Diotima Classic Alternatives

FF Angkoon is fits into the French tradition of personal, idiosyncratic type design, exemplified by faces like François Ganeau’s Vendôme or Albert Boton’s Eras. There is also a non-Western influence mixed in: Xavier Dupré created FF Angkoon while living and working in Cambodia. Though it was not his intention to capture elements of Sanskrit or characteristics of Angkor temples, he may admit... Read More

The English stone carver, artist, and typographer Eric Gill conceived the Joanna typeface as a personal design for use in books printed at his "Joanna Press." Gill saw his press work there as a continuation of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, pioneered in the 19th Century by William Morris. Joanna is notable for its almost vertical "upright" italics, and the unusally small size of its... Read More

ITC Johnston is the result of the combined talents of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, based on the work of Edward Johnston. In developing ITC Johnston, says London type designer Dave Farey, he did “lots of research on not only the face but the man.” Edward Johnston was something of an eccentric, “famous for sitting in a deck chair and carrying toast in his pockets.” (The deck chair was his... Read More

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several types, punchcut by John Handy, which are the basis for the fonts that bear the name Baskerville today. The excellent quality of his printing influenced such famous printers as Didot in France and Bodoni in Italy. Though he was known internationally as an innovator... Read More

Claude Garamond (ca. 1480-1561) cut types for the Parisian scholar-printer Robert Estienne in the first part of the sixteenth century,... Read More

F .H. Ernst Schneidler, type designer and teacher, originally designed Schneidler Old Style in 1936 for the Bauer foundry. Stempel Schneidler is based on the typefaces of Venetian printers from the Renaissance period and possesses their grace, beauty, and classical proportions. The Stempel Schneidler, a completely reworked and tuned font family made by D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, is a fine,... Read More

John Baskerville (1706-1775) was an accomplished writing master and printer from Birmingham, England. He was the designer of several... Read More

The design of Sabon Next™ by Jean François Porchez, a revival of a revival, was a double challenge: to try to discern Jan Tschichold´s... Read More

Warren Chappell named his typeface after the Roman Emperor Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 53 - 117 AD), who ruled during the first and second century AD. Chappell chose this name as the capital letters in his design are based on the inscriptional letters found on the base of the famous Trajan Column in Rome. Trajanus' lowercase, like all lowercase letters, are not Roman per se, but rather... Read More

Claude Garamond (ca. 1480-1561) cut types for the Parisian scholar-printer Robert Estienne in the first part of the sixteenth century, basing his romans on the types cut by Francesco Griffo for Venetian printer Aldus Manutius in 1495. Garamond refined his romans in later versions, adding his own concepts as he developed his skills as a punchcutter. After his death in 1561, the Garamond punches... Read More

From alphabets created for book illustrations in the 1970s to lettering created for a book jacket in the 1990s, the Mentor family of typefaces has developed along its own slow and circuitous path. Always present in its evolution, though, has been the influence of three 20th century design giants: Eric Gill, Reynolds Stone, and Hermann Zapf, as filtered through the meticulous sensibility of... Read More

Palatino nova is Prof. Hermann Zapf's redesign of his own masterpiece, Palatino. The original Palatino was cut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt, and released in 1950. Palatino was later adapted for mechanical composition on the Linotype machine, and became one of the most-used typefaces of the 20th Century. Palatino was designed for legibility, and has... Read More

Hermann Zapf's design for Aurelia is based on the forms of Jenson, an Old Style typeface developed by Nicolas Jenson in 1470 which still influences type design today. Zapf gave Aurelia a bit of his own personal style and adapted it to the demands of modern technology. Aurelia is a robust and classic font, suitable for both text and headlines. The family of typefaces was originally designed for... Read More

Palatino nova is Prof. Hermann Zapf's redesign of his own masterpiece, Palatino. The original Palatino was cut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt, and released in 1950. Palatino was later adapted for mechanical composition on the Linotype machine, and became one of the most-used typefaces of the 20th Century. Palatino was designed for legibility, and has... Read More

ITC Esprit is the work of designer Jovica Veljović and blends the classic proportions of a serif typeface with the grace and charm of calligraphy. Highly legible even in small point sizes, the font can also be used as an impressive display face for use with sans serif text.

Bo Berndal, the master Swedish typographer, is the eponymous designer of Berndal, a contemporary text family with five different styles. This family represents a new achievement for Bo Berndal, who has spent many years working to optimize text legibility in the printed media. Several small tricks make the Berndal family an interesting milestone in legibility. Berndal's letterforms contain... Read More