The font that's already installed on your computer called "Garamond" is not the only Garamond, and frankly not the best looking IMO.
The original Garamond is of course from centuries ago. Now there are now multiple digital versions of Garamond from different font foundries.
If you get the chance, I recommend instead "ITC Garamond Std" or "Adobe Garamond Pro" (both from Adobe Font Folio), especially the former. I especially enjoy the little curve on the serif at the top left of letters such as "r" or "n" which I found to be especially charming, but sadly missing from many Garamond implementations.
Adobe’s version is closer to the original version, and by my contemporary aesthetics, better. ITC Garamond gives me “advertisement for a Mac II with Color LaserWriter”. Very 1987.
And if you want something in somewhat similar style that looks good on screen, I prefer Slimbach’s Minion typeface to either (Slimbach also designed Adobe’s Garamond).
> I cannot start any document — a novel, a letter, an invoice — without first clicking on the drop-down menu labeled “Font” and considering my options.
This is why I do most of my writing in Markdown using something like iA Writer. The temptation to make my words look pretty before I’ve even written them is too strong, and I’m happy to see those decisions go away altogether. I can style things after I’m finished, but until then, I want to think about the words on the screen.
> until then, I want to think about the words on the screen.
The article is called "write it in Garamond" - the premise of the article is that the chosen font directs the words to be written.
> creative output of any kind depends upon a steady stream of tiny self-delusions — guardrails to keep yourself from veering into a pit of self-doubt and despair
You're letting iA Writer choose this effect for you, which is also valid, but it doesn't "free" you from the effect (if you buy into the article).
It is a mistake to paint all writers with the same brush. To the degree that 'guardrails' are needed, they're not needed by all writers for the reasons the author needs them. Likewise, not all writers are affected by choice of writing-font in the same way or to the same degree. The way in which the GP is affected is to be overwhelmed by choice and the degree to which this occurs is high. We have no reasons to believe which particular font iA Writer uses has any effect on GP at all. This is not the case for the article's author, who claims to be strongly affected by font choice.
Even if it could be proven that all writers are subtly affected by choice of writing-font, using the same font for everything all the time might dampen this effect to the degree that such a font is a blank slate as far as the mind is concerned.
This certainly seems to be the case for me. I find many fonts off-putting when writing (poetry, prose, or code) to the degree that they break my focus; but otherwise they don't really seem to influence me. However, I typically use only a handful of 'not ugly' fonts and don't really 'see' these fonts at all. The degree to which they might influence my writing is tiny, at best. No one could look at two pieces of my writing and guess which font I used or even if I used a different font between them.
I think, likely, the way in which people write has a huge influence on how affected they are about any particular variable, including fonts. I write in a way that feels like I'm constructing a building; structure first, then decoration. Others make paintings. Still others, who knows. It is a strong claim to make that all these writers are thinking, feeling, and experiencing the same thing with regard to any particular variable.
I’m not convinced. Before we had computer fonts, we generally wrote with pen/pencil or a typewriter. Again, it’s fun to think about, but I think there’s lots of value in not making the decision at all. I get what you’re saying that iA Writer actually made it for me, but after you use that kind of system for a while, the styling completely disappears. Your brain just accepts that “this is what words look like now” and moves past it.
I did student journalism and had to submit all my articles in 11pt Garamond. Not because the editors couldn’t just convert before typesetting, but because they could at a glance know if your article would fit the assigned column space.
This in turn would affect how the story was edited and written. Sentences reworded or sometimes entirely cut to fit the given space.
Writing in Garamond to begin with made sure you didn’t go over that limit in the first place.
In that case, if I were the author, I’d set my default template to always be Garamond. Then it’s one less thing to fret over when they sit down to write.
... Yes. I am sure the author understands that they can set Garamond as the default. I'm 99.9% positive the editor didn't run a 500 word Usenet help post on comp.software.word-processing, disguised as an essay. I'm 100% sure, however, that there's meaning in this post about overcoming self-doubt by "dressing for the part" you want to play...
I have a related habit - when I start a new book on an e-reader, I mess around with the font settings until I get the right feel for that book. Sometimes it's just a basic match: a 19th-century novel will need a heavier serif, while recent sci-fi will have a modern non-serif. But you can mess with the weight, spacing, margins, add new fonts for variety, all sorts of things. It helps each book feel more like a book instead of just a long text document.
