Bauer Bodoni

g

BAUER BODONI

A DIDONE FONT.

The Bauer Bodoni font family is a revival of the famous Didone serif cut by Giambattista Bodoni in 1798. Bauer Bodoni was designed by Heinrich Jost for the Bauer Foundry in 1926 as an alternative to the American Type Foundry’s ATF Bodoni™ Font Family of 1907.

Giambattista Bodoni, along with his rival the French typographer Didot, defined the transition of the serif from the transitional serif to the modern. In fact, the name for this classification of serif, Didone, is derived from both Bodoni and Didot’s names. Bodoni’s most famous creation was, of course, his namesake typeface.

Bodoni’s typeface was very different than the transitionals that had dominated in the decades before. Transitionals had maintained some of the balanced modulation between main strokes and hairlines exemplified by old style serifs. With Bodoni all bets were off– its serifs had no brackets and were distinguished by a completely flat stroke, marking a sharp difference between thick and thin strokes.

“

Modified the original Bodoni to increase legibility, and to tone down its high contrast.

G

A series of revivals of Bodoni began in the 20th century, launched by the success of the American Type Foundry’s ATF Bodoni. Many of the competing revivals were based on ATF’s model; however, the Bauer foundry took an alternate approach. ATF Bodoni and many of its derivatives had modified the original Bodoni to increase legibility, toning down its high contrast.

Jost, on the other hand, decided to pursue a Bodoni revival that was more loyal to the original. The resulting Bauer Bodoni is a graceful, albeit bright, typeface. It is characterized by sharp, thin serifs and is mostly used for display purposes given its high contrast and pronounced vertical stress. Bauer Bodoni is excellent for display and headline use. It has been described as a “highstrung thoroughbred” as opposed to a workhorse. It works best when used particularly, in narrow applications that accentuate its stylized aspects. It is currently used in the logotype of the University of Carnegie Mellon.The pop star Lady Gaga also employs it in her logo.

&

Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) was called the King of Printers and the Bodoni font owes its creation in 1767 to his masterful cutting techniques. Predecessors in a similar style were the typefaces of Pierre Simon Fournier (1712–1768) and the Didot family(1689–1836). The Bodoni font distinguishes itself through the strength of its characters and embodies the rational thinking of the Enlightenment. The new typefaces displaced the Old Face and Transitional styles and was the most popular typeface until the mid-19th century. Bodoni’s influence on typography was dominant until the end of the 19th century and even today inspires new creations. Working with this font requires care, as the strong emphasis of the vertical strokes and the marked contrast between the fine and thick lines lessens Bodoni’s legibility, and the font is therefore better in larger print with generous spacing. Bauer Bodoni Fonts appeared in 1926 with the Bauer font foundry.

It was designed by typeface designer and book binder Heinrich Jost (1889–1949), who was the artistic director of the foundry from 1822 til 1948. The forms are closely related to those of the original font and they are more delicate and elegant than many other Bodoni interpretations.

G

In the late eighteenth century, Giambattista Bodoni was one of the most renowned punchcutters, type designers, and printers in Europe, as well as the creator of one of the first Modern or Didone typefaces. Born in 1740 in northern Italian city of Turin, he was the son of a printer. At age eighteen, he worked as a compositor for Propaganda in Rome and then became director of the Duke of Parma’s press at the age of twenty-eight. Typefaces created during the same time period by designers Pierre Simon Fournier and Firmin Didot influened Bodoni’s work. He used them as his primary references in developing his typeface. It was one of the first Modern typefaces to exhibit extreme contrasts of light and dark in its thick and thin strokes, as well as have a vertical stress and razor sharp serifs with unsupported brackets.

“

During his lifetime, Bodoni also designed numerous script typefaces. This designer documented his philosophy and principles of typography in his Manuale Tipografico, which reveals his innovative use of large-scale type, generous white space on the page, and minimal page ornamentation.

