Garamond
EB Garamond is a revival of Claude Garamont's types, which have set books continuously since the 1540s. It has a small x-height and a light colour on the page, so it wants a generous leading and rewards it. Chapters open centred under a roman numeral with a three-line drop capital, which is the oldest arrangement in this list and still the most quietly confident.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago … having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway, and she said nothing at all for a long while.
Use it for
Literary and historical fiction; anything that wants to feel printed rather than produced.
Do not use it for
Small trim sizes and long reading sessions in poor light. The small x-height that makes it beautiful at 6 × 9 makes it tiring at 5 × 8. Baskerville is the sturdier cousin.
What it decides
- Text face
- EB Garamond, old-style serif, by Georg Duffner and Octavio Pardo, after Claude Garamont.
- Size and leading
- 12 pt on 18.0 pt (1.50×). Adjustable; this is where it starts.
- Paragraph indent
- 1.3 em, except the first paragraph of a chapter and the first after any break.
- Chapter opening
- Centred, sunk 28% down the text block, numbered in roman numerals, opening on a 3-line drop capital.
- Scene break
- A centred ✦ with space either side.
- Running head
- The book title on the left-hand page, the author on the right, in small capitals.
- Page number
- Centred at the foot. Roman in the front matter, restarting at arabic 1 on the first chapter.
About the typeface
EB Garamond is an old-style serif, drawn by Georg Duffner and Octavio Pardo, after Claude Garamont. It is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows it to be embedded in a document, including one you sell, without restriction or attribution in the book itself. The licences page reproduces the full text.
The print PDF embeds a subset of it, only the characters your book actually uses, so a three-hundred-page interior comes to a couple of megabytes rather than ten. The EPUB does not embed it by default, because an ebook reader has chosen their own face and size, often for their eyesight, and overriding that is the most damaging thing an ebook stylesheet can do. There is a switch if you want it anyway.
See your own book in Garamond
Open a Word file and switch between all eight designs in a click. Free, nothing uploaded.
Format a book →