Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) was called the King of Printers; he was a prolific type designer, a masterful engraver of punches and the most widely admired printer of his time. His books and typefaces were created during the 45 years he was the director of the fine press and publishing house of the Duke of Parma in Italy. He produced the best of what are known as modern" style types, basing them on the finest writing of his time. 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, fine hairlines contrasted by bold main strokes, and very subtle, almost non-existent bracketing of sharply defined hairline serifs. Bodoni saw this style as beautiful and harmonious-the natural result of writing done with a well-cut pen, and the look was fashionable and admired. Other punchcutters, such as the Didot family (1689-1853) in France, and J. E. Walbaum (1768-1839) in Germany made their own versions of the modern faces. Even though some nineteenth century critics turned up their noses and called such types shattering and chilly, today the Bodoni moderns are seen in much the same light as they were in his own time. When used with care, the Bodoni types are both romantic and elegant, with a presence that adds tasteful sparkle to headlines and advertising. Parma was designed by the monotype Design Team after studying Bodoni's steel punches at the Museo Bodoniana in Parma, Italy. They also referred to specimens from the "Manuale Tipografico," a monumental collection of Bodoni's work published by his widow in 1818.

Giambattista is a long-time project of mine finally come to an end. After redesigning all of Giambattista Bodoni's work and then some additional cuts I started a long time ago with this Non-Bodoni Bodoni. The idea came to me while redesigning the original Chancellerosa (chancery). I thought Bodoni just didn't have the right approach to a chancery, this was just not his cup of tea! Maybe that is why he never used the Chancellerosa very much for his own printshop in Parma. So I thought someone has to design a script, that looks like Bodoni could have designed it but is more lively than his. Over the years I have been working on and off on the face and it turned out to become three typefaces which can be freely mixed. Here is my modern version of a script in the style of Giambattista, meant as an hommage, I called it Giambattista. Your modern scribe Gert Wiescher

This new OpenType pro family has four members so far with 473 characters and glyphs each. It is a redrawing of Albe Sans, which has been found to be very readable, elegant, and extremely useful for books, newsletters, or anything you need. It is a humanist sans that works well for body copy or headlines. A black version is in the works.

Hailing its roots from the much-prized Modern Didot and Bodoni families of the late 19th century, Pyes Pa re-introduces the intuition of calligraphic script while utilizing the contrast available to contemporary digital fonts to produce a highly refined alternative for those of us who are bloody serious about our Bodoni Poster Italics. Pyes Pa features automatic OpenType ligatures and contextual alternatives.