Since Granjon produced nearly 2 faces a year, out of his c. 20 Romans which would you consider as »the« Granjon-Roman? Not sure if someone can name »the real Granjon« unless all of Granjon's faces are available digitally?

¶ Find three different designs. The last two typefaces are officially based on Granjon's romans.

Granjon (George William Jones)

Plantin (Frank Pierpont)
"Based on overinked proofs taken from worn types of one of Granjon’s late romans surviving at the Plantin Museum, as interpreted in 1913 by Pierpont and the Monotype Corporation drawing office."

Galliard (Matthew Carter)
"Galliard was originally designed for Mergenthaler Linotype in 1978 as a photocomposition typeface. It is modeled on the work of Robert Granjon, a sixteenth-century punchcutter whose typefaces are renowned for their beauty and legibility."

Starting with the lowercase a, Galliard is obviously more calligraphic in nature than the other two typefaces shown, and yet they are all interpretations of the same original?

¶ About·Galliard

"According to Alexander Lawson, 'The name Galliard stems from Granjon's own term for an 8-point font he cut about 1570. It undoubtedly refers to the style of the face, for the galliard was a lively dance of the period.' "

"Galliard has robust strokes and sharp details. According to Lawson, 'While the designers of the regenerated Garamonds were attempting to bring fidelity in their copies, Carter preferred simply to bring to Galliard his interpretation of the spirit of a Granjon original. . . . Galliard thus possesses the authentic sparkle that is lacking in the current Garamonds.' "

How was Garamont "notorious"? Inquiring minds want to know! :-)

hhp

¶ The·Spread·of·Garamond

I guess he is “notorious” because the origin of the Garamonds we have are not his creation, but Jannon’s...?

I'm completely confused by this thread. I see no reference to 'notorious' until Hrant mentions it? And GrubStreet, 'the origin of the Garamonds we have', the origins are crystal clear (printed examples) hence we have: Adobe Garamond, Garamond Premier, Stemple, et al., whats left to wonder at?

Fournier (Stefan) had used this word in his original post. I assume that this is a language issue, and that he misused ‘notorious’ for ‘of note’, ‘well-known’; i.e. Garamond’s name is famous, Jannon’s not so much.

I don't know where the original "notorious" went; I assume it was edited out because it was realized to be a mischaracterization (probably unintentionally so).

Garamont was not notorious. Griffo and Gill were.

About the pilcrow: to me a bit of –arguable– incorrectness is worth it to get that wonderful symbol back in use. I use it on my –otherwise generally quite tiresome– site (mostly for compactness). See: http://themicrofoundry.com/s_nonlatin.html

hhp

Francesco Griffo's "last appearance in the historical record", according to Wikipedia, was being charged with the murder of his son-in-law, bludgeoned "to death with an iron bar".

Griffo: Yes, and he was hanged for it. But some people say he was framed.
Gill: Sex with daughter and animals (note: AFAIK not at the same time). Working on high scaffolding in a smock and no underware.

Pilcrow: Well, originally originally it was a place-holder for a missing illuminated initial letter in cheaper versions of books. And FWIW to me Stefan has the best-looking posts on Typophile.

Update my website: Do you go vandalizing museum exhibits?!

hhp

Using pilcrows on Typophile myself: not that Stefan has a monopoly, but I've never been one to copy style (without giving credit, which would be too hard here). Example: Jeans? I don't own any. Because they don't feel good (and I don't care how they look [on me]). I much prefer corduroy (even in the 21st century).

My site: No, you're right. The only good thing about it is its horizontality.

hhp

Well that's a very kind offer! I would only consider some sort of barter though.

hhp

OK, great – when the time comes! Thanks.

BTW, you're not complaining about Stefan's use of midpoints instead of wordspaces? :-)

hhp

In the subject of this thread. Sorry I've made you aware. :-)

hhp

What was the purpose there?

Imitating Roman inscriptions.

Ah, the midpoints are those little dots, like British decimal points. Not some design feature.

I was going to say that lower-case letters had serifs, in imitation of the capital letters in Roman inscriptions, because they ought to harmonize visually with capital letters... even though they originated from something so different. I suppose we could have stuck with Carolingian script as the central point of origin for mixed-case texts, using Roman capitals as a basis only for all-caps typefaces...

but the temptation to use the prettiest-looking historical model as frequently as possible was too much to resist.

A world in which nearly all (Latin alphabet) text typefaces are highly calligraphic, and Roman types are a specialty item - like Copperplate Gothic, or Trajanus, all-caps only. That's hard to even imagine. Presumably it would be a world where historical authenticity overrides other values - or one where the activity of typography is stunted by economic constraints. Be that as it may, alternate choices - including the opposite, a world where typography is less bounded by tradition - are useful sources of new ideas.

As one trivial example... imagine a world where typefaces aren't classified by their serifs. Serif versus sans-serif would still be a significant distinction, but, for example, hairline serifs wouldn't imply that the rest of the letterform follows Bodoni and Scotch Roman - hairline serifs or wedge serifs (fonts like Latin Bold) could be stuck on an old style body just as easily, and so the other features of the letter like the degree of stroke contrast would be the classifiers.

For historical reasons, the mainstream of type development has been in a very narrow subset of the possible design space. Hermann Zapf's famed Optima stands almost alone as a foray outside that zone suitable for text, rather than just display, use.