Talking of fonts, my favourite is Bembo (Wikipedia). From Montoypefont's page on the font:
During the 1920s the English Monotype company, under the direction of Stanley Morison, embarked upon a program that was the most ambitious of any composing machine manufacturer to date: the re-cutting of numerous historic typefaces. From this enlightened undertaking came such revivals as Bodoni, Garamond, Poliphilus, Baskerville, Fournier, and Bembo. The last of this group, Bembo, appeared in 1929 and has proved to be one of the most popular typefaces of our time.
The history of Bembo originates in Venice, an important typographic center in 15th and 16th century Europe. Many printers established businesses in Venice at this time, but none so significant as Aldus Manutius. Next to Gutenberg, Aldus was perhaps the most influential printer of the Renaissance and the first of many great scholar-printers. Late in the 15th century, Aldus published a relatively insignificant essay by the Italian scholar Pietro Bembo. The type used for the text was a new design commissioned by Aldus and cut by Francesco Griffo, a goldsmith turned punch-cutter.
… In the early part of this century, the designers in the Monotype drawing office used antique books and specimen material set with Aldus’ original fonts as the foundation for their revival of the Bembo type. The italic proved to be a significant challenge. Aldus’ Bembo had no italic designs, so the Monotype design staff created a new italic based on the works of Giovanni Tagliente, a 16th century writing master.
In the 1980s, Monotype produced a faithful digital rendition of their original metal revival. The staff designers also added Semi Bold and Extra Bold weights to the family. As a result, this exceptionally important and wonderfully powerful communication tool is available as PostScript and ESQ (Enhance Screen Quality) TrueType fonts.
The Monotype 20th Century project dates back to 1929 and was led by Stanley Morison (see here):
Considered by many to be one of Stanley Morison’s finest achievements during his tenure as Typographical Advisor to the Monotype Corporation, Bembo has consistently been a best selling typeface, both in its original hot metal form and in today’s digital formats.
Not intended to be a facsimile of Manutius’ work, Bembo was drawn to embody the elegance and fine design features of the original but marry them with the consistency of contemporary production methods and to ensure that the typeface would work satisfactorily with high speed printing techniques. Monotype.co.uk
Edward Tufte has clear views about the nature of digitalised Bembo faces. From that discussion page I came to the Montoype.co.uk link (above) and their new version of Bembo, Bembo Book (available here), designed by Robin Nicholas:
This new digital version of Bembo, called Bembo Book, has been designed to be more suited to text setting in the size range from 10 point to 18 point. Based on the hot metal 10/18 point drawings, which were used to cut all sizes from 10 point to 24 point, this new face has been carefully drawn to produce similar results to those achieved from the hot metal version when letterpress printed. The project started in 2002 when a high quality UK Printing House asked for a digital version of Bembo which would give a similar appearance on the page to the 13 point hot metal they were currently using. Hot metal drawings were digitised and extensive editing was carried out on the resultant outlines to ensure that design features and overall colour from the digital output remained close to that of the letterpress product.
The resultant typeface is slightly narrower than existing digital versions of Bembo, it is a little more economical in use and gives excellent colour to continuous pages of text. Ascending lowercase letters are noticeably taller than capitals, giving an elegant, refined look to the text.
I print less and less for classes (most of my material is available online), but when I do I often use Bembo Book. It's a beautiful face. Bringhurst called Bembo Roman and Italic 'serene and versatile faces of genuine Renaissance structure' and Bembo Book doesn't disappoint.
Some further notes on Bembo by Thomas Christensen, here.
Technorati tags: typefaces, fonts, typography, Bembo, Stanley Morison