One cool thing about the new Kindle (at least the Paperwhite that I have) is that you can load your own fonts. The fonts only work with KFX books, though. But that's a Calibre conversion away.
Garamond is a fine font, but using Garamond Italic should be banned by law. I scream internally when I see it and how the different letters don't match visually. Printed books using Garamond Italic are the worst.
I disagree. I love that Garamond italic is not a slightly cleaned-up oblique version of the Roman font, but an entirely different font of its own. I wish more typefaces would do that.
In stately Garamond text, the italic stands out, which helps it fulfill its use in emphasis. However, I agree that because of this heightened visibility, its use should be limited to where it's truly needed. It's sort of like chili powder: used wisely, it enhances; used excessively, and it draws too much attention to itself.
The Harry Potter books in many countries are all set in Adobe Garamond and the italic really makes the spells stand out in a spiky, sizzly, and slightly sinister way that works well.
Computer Modern looks terrible on computers (ironically!). It's only tolerable on relatively high-DPI printed documents which are capable of rendering the intricate, narrow parts of the legends. I wish people would stop using it for digitally distributed PDFs.
I can't help but wonder if that's subconsciously learnt by association of the typeface with (La)TeX and academia rather than based on the sole merits of Computer Modern itself. If we're just looking at the typography, Computer Modern is quite average and its screen legibility is horrible (vertical strokes are way too thin).
Exposure to Computer Modern primarily via PDFs in the late 1990s-early 2000s was the reason I became interested in learning what produced such documents in the first place; I don't remember how, but it wasn't hard to learn about TeX after that.
The outstanding quality of Computer Modern even on the low-res screens of those days is what appealed to me (to be fair, TeX's ability to produce professional-quality kerning, hyphenation, line density, et al, also contributed). I fell in love with it even before I knew what TeX was.
Computer Modern is IMO way too thin and has huge, pointy serifs. I like Palatino (Latex: mathpazo) best, but Garamond - a similar style - is fine, too.
For TeX typesetting Utopia (and derivatives like Fourier and Erewhon) is also good if you want something that was designed for book (not journal or newspaper) body text but has a less mediaeval feel (and more Cyrillic, sigh).
Charter seems OK, the thickness variation seems somehow strange to me (couldn't decide whether to vary it or not?), but I like that it doesn't vary thickness quite as much as Palatino on numeric digits.
Computer Modern is too thin for laser printers and uncomfortable on computers screens (low or hi-DPI). I feel it less readable than Garamond for French publications.
The worst offender is Monotype Garamond -- not all Garamond/Garalde/Aldine faces have such oddball italics. That italic isn't even based on a historical Garamond; it's based on a related face by Jean Jannon, which is part of the reason it doesn't match.
Not the OP, but I can see why they don't like it. Just looking at "Garamond Italic" written in Garamond Italic, the "m" jumps out for having a completely different angle to its surrounding letters in the word (apart from the "n", which is similarly super-slanted. The effect of going between the angles of "I" and "t" is similarly offensive.
Good lord. Is there a reason it's like that, or is it simply extremely poorly-made? That looks like a not-very-good machine learning algorithm tried to make a font variant.
Whether designed by Garamond, Jannon or someone else, Garamonds share a few central characteristics. Their serifs — the little extra strokes on letters like “i” and “r” — are often sloped or slightly scooped. They have low “x-heights” — that’s the height of a lowercase letter like “e,” “a” and, obviously, “x” — and high crossbars, or horizontal strokes, on letters like “e.” Garamond’s strokes are widely varied and full of character — they were originally made, after all, to resemble handwriting. The italics tend to reveal some of their most idiosyncratic strokes, such as the loop on a lowercase “k,” or the upward flick at the bottom of a lowercase “h.”
Thanks, that illuminates some of it, but the main thing that stood out to me was the extreme differences in slant on some letters. Those simply look like (very obvious) mistakes—but surely aren't? That aspect doesn't really make it look more like handwriting, to me, but kinda ransom-lettery.
