The Garamond mess
The choice of Garamonds is confusing, and so is the name Garamond when associated with typefaces. In fact, the most faithful of all garamonds is not even called Garamond. So, here is a brief overview. - Typefaces with Garamond in the name that are based directly on Garamond's work: Stempel Garamond, and Berthold Garamond.
- Typefaces not called Garamond, but still faithful to Garamond include, principally, Linotype's Sabon, designed by Jan Tschichold. Linotype explains: In the early 1960s, the German masterprinters' association requested that a new typeface be designed and produced in identical form on both Linotype and Monotype machines so that text and technical composition would match. Walter Cunz at Stempel responded by commissioning Jan Tschichold to design the most faithful version of Claude Garamond's serene and>Bitstream's Cursive is a return to the form of one of Garamond's late italics, recently identified. Punches and matrices for the romans survive at the Plantin-Moretus Museum. The name refers to Jacques Sabon, who introduced Garamond's romans to Frankfurt, although the typefaces that Sabon himself cut towards the end of the sixteenth century have a faintly awkward style of their own. The other typeface in this category is Granjon.
- Typefaces based on the work of Jean Jannon, an early seventeenth century French punchcutter whose work was confused with Garamond's early in the twentieth century, a mistake that was not corrected until 1926 by Beatrice Warde: Garamond 3, Monotype Garamond, Simoncini Garamond, and Deberny & Peignot's Garamont.
- Cousins twice removed include ITC Garamond, a distant relative of Jannon, and Ludlow Garamond, which can almost be considered as an original design by Robert Hunter Middleton---few Garamond genes remain in the latter face.
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