TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Thu Aug 15 18:41:10 EDT 2024
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Mac McGrew on Garamont
This text is from Mac McGrew's American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century: When Frederic W. Goudy joined Monotype as art advisor in 1920, he persuaded the company to cut its own version of the types attributed to Claude Garamond, rather than copying the foundry face. The result was named Garamont, also at Goudy's suggestion, to preserve the distinction between the different renderings. Both spellings of the name had been used in Garamond's lifetime. A comparison of ATF Garamond and Monotype Garamont, especially in the small sizes, demonstrates opposing views of two outstanding type designers, although the two typefaces are very similar in many ways. In most typefaces, the proportionate width increases as the size decreases, to overcome optical illu- sions and maintain legibility. Benton carried this idea beyond usual practice; his 6-point Garamond is a little more than one third the width of 24-point. But Goudy believed in strict proportions; his 6-point Garamont is only very slightly more than one fourth (26 percent) the width of 24-point; thus in 6- and 8-point sizes Garamont seems smaller than Garamond. This, incidentally, is what makes it impossible to combine Garamont with Garamond Bold for typesetting in one operation. Note also the characters EFJL in Garamont, which are closer to Benton's original Garamond designs than to Cleland's revision. Garamont has the short J in display sizes, but a long one in keyboard sizes. In the Garamont specimens, the last group of characters, both roman and italic, was obtained from a different source and is proofed much more heavily; actually the weight is uniform with the rest of the font. |
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Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html |