Garamond as used by Apple in the 90s had an 80% aspect ratio as I discovered by experimenting with the version of Garamond I had at the time as supplied by the Electronic Font Foundry for Acorn RISC OS, the font rendering of which deserves more exposure. (Sadly, the author of the font stuff, Neil Raine, passed away in the 00s in a hang-gliding accident. RIP)
Substack needs to fix their serif font (Spectral). It is the worst offender. Everytime I see a substack post, it is with this typeface with extremely loose fitting. Substack has one and only one job - to present text to their audience and it is unbelievable to me that they messed up it. They need to hire a typographer to advise or just use Source Serif Pro for free. Spectral typeface needs to be nuked from the planet.
The "ct" ligature is enviable. I persuaded the creator of Linux Libertine to add that, and one for "st", albeit as an "optional" form. You can edit the file to get them used by default, which I do.
I am EXACTLY the same way. I write each of my novels in a different font depending on the aesthetic of the novel. The font helps me stay in character as I write it.
The premise is more foolish than the author suggests: the only legitimate driver of one's choice of typefaces is how much consideration you are willing to extend for the needs of the reader.
If you care about the reader at all, you use a serif face. A sans-serif face perfectly expresses icy supercilious contempt, which I suppose must be appropriate somewhere: maybe a notice of eviction for operating a meth lab, or to reject an impertinent business or sexual proposition? Advertisers love it because it makes people insecure.
If you choose to be considerate, you still have to choose which serif face. Some faces are meant for titles, like Palatino, others for captions, like Bookman. Most text is in paragraphs, where you want a paragraph font. Times is serviceable, Caslon has character, Garamond is fussy, but the most graceful, lately, is Linux Libertine, which should be the default serif face at least on Linux distributions, not that any are aware enough to have taken it up.
For a terminal or in your code editor, Inconsolata is unimpeachable.
> I cannot start any document — a novel, a letter, an invoice — without first clicking on the drop-down menu labeled “Font” and considering my options.
I love taking the time to craft my invoices in Comic Sans. I like the idea that my clients pay with a smile.
Dressed in gentle serifs and subtle ornamentation, my words swelled with new life, and I saw hidden in the screen behind them the reflection of someone else, someone whose presence commanded respect.
It’s a little ridiculous to have to trick myself into believing in my own work, and even more ridiculous that I can be tricked so simply, like a child enraptured at a magic act. But creative output of any kind depends upon a steady stream of tiny self-delusions — guardrails to keep yourself from veering into a pit of self-doubt and despair.
Similarly, I automatically believe your math 50% more if you typeset your document in Computer Modern. I know this is nonsense, but it's true nonetheless.
People have some very intense opinions of computer modern. I stumbled into a thread where many claimed it was the worst font ever made, and others saying it was the best thing to happen to digitally published academia. You may have just opened a can of worms...
Those who claim CM is the worst font probably mean using it as a screen font. Which to be honest, is not far from truth on low PPI displays and/or subpar font renderers.
I did all of my homework in college in LaTeX for this exact reason (and would liveTeX lectures). I had a setup where my input was side-by-side my output and the compilation time was very fast, so I could almost see what I was writing in real time. It actually became easier after freshman year than writing things down.
Offtopic, but I recently realized that table cutlery and ceramics follow similar patterns as fonts: you have families of designs, certain design aspects which repeat across a single family (like the curvature which repeats between a cup and a bowl, or the length of the stem of a fork versus spoon), etc. Yet, it is much easier to find a good font than a good matching set of tableware, even when looking among the more expensive brands.
You're absolutely correct. For the design of everyday things, we naturally want similar things to look similar in some way. The similarities can be surprisingly subtle, yet we appreciate them without being able to describe them.
Back in graduate school (at Carnegie Mellon), a fellow graduate student wrote his thesis on a study of architecturally similar Queen Anne style houses in Pittsburgh. He wrote a kind of grammar called a "shape grammar" to generate instances of these kinds of houses.
A good article he wrote he was kind enough to make publicly accessible:
Yet, what matters most about flatware, in reality, is whether, put down in a nearly empty bowl, it flips whatever remains onto the table, floor, or lap.
If that's true at all (this article itself is in a TNR variant), then it's only because Times has a small x-height, and it is smaller retaliative to other common screen fonts at the same point size.
This is true for Garamond, too. And Baskerville, and virtually EVER classic serif font before Matthew Carter started designing for screens with Charter and Georgia.
