworth.com/copywriting/bodoni.html
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