ITC Galliard is a serif typeface designed by
Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is an English type designer.[A Man of Letters](_blank) and issued in 1978 by the
Mergenthaler Linotype Company
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company was a company founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine (), a system to cast metal type in lines (linecaster) invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It became the world's leading manufacturer ...
.
Galliard is based on the sixteenth-century type of
Robert Granjon
Robert Granjon (Paris, c. 1513 - Rome, 1590) was a French punchcutter, a designer and creator of metal type, and printer. He worked in Paris, Lyon, Antwerp, and Rome. He is best known for having introduced the typeface style Civilité, for his ...
.
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
The ''galliard'' (; ; ) was a form of Renaissance dance and Renaissance music, music popular all over Europe in the 16th century. It is mentioned in dance manuals from England, Portugal, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy.
Dance form
The ''gal ...
was a lively dance of the period."
[Lawson, Alexander, '']Anatomy of a Typeface
''Anatomy of a Typeface'' is a 1990 book on typefaces written by Alexander Lawson.''Anatomy of a Typeface'', Alexander Lawson, David R. Godine, 1990.
Background
The book is notable for devoting entire chapters to the development and uses of ind ...
'', Godine, 1990. 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. With a glittering, crisp design, Galliard has been used both for body text and for headings. Galliard is notable for its 'pelican-beak' letter 'g', based on Granjon's Double Pica italic of 1570.
ITC Galliard (1978, 1982)

It is a version re-issued by
International Typeface Corporation
The International Typeface Corporation (ITC) was a type manufacturer founded in New York in 1970 by Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin and Edward Rondthaler. The company was one of the world's first type foundries to have no history in the production of ...
after Mike Parker had given ITC exclusive rights to Galliard. Matthew Carter drew the four roman weights and complementary italic designs while at Mergenthaler Linotype, and a suite of small caps for the Roman and Bold weights. ITC Galliard was introduced by Mergenthaler Linotype Company in 1978, with public availability for ITC subscribers beginning on January 15, 1982 (as announced in December 1981 (volume 8-4) issue of U&lc magazine).
The family includes 8 fonts in 4 weights and 1 width, with complementary italics. OpenType features include fractions, ligatures, ordinals, superscript.
ITC Galliard Pro (2010)
It is a version of ITC Galliard with characters that support Central European languages.
OpenType features include case sensitive forms, numerators/denominators, fractions, ligatures, lining/old style/proportional/tabular figures, localized forms, ordinals, scientific inferiors, superscript, small caps, diphthongs, stylistic alternates (set 1).
ITC Galliard eText (2013)
It is a version of ITC Galliard optimised for on-screen use, designed by Carl Crossgrove. Changes include increased lowercase heights, increased inter-character spacing, more open counters, adjusted thicks to thins ratio.
The family includes 4 fonts in 2 weights (regular, bold) and 1 width, with complementary italics. Character set support include. OpenType features include case sensitive forms, fractions, ligatures, lining/old style figures, localized forms, ordinals, small caps. Character set supports include Adobe Western 2.
Reception

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."
Usages
Galliard was a typeface used in the graphic identity and standards of
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
until it was replaced in 2007 by Matthew Carter's
Yale typeface, which was itself inspired in part by Galliard. It is also used in the official logos or wordmarks of other higher education institutions, including the
Baylor College of Medicine
The Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a private medical school in Houston, Texas, United States. Originally as the Baylor University College of Medicine from 1903 to 1969, the college became independent with the current name and has been se ...
and
Pomona College
Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...
.
Galliard was one of twenty-three typefaces acquired by the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in 2011 and subsequently exhibited in ''
Standard Deviations
In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation of the values of a variable about its mean. A low standard deviation indicates that the values tend to be close to the mean (also called the expected value) of the ...
.''
Galliard is the house typeface of ''
The New Criterion
''The New Criterion'' is a New York–based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Roger Kimball (editor and publisher) and James Panero (executive editor). It has sections for criticism of poetry ...
'' and of the
Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published more than 300 volumes by authors ...
series.
See also
* Bigelow, Charles, ''Galliard,'' in ''Fine Print on Type'', Charles Bigelow, editor, Bedford Arts, 1989, pp. 13–16.
* Lawson, Alexander, ''
Anatomy of a Typeface
''Anatomy of a Typeface'' is a 1990 book on typefaces written by Alexander Lawson.''Anatomy of a Typeface'', Alexander Lawson, David R. Godine, 1990.
Background
The book is notable for devoting entire chapters to the development and uses of ind ...
'', Godine, 1990, pp. 141–146.
References
{{Reflist
External links
ITC Classics: ITC Galliard
Old style serif typefaces
Typefaces designed by Matthew Carter
International Typeface Corporation typefaces