TNR is a fantastic font, it's just overused. That can actually be an advantage in many contexts, where you're not trying to be novel, and want your body text to project an orthodox and familiar feeling. I've seen great results with TNR on screens, with just a simple touch of CSS to make letters and line height larger, and the color to be a dark grey rather than pure black. Telling people to "please" boycott a font is more than a bit peremptory.
An old font that is legible at small sizes is New Century Schoolbook (not the Microsoft MT version).
I am talking for print and/or high-dpi phone screens.
It has an old feel to it, but it really is quite surprisingly legible.
For lo-dpi screens, Verdana all day every day. I override all the web fonts to Verdana (and the size too) so I can actually read stuff. I just can't take anymore these days whatever weirdly-hinted tiny font the designer wanted to use.
Without any attempt at being argumentative - because I am truly ignorant of the subject and freely admit so - is there any reasonably concise description of why serif typefaces are acceptable in print but verboten on screens? This has always seemed to me to be a sort of long-standing fashion thing amongst typographers, but as I know very little about the subject, I've never tried to argue it.
I've never tried to measure my reading speed based on typeface, but it's never seemed that different. Am I wrong?
A lot of it is due to the variable stroke width on most serif fonts. It leaves more room for problems with rasterizing the glyphs, particularly when the screen resolution is low. It has gotten better in recent years with more HiDPI screens but print still usually has better resolution.
I wish I could use Garamond, but it’s not a “common” web font and its italics are dreadful, so I mostly adopted Georgia instead (with a fallback to whatever default serif the browser may have).
If I'm using Bitstream Charter (or DejaVu Serif), am I missing out by not having Garamond? If I am, which of the many Garamond variants are worth buying?
I just compared DejaVu Serif, Charis SIL, Linux Libertine and Liberation serif by pasting some sample text into libre-office, setting them so the widths were roughly equal and printing.
DejaVu was the clear loser; in many words an "l" and "i" would be much closer to one of the two neighboring characters.
I actually liked Charis SIL the best, but the others were fine.
"The Garamond Guy, if you will, is irritatingly uptight, so certain of his own profundity that his words must be conveyed with the weight of a 500-year-old French typeface."
I think that statement is rather unfair and is says more about the author than Garamond users.
My opinion of Garamond is that it is a truly wonderful typeface and I have an old Adobe version on one of my PCs but I very rarely use it. In fact, the last time I recall using it in any serious way was several decades ago.
Thinking about it, I just don't do the kind of work that warrants it use. One associates Garamond with fine coffee table art books and I'm not in that game. That said, whenever I see it in such a publication I admire its use and think it's ideal for that application.
I reckon the article's criticism of Garamond's small x height is valid but only when it's adopted to areas where it's not fully suitable, PC screens and low resolution printers for instance.
I recall when I first put Adobe's Garamond on my PC that it came as a type-1 font and I did many experiments with it but I was never really happy with it for general use. In printing, I couldn't get it to look good under at least 1200 DPI and I reckon it's not optimal until it's printed to at 1600 DPI or higher. The reason is that its delicate serifs often don't hold sufficient ink to maintain the contrast and they become washed out. If you print darker with a
low resolution printer to try to overcome the problem the edges no longer look sharp, thus it's high resolution or use a different typeface (and the same problem applies to photocopies).
To me, Garamond is a typeface best suited to traditional letterpress where the ink pools in the corners, edges and serifs, this gives it an enhanced sharpness and the typeface truly sparkles. When letterpress is done just right and Garamond is used I reckon the results are spectacular. Garamond may be 500 years old but when used in the right place for the right job it's certainly not obsolete.
Incidentally, I became fascinated with Claude Garamond and those great early publishers such as Christophe Plantin and when I had the opportunity to do so I visited the Plantin Morteus Museum in Antwerp. Anyone who has a serious interest in traditional printing or the early history of of typefaces should try to visit there. BTW, it's a UNESCO World Heritage site:
That’s kind of silly. They haven’t used Garamond for 20 years, and when they did it was a highly tweaked version. (Apple Garamond is very condensed, for one).
But that said, I think the point the author is trying to make is more about drafting in a font that makes you feel good about your writing. If Garamond doesn’t do it for you, don’t use Garamond.
