User:Atanamir/TypeBox



Bodoni is a serif typeface designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) in 1798. The typeface is classified as modern. Bodoni followed the ideas of John Baskerville, as found in the printing type Baskerville, that of increased stroke contrast and a more vertical, slightly condensed, upper case, but taking them to a more extreme conclusion. Bodoni's typeface has a narrower underlying structure with flat, unbracketed serifs. The face has extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and an overall geometric construction. Many digital versions of Bodoni suffer from a particular kind of legibility degradation known as “dazzle” caused by the alternating thick and thin lines, particularly from the thin strokes being too thin in smaller point sizes. In Typographic Design: Form & Communication, the authors describes Bodoni’s uppercase R as a “dazzling contrast and vigorous proportions of modern-style typography. The thick-and-thin scotch rules echo and complement the thick-and-thin stroke weights”. Bodoni is easy and inviting to read, it has been used for a wide variety of applications, ranging from eighteenth century Italian books, to 60s contemporary periodicals. There have been many revivals of the Bodoni typeface.

Revivals and variants
The ATF Bodoni and Bauer Bodoni are two of the more successful revivals. ATF Bodoni was drawn by Morris Fuller Benton in 1907, and released by the American Type Founders. The Bauer version was drawn by Henrich Jost in 1926. The Bauer version emphasizes the extreme contrast between hairline and main stroke. ATF captured the flavor of Bodoni’s original while emphasizing legibility rather than trying to push against the limits of printing technology. Other revivals are known as, Bodoni Antiqua, Bodoni Old Face, ITC Bodoni Seventy Two, ITC Bodoni Six, ITC Bodoni Twelve, Bodoni MT, LTC Bodoni 175, WTC Our Bodoni, Bodoni EF, Bodoni Classico, TS Bodoni, and Filosophia by Zuzana Licko.

Digital Bodoni types
Digital Bodonis typically suffer from a particular kind of legibility degradation. Personal computers generate different sizes of type from a single design using mathematical scaling, while printers working with metal type use fonts whose designs have been subtly adjusted to optically compensated for ideal legibility at particular sizes; for example opening up counters and expanding the width in small sizes. Typefaces like Bodoni tend to highlight these differences of technological application. Many digital revivals are based on designs adjusted for relatively large sizes, making the already thin hairlines very thin when scaled down. Some digital type designers are rediscovering the older lore of "optical scaling", and we can look out for new revivals designed more to please the eye than satisfy mathematical convenience. Zuzana Licko's Filosophia has none of the problems of dazzle, and meets the test of text reversal even in smaller point sizes.

Applications
Bodoni has been used for a wide variety of material, ranging from eighteenth century Italian books, to 60s contemporary periodicals. Bodoni forms the basis of a number of corporate identities, notably CBS and IBM print advertisements.