JVC Bodoni

JVC Bodoni is a “Didone” typeface revival, designed by in 2023 by Jorge Moreira, Vanessa Sousa and Sara Tavares.

The purpose of this work was to design a font for text inspired by a typography of books prior to 1980, with the intention of updating it to the contemporary [local] culture and, thus, producing a revival type.

The inspiration for the font created comes mainly from the book Discursos Parlamentares by José Estevão Coelho de Magalhães, in an edition produced by Imprensa Comercial, Aveiro, 1878, which uses a font with great contrast between thin and thick strokes …

(…) The characters created by Giambattista Bodoni are characterized above all by the subtle transition from thin to thick strokes or by the coexistence of extremely thick rods, in a very evident game of chiaroscuro. Thus, during the development process of this project, Bodoni was used as a great influence to explore and create a new typeface. The iconic and classic characteristics of Bodoni were maintained, highlighting the verticality and the tighter curves present in the reference book. In addition, some cuts and connections were made to ensure better quality and legibility, thus giving it a modern touch.

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JVSBodoni is a variable serif font, that coexists between its regular version and its slant variation, in an inclination of 10 degrees. Its 172 glyphs contain characters between uppercase and lowercase, basic figures (simple numerals), diacritical marks (accents and cedilla), characters with diacritics (accented characters), punctuation, ligatures, some special characters and mathematical signs.

Adapted excerpt from the project presentation

By Pedro Amado

Pedro Amado. Assistant Professor at FBAUP. Integrated researcher of the i2ADS research institute.