Giambattista Bodoni

Giambattista Bodoni (/bəˈdoʊni/, Italian: [dʒambatˈtista boˈdoːni]; 16 February 1740 ^[1] – 30 November 1813) was an Italian typographer, type-designer, compositor, printer, and publisher in Parma.

He first took the type-designs of Pierre Simon Fournier as his exemplars, but afterwards became an admirer of the more modelled types of John Baskerville; and he and Firmin Didot evolved a style of type called "Modern", in which the letters are cut in such a way as to produce a strong contrast between the thick and thin parts of their body. Bodoni designed many typefaces, each one in a large range of type sizes. He is even more admired as a compositor than as a type designer, as the large range of sizes which he cut enabled him to compose his pages with the greatest possible subtlety of spacing. Like Baskerville, he sets off his texts with wide margins and uses little or no illustrations or decorations.

Bodoni achieved an unprecedented level of technical refinement, allowing him to faithfully reproduce letterforms with very thin "hairlines", standing in sharp contrast to the thicker lines constituting the main stems of the characters. He became known for his designs of pseudoclassical typefaces and highly styled editions, some considered more apt "to be admired for typeface and layout, not to be studied or read".^[2] His printing reflected an aesthetic of plain, unadorned style, combined with purity of materials.^[3] This style attracted many admirers and imitators, surpassing the popularity of French typographers such as Philippe Grandjean and Pierre Simon Fournier. Bodoni has also had his share of detractors, including William Morris, who felt that his almost mechanical perfection seemed cold and inhumane.

There have been several modern revivals of his typefaces, all called Bodoni. They are often used as display faces.