Claude Garamond: The Best Type Designer Of The 16th Century

Claude Garamond (1480-1561) was a French type designer, punch cutter and publisher considered by many to be one of the best type designers of the 16th century. The story of his typeface shows how murky the waters can get regarding type history since meticulous records were not kept back then. Garamond was born in 1480 in Paris but little is known about his childhood. In 1520 he trained as a punch cutter in Paris under engraver Geoffrey Tory. Tory was interested in philosophy and experimentation in printing methods and admired the letterforms of Ancient Greece. Punch cutters carved letters into steel for use in typesetting so Garamond would not only have learned how to design typefaces but he also physically carved them out of steel.

As Garamond’s skills grew others began to notice his talent. Garamond’s big break came in 1540 when King Francis I commissioned him to design a type, now known as Grecs de Roi, for a royal book series. The design of the type was

In France his typeface became a national style and inspired the creation of many new fonts. Cardinal Richelieu used the Garamond typeface in his book his book Les Principaux Poincts de la Foy Catholique Defendus. For a time afterwards, the Garamond typeface fell out of favor and was not revived until the start of the twentieth century in a more modern incarnation. After World War I type foundries made their own versions of Garamond. In 1921 Frederick Goudry produced his version of the Garamond typeface and he called it Garamont. There later was some confusion about certain iterations of the Garamond typeface being used at the beginning of the twentieth century. Henry Lewis Bullen the librarian at ATF noticed the type his company was calling Garamond was not found in any 16th century texts. It turns out that the typeface attributed to Garamond by ATF was actually designed by Frenchman John Jannon in the 17th