Pierre Simon Fournier – born 15. 9. 1712 in Paris, France, died 8. 10. 1768 in Paris, France – type founder, punch cutter, type designer – known as Fournier le Jeune.
Trains at the company of his father, Jean Claude Fournier. 1737: develops a typographical system of measures which F. A. Didot reworks. 1739: opens his own type foundry. 1742: publishes a book of type specimens which is printed by J. J. Barbou. In total, Fournier cuts 60,000 punches for c. 150 of his own alphabets. 1760:
[...]Giabattista Bodoni – born 16. 2. 1740 in Saluzzo, Piedmont, Italy, died 30. 11. 1813 in Parma, Italy – engraver, type designer, typographer, printer, publisher.
1758–66: typesetter in the Vatican’s Propaganda Fide printing works. 1766: the Duke of Parma invites Bodoni to set up an run a printing works. 1768: begins working in the Stamperia Reale. 1770: opens his own type foundry. 1771: publishes his first typographical contribution "Fregi e Majuscole". 1782: Charles III of Spain names Bodoni
[...]Justus Erich Walbaum – born 25. 1. 1768 in Steinlah, Germany, died 31. 1. 1839 in Weimar, Germany – type founder, type designer, punch cutter. Trained as a spice merchant and pastry cook in Braunschweig. Further trainig as a form cutter, music engraver and punch cutter. Cut and cast commemorative coins.
1796: buys printer Ernst Wilhem Kircher’s type foundy in Goslar. 1803: the type foundry moves to Weimar. 1828: Walbaum hands over the type foundry to his son, Theodor, who is killed in an
[...]
Walbaum was originally punchcut by Justus Erich Walbaum in Weimar around 1800. It ranks with
Bodoni and
Didot as one of the great European "modern" style typefaces. Modern types represented the ultimate typographic development of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They have characteristics quite different from the types that preceded them; such as extreme vertical stress and fine hairlines contrasted by bold main strokes. This contemporary version of the Walbaum font is quite authentically close to J. E. Walbaum's original, and it distinguishes itself from the other moderns with its wider caps and larger x-height. Some of the individual characters are quite different from other moderns as well, such as the b with no foot serif, the lowercase a with its squarish counter shape, and the Q tail with the curious asymmetric juncture. Possibly the most unique of the modern types, this beautiful family is legible, flexible, and has compelling warmth in its openness and grace.
