I am preparing a hardcover of 18th-century French garden architecture, illustrated with elevational watercolors of selected buildings. The artwork is contemporary and is rendered with extreme photorealism and will be reproduced on a white ground. Secondary illustrations will be period paintings, architectural and garden plans and views, portraits and engravings. There will be no photography to break this immersion in the Ancien Regime.
The texts are thoroughly researched but written with an engaging rather than scholarly intent and will be 10-11 pt., fully justified. Three-line inset caps will open chapters, so display capitals are very important. Titles and headers will be printed in a second color, yet to be chosen. The book has a simple, minimalist design with generous margins that accentuate the use of white space, and this echoes the presentation of the drawings.
I am looking for an appealing, classic typeface for the texts other than a Garamond (I like Garamond Premier very much but have used it before) or a Caslon (too rounded, and also used for a previous book). Also a handsome italic swash for chapters and titles.
For lack of a better description, I'd like a text font that is something a bit out of the ordinary that does not call too much attention to itself. I've looked at Berling and like it but find it a tad generic, and Book Antiqua's italic, though the caps are too vertical and brittle.
For titles, Adobe Centaur italic swash is handsome but more antique than French. I also find Andrade appealing but with too much flourish.
Any suggestions for this project would be extremely welcome. I am new member of this forum and discovered it while looking for a Bodoni font for a previous book, and had the remarkable good fortune to learn of LT Gianottan Light, which was the perfect solution for the project. I hope the members here can point me toward other beautiful fonts such as this.
