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In this article, we will take a look at the Garamond font and the fonts similar to Garamond. The font Garamond comes from very old age; in fact, it stems from the 16^th century, when Claude Garamond was doing his work, and a variety of this font was used by him for his work. The font is nowadays praised for its high legibility and elegance, and for the distinct character that makes it unique.

Most likely, you have already come across this font in novels or similar types of work without even realizing it. That is because it is highly popular with writers. Garamond himself was an engraver of punches, and he based his own work on 15^th-century Venetian styles by Aldus Manutius and Francesco Griffo. Along with those works, Garamond’s work helped establish the Garamond font that we know today. The font features natural letter construction with organic materials, which resemble handwriting. The style is upright and somewhat structured, which makes it slightly different from handwriting.

ITC Garamond

Garamond has become the essential old-style font that we know today, and is becoming even more popular due to its high usability. There are many fonts similar to Garamond out there that strive to do what this font does. Named after Claude Garamond, a Parisian engraver, the font has garnered a lot of trust among people who want to use it for body text.

The interesting thing is that many fonts similar to Garamond or those that were based on the work of this French engraver, are also featured on this list. The fact is that many fonts that are similar to this one will also use the name Garamond in its name in one shape or another (Garamond or Garamont, most commonly).

These are all fonts similar to Garamond with Garamond in its name.

Fonts similar to Garamond

Garamond Premier Pro

Garamond Premier Pro is one of the Adobe fonts similar to Garamond which was also originally based on Garamond. Designed and published in 1988, this font was the work of Robert Slimbach, who visited Antwerp where Garamond’s work is kept in a museum.

Adobe Garamond Font Family

The adobe version of the font has a whole font family, and that is the case since 1989, when Robert Slimbach expanded the Garamond font with an italic style similar to that of Robert Granjon.

The font family that was expanded now then includes small caps, tilting caps, expert fonts, and swash caps, which are all useful features and important additions to the Garamond font and reminiscent of the 15^th and 16^th-century fonts.

Stempel Garamond

The Stempel Garamond stems out of Germany, and it was based on Garamond’s work in Romans and other works of art. It has very short descenders, which makes it slightly different from the original Garamond font.

Monotype Garamond

While this font is based on Jean Jannon’s work, it is true that Jannon himself focused his work on Garamond’s work, and that is why this font has this name. The monotype Garamond thus have distinct features from Jannon’s work, from Garamond, and consequently, from the Venetian engravers from the 15^th century who Garamond himself followed.

Fonts Similar to Garamond

Caslon

Caslon is another old-style font that was designed by William Caslon I from London, and some fonts are also loosely based on his work. Caslon’s work and typefaces that he used were widely popular during his time already, but they are also popular today. Caslon’s work stems from the early 18^th century, from 1722, to be more precise. That is when he started releasing his first typefaces that were largely based on 17^th century Dutch typefaces.

The fonts that Caslon designed were very practical, and quickly became very important in England. To be fair, there are also many fonts that base their design on Caslon’s work, but we had to include Caslon in this list due to its similarity to Garamond.

Bembo

Designed in the 1920s, this Bembo font was created by the Monotype Corporation in Britain, and it bases its design on Griffo’s design from 1495 as well, which makes some features of the font very similar to Garamond.

When Bembo was released, many started using it as their preferred font for longer texts; it features the old-style design and high legibility, which is important for longer texts like books or novels. That way Bembo was used by reputable publishers and clients like Penguin Books, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, the National Gallery, and many more. So you can see just how popular it became, and it still is. It is certainly one of the more reputable fonts similar to Garamond.

Berkeley

Created and designed in 1983, the ITC Berkeley font family is an old-style font family that was meant as a revival of the California Old Style typeface, but has achieved a lot of fame on its own. It has elongated descenders and unique, light style.

The design features calligraphic weight stress, and classic x-height with smooth transitions, ample descenders and ascenders. That makes the font highly legible and appropriate for longer texts.

Jannon

Next up we have the Jannon font, the name we already featured on this list. This font is based on the work of Jannon, who himself orientated his work on Garamond. Many times, it was even mistaken for the Garamond, which just shows us how similar they are. It features a very similar design with well-developed italics.

Sabon

The next font on this list of fonts similar to Garamond is Sabon, which simply has to be mentioned as it is so similar to the original. It is a more modern version of the Garamond font with a beautiful and exciting style.

Berling

Berling comes from 1951, when it was designed and released by Karl-Erik Forsberg for the Berling foundry, and it was subsequently developed further until 1958, when more weights were added. The main features of this old-style font are its legibility, which makes it perfect for books and novels, and a high level of contrast, which distinguishes it somewhat from other old-style fonts. It has diminutive x-height; overall, the font is a perfect body text font.

ITC Galliard

Originally, this font was designed as a photo composition font in 1978 and was largely based on Robert Granjon’s work, who was an engraver from the 16^th century, whose writings were famous for being highly-legible back then already. It has a very distinctive italic version, and this font is perfect for texts.

Granjon

We have heard quite a lot about Granjon in this article, well this font is named after him, and it is a font that is based on the Garamond font itself, but it has some unique qualities, namely, some qualities from Caslon are also here.

Goudy

Goudy is another old-style sans serif on this list of fonts similar to Garamond that comes from a long time ago. To be more precise, the font comes from 1915, when it was designed and released by the American Type Founders upon the design of W. Goudy.

This font is at its best when it is used for text and for display. This font more closely resembles the American typefaces and fonts from the early 20^th century. Those fonts also took inspiration from Italian fonts of Renaissance, which makes it similar to Garamond in away. It has some specific, unique features that make it a unique one.

Times

Times is a universal font that features several weight options and it features small-caps, which is a feature of the old-style fonts like Garamond. You can consider this font as an alternative to Garamond as well.

Minion

Minion is one of the newer fonts on this list, as it was released in 1990 by Adobe for use in its systems. It was designed by Robert Slimbach, and it is meant especially for body texts and longer reads. The font features high readability and a pretty classic style, and it is also very legible at smaller sizes.

Palatino

Lastly, we have Palatino, an old-style serif typeface designed in 1949 by Hermann Zapf. Even though this font was primarily designed for display purposes, it still has some very similar qualities to Garamond, which is why we included it to this list of fonts similar to Garamond. It is suitable for print in smaller sizes.

If you enjoyed reading this article about fonts similar to Garamond, you should read these as well:

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