FYI: There's a great article comparing Walbaums in an issue of Blazek's TYPO magazine.

hhp

I don't have it, but looking at the PDFs, Storm's Walbaum looks great to me. It's available in Opentype, which I think is an advantage.

I think it could work well for a philosophy journal.

My version of Walbaum (named Walburn) was designed primarily for newspaper headlines. So if you require something for display size, I would recommend the Light. www.shinntype.com

Hm, I rather liked that 2... though I can see how it might not wear well.

A question about Open Type: it only works with high-end programs, right? Because I've only got Quark (grrr) and a really old copy of Illustrator.

OpenType basically works fine with older and low-end apps. However, you don't get access to the extra goodies, just the basic MacRoman (or WinANSI) character set.

There are a couple of exceptions, which do include some older versions of Illustrator (just 6 and 7 I think). See the OpenType readme at http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype for details.

Cheers,

T

I think Storm's version is one of the only true text versions of Walbaum. Mr. Shinn's Walburn would complement it nicely as a display, as would the Berthold version (I prefer using the smaller foundries like ShinnType and Storm). If you contact Mr. Storm, he may be willing to supply you with a Type 1 version.

-Addison

>Hm, I rather liked that 2

Me too, and it's authentic. However, it's a little strong for some: the Scotsman newspaper used my Walbaum for a while, but had me do them a custom version with the terminal on the 2 changed to a "ball" (similar to on the 6 and 9), and I ballsed up the 3 and 5 also. But they didn't mind the acutely-angled top part of the 3 -- which seems to find favor in the UK more so than elsewhere.

That's my kind of debate - good going, Joe!

hhp

Yves:

Your a nerd. ;-)

For headlines to fit with Walbaum:
Why not a French Didot done by a Swiss (Linotype Didot), a French Didot done by a New Yorker or a French Didot done by a French?

Linotype Didot: http://www.linotype.com
HTF Didot: http://www.typography.com
Ambroise: http://www.typofonderie.com

For Walbaum, by the past Berthold one was not bad and the choice for the Mus

J-F, IMHO the Didot style clashes with Walbaum, like colors that don't quite match but are too close for comfort.

More Walbaum than Bodoni or Didot:
ITC Fenice
FF Acanthus

BTW, the big three of classic Didone/Modern fonts are Didot (French), Bodoni (Italian), and Walbaum (German). Why is there no comparably recognized British face?

Nick, do you already opened a book from that period? Mixtures are quite typical and generally wonderful. Walbaum is square and strong enough for text when Didot delicate style will contrast wonderfully.

In same veine, I'm pretty sure that, with careful selection, a mxiture of various Garamond will fit perfectly a layout

More close to you, you should read again Bringhurst on type mixtures.

But, perhaps we agree that Its quite impossible to mix Fenice with any others Didot-Bodoni-Walbaum? Same for many others faces too.


***

To me, Bulmer is the English counter part of Continental trend.

BTW, the big three of classic Didone/Modern fonts are Didot (French), Bodoni (Italian), and Walbaum (German). Why is there no comparably recognized British face?

As JFP notes, Bulmer is probably the closest that British types came to the full-blown Romantic types of the continent, yet it still remains closer to the neo-classical model of Baskerville, and is much less extreme than the Didot or Bodoni types. This isn't surprising, if you consider the cultural and political milieu of Britain at the time, and contrast it with the revolutionary circumstances of the continent. Romanticism in British art and literature never strayed very far from the lyric and retained strong neo-classical elements throughout the 19th century.

On the other hand, it could be argued that in Britain it was Robert Thorne (and to some extent Vincent Figgins, also) who picked up on the continental Romantic trends of high contrast and took it to dramatic extremes in his fat faces.

-- K.

>Why is there no comparably recognized British face?

It seems to me that there were a great many Didone faces cut in England and Scotland c.1800, that are "reading from the same page" as the well known Continental classics. Perhaps this is why no one in particular stood out.

>British art and literature never strayed very far from the lyric

Although the UK didn't have a revolution like France, it was on the brink in the early 19th C, and the culture at that time was no less extreme. The national cultures were not isolated, and artists and scientists were very interested in what was happening elsewhere. The Jacobin newspaper "Gazette.." was printed with Baskerville's type, for instance. British culture in the first half on the 19th century was considerably more modernist, and gothic, than it was neo-classical.

>quite impossible to mix Fenice

Probably, but it's the simplification of serifs (or possibly call it "old style" serifs), most notable on C and S, that connects Walbaum with Fenice, and, to my eye, makes it look so at odds with Bodoni or Didot typefaces.

Berthold has 2 Walbaums: Walbaum Buch (or Book) and Walbaum Standard. Buch is the one JFP mentioned for the Mus

Storm's Walbaum actually looks pretty good. The version I am (was) familiar with has too many oddities going on with the figures. Check out that 2, it's too archaic for most modern institutions.

I once got in a heated debate with the art director at the
American Museum of Natural History about why
Walbaum didn't go with TheSans. The figures were the
backbone of my argument. Eventually they went with Minion, a
nicer combination.

The funniest part is, his counter argument was that Minion couldn't be taken seriously because the ascenders were taller than the cap height. It was then that I knew my opponent's weakness. =)

Funniest type-related debate a friend of mine ever
witnessed was two designers discussing for half an
hour which typeface would go on a plastic bag, and
suddenly one of them goes (triumphant):

"Hold it, I've got it! Let's use... Helvetica"

Sez who? Tell me something I don't know!