Handfuls of Bone by Monica Kidd

Just like Love and the Mess we’re in, Monica Kidd’s Handfuls of Bone is a book published by Gaspereau Press that was awarded a first prize in the Alcuin Society’s Annual Awards for Excellence in Book Design. Over on the blog of Gaspereau Press, designer Andrew Steeves shares an excerpt from the production notes he printed in the book. Here are his remarks on the typeface (with links added):

The typeface used in this book is Garamont, a revival of a metal typeface designed by the French Protestant punchcutter Jean Jannon in the early 1600s. Jannon’s type was seized by the French Crown in 1641 when he was accused of illicit, non-Catholic printing. Rediscovered in the collection of the Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, several centuries later, his work was misattributed to an earlier craftsman, Claude Garamont (sometimes spelled Garamond), and named accordingly. Baroque in form and flavour, Jannon’s letterforms bear little resemblance to the High Renaissance types made by Garamont, but the commercial success of their twentieth-century relaunch disinclined manufacturers toward messing with the brand; the name stuck. Regardless, Jannon’s design has passed down to us through capable hands: The Lanston Monotype version, issued in 1921, was adapted for the Monotype casters by the legendary American type designer Frederic W. Goudy (1865–1947); the Lanston version was in turn digitized and released by the intrepid Canadian type designer Jim Rimmer (1934–2010) in 2004; further refinements have been undertaken at Gaspereau Press.