Hey guys! Help!
I'm in search of the epitome of Baroque or classicism font! any suggestions?
Also a font for the epitome of eclecticism and the avant garde movement
I'd appreciate a modern, updated take for these periods though!
For modern versions of Baroque and Classical styles, Storm Serapion is (very) French Baroque and Smeijers' Renard and Arnhem are Dutch Baroque and Neoclassical respectively. Indigo Antiqua is subtly eclectic, and Frere-Jones' Nobel in its uncondensed light and book weights is a recent take on avant-garde puritanism.
onsider the original designs for Aldine, Bodoni, Caslon or Garamond
Of these, only Caslon is baroque, but it owes a lot to pre-baroque Dutch oldstyle types. The Aldine and Garamond types are renaissance, and Bodoni is romantic. For French baroque, you should look at Fournier, not just the types but also how he used them in those small format, delicate and ornamented page layouts. For Dutch baroque, you should look at Fleischmann and Rosart.
Fleischman and Rosart could equally (more accurately?) be called Dutch transitional or rococo, in their addition of newly formalised ornamentation and a tendency towards lightness to baroque predecessors. Fournier's usually considered neoclassical, though certainly he reinjected a welcome dose of baroque variety into the constructionist Romain du Roi. Terminology is not exact, though calling the Aldine (which refers to a specific italic designed in 1500) "baroque" does seem rather revisionist. Garamond's types were likewise made from 1530 to 1545; and in 1750 Bodoni turned 10.
Raymond, this will probably offend the purists, but for an updated "Baroque" look, the new Jukebox Bookman, with all the flourishes, might be useful.
And there's always

Fleischman and Rosart could equally (more accurately?) be called Dutch transitional or rococo
I tend to think of rococo as a sub-category of late baroque.
Nick, you reminded me of Momus' analog baroque recordings. He got into legal trouble for the song about Walter/Wendy Carlos' sex change operation, but I see it is back in the rerelease after being removed from the version I have.
What about the Baroque font designs by Storm @ www.stormtype.com ? They have done a lot of baroque or inspired-by-baroque designs as far as I know.
I agree with chri1753 about Fleischman and Rosart being more Rococo than Baroque, and I would put Fournier as well into this class of typefaces. In my mind, Rococo is more than a sub-category of late Baroque, since historically the former replaced the latter, not only in printing and type design, but also in architecture, painting, fashion, music and lifestyle.
By the way, Baroque being the style of seventeenth-century Catholic Europe, I've always found a bit puzzling to read it used for Dutch typography from this particular era — the Netherlands being quite a fiercely Protestant country at the time.
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