Garamond’s typefaces were copied in almost all of literary Europe. Christopher Plantin carried them to Holland Andre Weschel, executor of the Garamond estate, introduced them to Germany and one of Garamond’s students named Guillaume Le Be introduced them to Italy. They gained popularity throughout Europe due to the individuals which introduced them there. Besides having difficulty in receiving recognition for his work in type design, because it was often copied by others (Willetts), he had little success in his business and owned little more than his punches when he died, and shortly his widow was forced to sell them (Haley).ĭespite Garamond’s limited success, his typefaces in themselves were. Garamond has complained that his work “feathers the nest of publishers and brings honey to their hive” (Haley). Garamond’s original punches for the Grecs du roi type, which remain the property of the French government.Īlthough Garamond’s work brought him in contact with the most prominent, wealthy and influential patrons of the French book arts, he was quite dissatisfied with the small opportunities and profits he gained as a type designer and founder. Ī 1550 edition of the New Testament printed by use of ‘grecs du roi’ This earned him the title of Royal Type Founder (1499 – 1561: Claude Garamond). Garamond received his own type foundry in 1539 by royal decree, and in three years’ time, he cut the grecs du roi – meaning “the Greeks of the King” – typefaces for King François I. Throughout his time as a punch-cutter, he cut types in the tradition now known as old-style serif design, which produced letters with an organic structure which resembled handwriting with a pen but with a more structured and upright design (Claude Garamond). His independent career therefore assisted in defining the future of commercial printing with typefounding as a distinct industry to printing books (Claude Garamond), and printers were able to print books with immense legibility due to Garamond’s work having harmony of design between the capital, lowercase and italic letters (Willetts). Īs one of the first independent punchcutters, he specialised in type design and punch-cutting, offering these as a service to others instead working in house for a particular printer. One of his first works is said to be the Cicero typeface, which was re-cut by Frenchman Jean Jannon in 1620, and distributed under the name of Garamond (1499 – 1561: Claude Garamond). He initially began an apprenticeship as a book printer in 1510 in the workshop of Antoine Augereau, a humanist typographer and engraver. He was also one of the first type designers to create obliqued capitals which complimented an italic lowercase, and created an italic design to compliment a roman type style (Haley). Claude Garamondīeing the typographic innovator that he was, he was instrumental in the adoption of roman typeface designs in France as a replacement for the commonly used gothic or blackletter. He is considered one of the leading type designers of all time, and is recognised to this day for the elegance of his typefaces (Claude Garamond). Garamond was an independent punch-cutter, type designer and book publisher based in Paris. Claude Garamond, with his given name being Claude Garamont, was a Frenchman born in c.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |