Plantin

plantin is an old-style serif typeface created in 1913 by the british monotype corporation for their hot metal typesetting system. in 1912 frank hinman pierpont of english monotype visited the plantin-moretus museum in antwerp, returning home with photographs and reproductions including examples of robert granjon's gros cicero, which pierpont and fritz stelzer of the monotype drawing office used as the basis for the new text face, working from overinked proofs taken from worn type. the intention behind the design was to create a font with thicker letterforms than had typically been used, because previous type designers had reduced the weight of their fonts to make up for ink spread, but by 1913 innovations in smoothing and coating paper had led to reduced ink spread.