Bergamo font

[wizard509]

I ran across this font the other day on Smashing Magazine.
It comes in 4 flavors it's about the sixth one down, but other than that I couldn't find out much about it, but, if you like it here is the link and some samples.



http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009...ty-free-fonts/

Maybe Gare can shed some light on this font.

[angelize]

This is a nice looking font thanks for sharing the link Larry!

[Gare]

It's a nice body copy font (as opposed to a "Headline" or "Display" font). It looks good, with good air on a page if you set a page in, say 10 point.

The quality is good, but I'm afraid I cannot find any history on the typeface. I can say that the transverse is diagonal, which makes it a Modern class Roman font, and that there are some influences of both Palatino, which has almost square cut serifs, and Garamond, which is a little more 'flowery', probably a poor choice of terms.



Larry, thanks for bringing it to the attention of the community here, and it's particularly welcome that four of the family members are free. I feel the bold members are too heavy for typesetting, a demi-bold version if it exists would be nice, but you can't argue about the price and these are commercial quality faces in my estimation.

Then again, I believe that gummi troll dolls are a health food, and Bob Denver was the greatest actor in history.

IOW trust your eyes, you don't need my estimation! :)

My Best,

Gary

[mwenz]

Bergamo:

http://www.fontsite.com/fonts/

I picked up the 10 font Pro set.

Thanks Larry. Really, I mean that. I think...but at $14.95 or whatever, cheapest good font set I have bought for a while.

Take care, Mike

[Gare]

Agreed. Fifteen bucks for a Pro set is The Nice Price.

Not an "Expert Set" mind you, but Mike now has the demibold.

Why I do not.

:(

-g


P.S. (PostScript!?) I looked around and cannot find any back-story on Bergamo. I assume the designer's name is Bergamo, and nothin' I can find on the Web. You know, that he used to work at Galapagos Design Group, or P22, or Emigré...nuthin'.

[rithopaulo]

A little late in coming, but Bergamo is a near exact clone of Bembo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bembo Some say it is a rip off of Bembo, but then Bembo itself is really based on something created in 15th century.

[Gare]

Hi Rithopaulo and welcome to the forum!

You prompted me to look at Berthold's cast of Bembo and do a somewhat critical evaluation.

Okay, Bembo was originally cast by Francesco Griffo in or around 1495 and has a lot of distinctive characteristics, such as a subtle (as opposed to exaggerated) difference between thin and thick strokes. Stanley Morison recreated the font the we use digitally today for Monotype in the early 1900s. I have no idea when the font went from cold type to digital. Mr. Morison doesn't have a lot of fonts to his credit, but he was a champion of fonts, authenticity, and a historian of printing until his death in 1967.

If we'd accept the fact that Mr. Morison's resurrection of Bembo has become the accepted "standard" for the typeface, then "Sean" as credited within the font, has created a very well cobbled rip-off of Bembo. Enjoy the typeface for free, but know that it's a handsome knock-off.

Here's a comparison: most of the paragraph is set in Berthold's render of Bembo (although Monotype commissioned the render first). Hint: the center of the paragraph is set in Bergamo.



I see almost no difference whatsoever in the outlines of the type characters I rendered.

I guess the bottom line is let Monotype sue © FontSite Inc., 1996-2011 if they care to, and if you don't own genuine Bembo, go get the clones for free, eh?

My Best,

Gare

[rithopaulo]

Hi Rithopaulo and welcome to the forum!

Thanks. Nice evaluation.

I see almost no difference whatsoever in the outlines of the type characters I rendered.

I guess the bottom line is let Monotype sue � FontSite Inc., 1996-2011 if they care to...

Many likely know this already, but the issues involving typeface copyrights in the United States has been an on going battle and source of contention for a long time. You see it all the time. Someone designs a new typeface, and someone else says, "That is a blatant ripoff of such and such a typeface." The thing is the majority of most of the popular typefaces today were revivals of older typefaces. If someone else revives the same font, and they actually do all the work creating the font outlines from scratch, it is not a ripoff.

Anyway Monotype (US based)would not have a chance of winning if they did try to sue, unless they could prove that FontSite or who ever really created Bergamo, actually only took. their font file copyed their outlines and changed the names. As the law stands today, even if you take an existing font print it out, scan it back into the computer, and outline it in a font program making a copy that is virtually indistinguishable from the original, you are protected from lawsuits. Only a font software file can be copyrighted along with the trademark font name. The actual typeface / letter forms can not be copyrighted in the US. The ruling has always been that because of their utilitarian nature they can not be considered works of art.

If you want to read all about it do a google book search using this query. "font fights: attempts to own the alphabet" or use this link which may or may not continue to work http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...qGt0BLVcAeAT2g

[Gare]

Copyrights, as far as digital typefaces go, is a perversely fascinating topic.

You can't own the outline—the design itself—at least as far as U.S. law goes, at least that was my understanding until around 1995 when SWFTE so blatantly and arrogantly ripped off popular commercial fonts from Emigré (Remedy), Adobe Systems, and a few others, that a consortium was made, and I think the lawyers sued SWFTE so hard they aren't even in existence anymore. At least I don't see them at the top, middle or bottom of the barrel in links or advertising.

What happened was some jerk at SWFTE actually copied the metrics and pasted them. The lawyers were able to show the court that the number of control points, the position of them, in every stinking glyph was identical to the commercial product.

I can say that Bergamo is not a copy-and-paste endeavor. The glyph sizes, number of kerning pairs, and placement of control points indicates that Sean or whoever studiously reproduced the glyphs.

I can see the validity of a "revival", but have no sympathy for someone who outright steals and gets nailed for it. Nick Curtis is a wonderful font artist, he's occasionally revived a commercial font, but he's given much more than he's taken from the font world. And for his effort—giving away a lot of very nice, commercial quality fonts—jerks have taken them, put them on CDs, and attempted to sell the collection.

I'm very happy to see that Nick and a lot of other "indies" have come back to the commercial font scene via Webfonts.

By the way, my own license does say as much, but anything I've created in the Free Fonts Galley@ tg is free top use on the Web as a Webfont as long as you do an act of kindness, as stipulated in the CharityWare license.

My Best,

Gary