Firmin Didot_01

DidotFirmin

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by Cecilia Villa

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Font anatomy

Unbrackets serfis and balanced lines

Cap height

Ascendent

X-height

Baseline

Descender

Vertical axis

Strong contrast between the lines

Didot

Fine and modern serifs

Who invented it

Didot invented the word „stereotype“, which in printing refers to the metal printing plate created for the actual printing of pages (as opposed to printing pages directly with movable type), and used the process extensively, revolutionizing the book trade by his cheap editions. His manufactory was a place of pilgrimage for the printers of the world. He first used the process in his edition of Callet’s Tables of Logarithms (1795), in which he secured an accuracy till then

unattainable. He published stereotyped editions of French, English and Italian classics at a very low price.[1] At the 1798 Exposition des produits de l‘industrie française Pierre and Firmin Didot and Louis Etienne Herhan won an honorable distinction, the highest award, for their „Superb edition of Virgil with characters and ink of their manufacture; a stereotype plate, and an in-12 edition of the works of Virgil and Lafontaine with these characters.“

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Firmin Didot (14 April 1764 – 24 April 1836) was a French printer, engraver, and type founder.Born in Paris into a family of printers founded by François Didot, the father of 11 children, Firmin was one of his grandchildren. A dynasty of French printers, punch-cutters, and publishers, the family “gained renown for their illustrated editions of the classics, as well as for publishing inexpensive editions of scholarly texts.”

A man of words and tales himself, Didot was also the author of two tragedies — La Reine de Portugal and La Mort d’Annibal — and he

wrote metrical translations from Virgil, Tyrtaeus and Theocritus. Along with Italy’s Giambattista Bodoni, Firmin Didot is credited with establishing the use of the Didone or „Modern“ style of serif typefaces. The types that Didot used are characterized by extreme contrast in thick strokes and thin strokes, by the use of hairline serifs and by the vertical stress of the letters. Many fonts today are available based on Firmin Didot‘s typefaces, and are often called Didot as a result. Didot was appointed by Napoleon as the director of the Imprimerie Impériale typefoundry.

“Today, Didot‘s legacy can be seen in the ‘modern Moderns.’ Modern typefaces tend to denote luxury brands, and are often used on the covers of fashion publications such as Vogue. Since Didot created his first typeface in the eighteenth century, many typographers have created designs inspired by the Didot type family, and these new interpretations pay tribute to the impact Didot had on the world of typography.”

Didot is a group of typefaces named after the famous French printing and type producing Didot family. The classification is known as modern, or Didone. The most famous Didot typefaces were developed in the period 1784–1811. Firmin Didot (1764–1836) cut the letters, and cast them as type in Paris. His brother, Pierre Didot (1760–1853) used the types in printing. Didot is described as neoclassical, and evocative

of the Age of Enlightenment. The Didot family were among the first to set up a printing press in the newly independent Greece, and typefaces in the style of Didot have remained popular in Greek since. Several revivals of the Didot faces have been made, first for hot metal typesetting and then for phototype and digital versions. Among the most successful contemporary adaptations are the ones drawn by Adrian Frutiger for the Linotype foundry, and by Jonathan Hoefler for H&FJ. Hoefler‘s design anticipates the degradation of hairline in smaller point sizes by employing heavier weighted strokes in the smaller point sizes. Frutiger‘s Didot revival, which is bundled with macOS, was specifically intended for display use and not for body text, and adds in addition an even more delicate headline font.

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FONT‘S CHARACTERISTICS

CHARACTERISTICS

In this typeface, the designer applied the four virtues, which he elaborated, that an alphabet must possess: regularity (when the letters are part of a common construction that defines them), sharpness (when the letters are legible), good taste (when the letters are sober) and beauty (when the typographic design was carefully executed, taking the time to make it perfect). The Bodoni is a typeface constructed in accordance with geometric forms, perfect in terms of proportions and even optical corrections. Gianbattista Bodoni took his whole life to make it, with amazing results

that we can see in his alphabet. The characteristics of this typeface are: a strong contrast between the shafts, some thick and some thin, the very fine and „modern“ graces, almost perpendicular to the stroke, unlike the „old style“ Renaissance graces that curve gently. Because of its graces, the Bodoni is defined as the first modern typeface. Its graphism is linear and clean. Bodoni‘s typographic compositions are harmonious and elegant, and the letter, in its severe and studied construction, helps to make them pleasing.

& FUNDAMENTALS OF TYPOGRAPHY

The fundamental purpose of typography is to present text in a way that enhances (or diminishes, as the case may be) the experience of reading it. Typography has the ability to alter your experience of reading something, which makes absolutely crucial to the consumption of everything that includes it, from newspaper articles to resumes and package design. Consider the feeling of reading text that is far

too small, or that has minimal space between the letters, as opposed to text that’s crafted in a way you’re expecting: evenly spaced, legible font and size. Or, consider how typography on a poster in wild colors and cleverly arranged can challenge your perception of a product or brand. The true power of typography lies in its ability to alter how you feel about a message being conveyed.

MORE DETAILS FOR LETTER ANALYSIS

Didone is a genre of serif typeface that emerged in the late 18th century and was the standard style of general-purpose printing during the 19th century. It is characterized by:

• Narrow and unbracketed (hairline) serifs. (The serifs have a nearly constant width along their length.)

• Vertical orientation of weight axes. (The vertical strokes of letters are thick.)

• Strong contrast between thick and thin lines. (Horizontal parts of letters are thin in comparison to the vertical parts.)

• Some stroke endings show ball terminals. (Many lines end in a teardrop or circle shape, rather than a plain wedge-shaped serif.)

• An unornamented, „modern“ appearance.

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Didot and Bodoni compared DIDONE

Didot types were developed by printers including Firmin Didot , Giambattista Bodoni and Justus Erich Walbaum , whose namesake typefaces, Bodoni , Didot and Walbaum , remain in use today. Their goals were to create more elegant designs of printed text, developing the work of John Baskerville in Birmingham and Fournier in France toward more extreme, precise designs with intense accuracy and contrast that could showcase the increasingly refined printing and papermaking technologies of the period. (Writing in this sense was already popular among calligraphers and copperplate engravers, but much printing in Western Europe until the late 18th century used typefaces designed in the 16th century or relatively similar conservative designs). These trends were also accompanied by changes to layout conventions and the abolition of long s . Founding printer Talbot Baines Reed , speaking in 1890, called the new style of the early nineteenth century „neat, elegant,

gentlemanly, somewhat dazzling.“ Their designs were popular, aided by Bodoni‘s amazing print quality, and were widely imitated. In Britain and America, the enduring influence of Baskerville led to the creation of types such as the Bell , Bulmer and Scotch Roman designs , in the same spirit as the Dido fonts from the Continent but less geometric; these like the Baskerville type are often called designs with transitional graces. Later developments of the latter class have been called Scotch Modern and show a growing Dido influence. Dido typefaces came to dominate printing in the mid-nineteenth century, although some „old-fashioned“ faces continued to be sold and new ones developed by type founders. From the 1840s onward, interest in typefaces of the past began to develop among craft printers. The 1861 frontispiece of Great Expectations in the crisp, high-contrast Dido type of the period. Popular at the time, the style had all but disappeared by the mid-20th century.

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