Garamond
The link
garamond.org links to different versions of the font
What it is
Garamond, designed in 1530 by Claude
Garamond, is one of the oldest fonts still in use. Like most older printing
typefaces it can be traced back to calligraphic handwriting used in books
before the printing press, hence the characteristic "serifs".
There’s no "original" Garamond
anymore – in practice it describes a number of related fonts with minor
differences (such as the lowercase 'a'). The font has been digitized a number of
times, notably by Adove and by Apple. The second link allows you to
compare letters in various Garamond variants by overlaying them.
Garamond is included with Microsoft
office. You can get a Garamond 8, a free variant, here (garamond.org), there's also an open source "EB Garamond".
What it means to me
Garamond is
everything Times New Roman wishes it could be.
It has
history. It has imperfections. It has a low x height (the standard
height of 'normal' letters), which adds more white space to pages. Somehow, it
manages to look distinguished and spacious at the same time.
I first
worked with Garamond on an actual printing press, as part of hand-binding a
book and stamping the cover. That meant I also had to do my kerning (the
spacing between individual letters) by hand, with very thin metal plates. Garamond
has been my go-to serif font ever since, for two reasons:
- Garamond is pretty, classy, and dignified. It’s older than most countries.
- Using something different than Times New Roman makes what you write stand out.
There’s
nothing objectively wrong with Times New Roman;
its biggest flaw is its success. Because Times New Roman is the default font on
most office suites, it gets used a lot and never consciously. The result is
that all those hasty memos, grocery lists and notifications blend together. For
me, Times New Roman is associated with writing for work, with office memo’s,
and with official corporate identity policies. And that is a fine role for a font to fill.
When you
want to make something pretty, though? Don’t use the default option. There’s a
host of nice serif fonts out there – Palatino, Baskerville and Century are some
other nice ones. Blogger, where his blog is hosetd, also offer Georgia. When you print a book, a leaflet or a card, you might as well
pick the nicer option and make your work look thoughtful.
Finally, fonts
are meant to be read, and shouldn’t distract from the message. This blog is set
in Verdana, a very ubiquitous sans serif typeface, which reads better on a
screen (serifs read better physically). Verdana’s ubiquity means that Blogger
offers it, and that most people who read the blog will have the font installed. This means everyone sees the same lay-out.
I could consider
rewriting the blog title in Garamond Small Caps, though…
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