Claude Garamond (Caractere de l’Universite!)

Claude Garamond, French type founder who was born in 1480 and dead in 1561, living during the period called as “Gold age of French typography”. Garamond was disciple of Simon de Colines, later he was assistant of Geoffroy Tory, who was concerned with human proportions and those of the ancient majuscules, as well as their mutual relation. He was an independent punch cutter whose fonts appearing in books from Paris in the 1530 achieved a high standard excellence. Garamond came to prominence in1540 when he was commissioned to create a typeface for the French King Francis I, to be used in a series of books by Robert Estiene. Claude Garamond created for that a typeface based on Aldus Manutius’ works and Angelo Vergecio’s handwriting.

The French curt adopted Garamond’s Roman types for their printing and the typeface influenced type across France and Western Europe. When Claude Garamond died in 1561, his punches and matrices were sold to Christopher Plantin in Antwerp, which enabled the Garamond fonts be used on many printers. The typefaces called Garamond, Granjon and Sabon show his influence.

In 1621, sixty years after Garamond’s death, the French printer Kean Jannon issued a specimen of typefaces that had some characteristics similar to the Garamond designs, though his letters were more asymmetrical and irregular in some of the letter parts. After the French government had raided Jannon’s printing office, Cardinal Richelieu named Jannon’s type as “Caractere de l’Universite” (Typeface of the texts), and it became the house style of Royal Printing Office.

In 1825 the French National Printing Office adapted the type used by Royal Printing Office in the past, and claimed the type as the work of Claude Garamond.

In 1919, Thomas Maitland Cleland and Morris Fuller Benton produced the first 20th Century commercial Garamond based on the Janno’s design, called Garamond#3.


These are some of the characteristics of the Garamond typeface:

Serifs: In the upper case they are long but they appearance is shorter because thei blend softly into the main stem, clear example of this is the letter “M”. Otherwise, in the lower case, the top of upright stems and ascenders are slanted wedges, and the bottoms serifs are square with the bate line.

Stress: In the rounded cap letters, the stress is in the horizontal middle, while in certain letters (“c”, “d” or “e”) the stress is in the diagonal.

It has another single characteristics: Pointed apex of the “A”, and it also has a high crossbar; elongated swash of the “J” which terminates in an ovular ball; slightly splayed “M; cat’s tail of the “Q” and cross over the “W”; large counters in the “a” and the “e”, which also has a horizontal crossbar; ascenders and descenders are long; the letter “f” has a srong hook; most top serifs slope downward toward the left and the influence of calligraphy is evident.

Claude Garamond created only one typeface, but after his, and Jean Janonn’s jobs, several typefaces were created. These are:

- Garamond #3 (Adobe Garamond)
- Garamond #3 Italic
- Garamond #3 Bold
- Garamond #3 Bold Italic
- Garamond Light
- Garamond Light Italic
- Garamond Book
- Garamond Book Italic
- Garamond Bold
- Garamond Bold Italic
- Garamond Ultra
- Garamond Ultra Italic
- Garamond Light Condensed
- Garamond Light Condensed Italic
- Garamond Book Condensed
- Garamond Book Condensed Italic
- Garamond Bold Condensed
- Garamond Bold Condensed Italic
- Garamond Ultra Condensed
- Garamond Ultra Condensed Italic


The Garamond typeface is known because of its high legibility and it has been used in all the American J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter books.



My raven and I say goodnight!

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