Claude Garamond came to prominence in the 1540s, first for a Greek typeface he was commissioned to create for the French king Francis I, to be used in a series of books by Robert Estienne. The French court later adopted Garamond’s Roman types for their printing and the typeface influenced type across France and Western Europe. Garamond probably had seen Venetian old-style types from the printing shops of Aldus Manutius. Garamond based much of his lowercase on the handwriting of Angelo Vergecio, librarian to Francis I. The italics of most contemporary versions are based on the italics of Garamond’s assistant Robert Granjon.
When Claude Garamond died in 1561, his punches and matrices were sold to Christophe Plantin, in Antwerp, which enabled the Garamond fonts to be used on many printers. This version became popular in Europe.
Revivals of the Garamond type came as early as 1900
Digital versions include Adobe Garamond and Garamond Premier (both designed by Robert Slimbach), Monotype Garamond, Simoncini Garamond, and Stempel Garamond.
Examples of Garamond:
- All of the American editions of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books are set in twelve-point Adobe Garamond, except Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is set in 11.5-point Adobe Garamond because it is longer.
- The popular Hunger Games trilogy is set in Adobe Garamond Pro, as is the Shiver trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater.
- A variation on the Garamond typeface was adopted by Apple in 1984 upon the release of the Macintosh. For branding and marketing the new Macintosh family of products,
- The logo of clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch uses a variation of the Garamond typeface.
- Also the Garamond text is used on 1985 Nintendo video game consoles in italic form
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