New to Typophile? Accounts are free, and easy to set up.
Konrad Berner specimen
Posted by rdesa in
1 Oct 2004 — 6:53am
1 Oct 2004 — 6:53am
Hi all
I would very much like to buy a very accurate copy (it might even be a poster) of the Berner Garamond type specimen.
Would you be able to direct me on how to acquire it?
Thank you for the attention.
Rodrigo de S
User login
Support our Sponsors
1 Oct 2004 — 7:36am
hmm, can't realy help you with a reproduction of the specimen book, but, as far as i'm aware, both sabon and stempel garamond are based on the 1592 specimen sheet issued by the Egenolff-Berner foundry.
1 Oct 2004 — 10:09am
Dear Geraint:
Thank you for your reply. However, I have both Stempel Garamond and Sabon, and I think neither of them are goof renditions. Sabon is quite different, really. Stempel Garamond seems to me to have a very rigid and 'Teutonic' manner about it which I find totally allien to the original design. In that respect, and even if it is too smooth, I prefer Slimbach's version.
What I am looking for is a very high resolution photo of the Berner original print, because I want to be able to study the very small characters (Galliard, Non Pareil, and even the slighly bigger ones).
In any case, I'd like to know if the book of which I give samples below is Garamond or not. They will look huge, but I did try to make them small; the text size is about 10 points.
Here they are:
and here a sample of the text
1 Oct 2004 — 10:10am
Rodrigo: your best bet is this folio:
Type Specimen Facsimiles, Reproductions of Fifteen Type Specimen Sheets Issued Between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries, John Dreyfus, ed.
abebooks.com has it from about $65 to about 160. Of course, if you don't already have Carter's "A View of Early Printing", you must have it immediately.
I have a decent scan of the Dreyfus reproduction, 200dpi versions are at levien.com/berner, I can get 1200 dpi scans to you on request. Let me know.
1 Oct 2004 — 10:25am
Note that the Dreyfus book is two volumes - get the right one! (I forget which, though...)
hhp
1 Oct 2004 — 4:57pm
Thanks all:
The Dreyfus book tends to be expensive - most bookshops have it, but they usually don't state what they are selling. So I gather there are two volumes, one with text and another with the specimen sheets. I'll investigate.
DEar Ralph: Your links were very informative. Of course you if you are so kind as to give yourself the trouble of sending a high resolution scan I would very much like to have it. So, I gladly accept your offer.
Best regards,
Rodrigo de S