Bodoni’s typography and type designs are still regarded as among the most refined and elegant ever produced. He created hundreds of fonts- all in the Bodoni style. An 1840 inventory of his output showed more than 25,000 punches and more than 50,000 matrices

More delicate and elegant than many other Bodoni interpretations.

a

G g G g r R r R J j J j ball terminal

round bowl

central brackets are connected

j a leg extended laterally from the stem

intricate descender

vertical stress

G g G g G r R r R r

HJ 1889 — 1948 Henrich Jost was born in 1889 to a bookbinder father in Magdeburg, where he attended the Kunstgewerbeund Handwerkerschule Magdeburg and trained as a bookseller. In 1908 he moved to Munich and began book production at the Debschitz-Schule in 1911 under the tutelage of Paul Renner and Emil Preetorius. He worked as a freelance type designer from 1914 onwards; his clients included the newspaper Münchner Neueste Nachrichten and other publications.

In 1923 Jost was invited by Georg Hartmann to become the art director of the Bauer Type Foundry in Frankfurtam Main. He directed Bauer during its most successful period, until 1948.

At Bauer, he oversaw the work of designers such as Paul Renner, Lucian Bernhard and Imre Reiner.

Jost personally designed several typefaces for Bauer: Atrax (1926), Bauer Bodoni (1926), and Beton (c. 1931–1936). He also designed Jost Mediaeval for Ludwig & Mayer (1927–1929) and a revival of Fraktur for Monotype (1938). Beton was popular among advertisers, while Bauer Bodoni, which was created as a rival to Morris Fuller Benton’s ATF Bodoni, is generally regarded by typographers as the most faithful revival of Giambattista Bodoni’s original typeface. His other designs include Aeterna (1927) and Georg Hartmann Antiqua (1948). Jost died in 1948 in Frankfurt am Main.

J

*

henrich jost Giambattista Bodoni, (born Feb. 16, 1740, Saluzzo, Piedmont [Italy]—died Nov. 29. 1813,The son of a printer, Bodoni left home as a boy to go to Rome, where he served an apprenticehip at the press of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the missionary arm of the Roman Catholic church. In 1768 he was asked to assume management of the Royal Press (Stamperia Reale), the press of the Duke of Parma. There he produced Italian, Greek, and Latin books and printed materials for court use.

Bodoni at first employed old-style typefaces with much decorative detail. He was gradually won over to the typographical theories of a French printer, Pierre Didot, however, and by 1787 was printing pages almost devoid of decoration and containing modern typefaces of his own design. The typeface that retained the Bodoni name appeared in 1790. Of the many books that he produced during this period, the best known is his Manuale Tipografico (1788; “Inventory of Types”), a collection of 291 roman and italic typefaces, along with samples of Russian, Greek, and other types. A second edition of his book was published by his widow in 1818.

By 1790 Bodoni had become widely known; important travelers visited his press, and collectors sought his books. The Duke of Parma gave him a larger press and more independence; he no longer had to confine himself to the duke’s projects. Although his books were better known for their beauty and typographical excellence than for textual accuracy, he printed many important works, the most famous of which were his fine editions of the writings of Horace and Virgil in 1791 and 1793, respectively, and Homer’s Iliad in 1808. The last years of his life brought Bodoni international fame. He received compliments from the pope and was honoured with a pension by Napoleon Bonaparte.

A ba term ll inal

ed slop f seri

e n ee es w et trok b st in s a r th nt co k & ic th

thin crossbar

A y

j

away dot is far tem from the s

cketed unbra f seri

G contras t thick & between thin str okes

uA * g

C

n 3 i h D B q l E s v “ L N O z 5; b1 R 7 % k f

!

9 2 Q

w

M H P p

S

FJ

r

3 ?4 a D K @o I t EG 8

Xm

HV x W Ye c y Z U d T 6 0 j

S&

g 1926 Lindsey Tobin Andrea Herstowski Fall 2018