page_title: Galliard (typeface)
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Galliard (typeface) / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Granjon's famous Ascendonica italic, shown in a 1611 book. Attribution: Dr. Frank E. Blokland; see discussion here.
context_page_description: Galliard is the name of a serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter and issued in 1978 by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.
  Galliard is based on the sixteenth-century type of Robert Granjon. According to Alexander Lawson, "The name Galliard stems from Granjon's own term for an 8-point font he cut about 1570. It undoubtedly refers to the style of the face, for the galliard was a lively dance of the period." Explaining what drew him to Granjon's work, Carter wrote on some of his more characteristic letterforms: "looking at them, adjectives like 'spirited, 'tense' and 'vigorous' come to mind...it is easy to admire Granjon's work."
  Mike Parker, Director of Typographic Development at Mergenthaler Linotype, had been inspired by seeing the types of Granjon at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. Matthew Carter, who joined Mergenthaler Linotype as a typeface designer in 1965, was also an admirer. His father, Harry Carter, had worked to itemise the Museum's extensive collection of sixteenth-century punches and matrices in the 1950s, with his son occasionally helping. Work continued on the typeface, sporadically, through the 1960s and 1970s. The typeface was released in 1978.
context_section_description: Galliard has robust strokes, but also sharp details and incisive contrast between thick and thin strokes. According to Lawson, "While the designers of the regenerated Garamonds were attempting to bring fidelity in their copies, Carter preferred simply to bring to Galliard his interpretation of the spirit of a Granjon original...Galliard thus possesses the authentic sparkle that is lacking in the current Garamonds."
caption: Robert Granjon's Ascendonica italic, the model for Galliard's, shown in a 1611 book. The 'pelican' 'g' is used in the second line and a conventional two-storey 'g' in other parts of the text.[11][12]
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