Didot
Didot
Firmin Didot, 1784
Serif · French luxury. The same territory as Bodoni, slightly more refined.
Didot and Bodoni were developed in parallel in France and Italy and arrived at nearly the same conclusion: maximise contrast, flatten the serifs to hairlines. The Didot family also gave its name to the didot point, the European typographic unit that competed with the Anglo-American pica point for a century.
How to tell it apart
| Mistaken for | Which letters to check |
|---|---|
| Bodoni | Bodoni's serifs are slightly heavier and its bowls slightly rounder. The distinction is real and small enough that logo redraws routinely blur it. |
The facts
- Designed by
- Firmin Didot
- Released
- 1784
- Classification
- Serif
- What it signals now
- French luxury. The same territory as Bodoni, slightly more refined.
Where you have seen it
- Harper's Bazaar
- Giorgio Armani
- CBS News graphics
This page describes the typeface rather than showing it. Displaying a specimen requires a licensed font file and almost none of these may be redistributed, so the descriptions name the letters to look at instead.
Common questions
- Who designed Didot?
- Firmin Didot, in 1784.
- What is Didot used for?
- French luxury. The same territory as Bodoni, slightly more refined. You will have seen it on Harper's Bazaar, Giorgio Armani, CBS News graphics.
- What is the difference between Didot and Bodoni?
- Bodoni's serifs are slightly heavier and its bowls slightly rounder. The distinction is real and small enough that logo redraws routinely blur it.
Related pages
- Bodoni Routinely mistaken for this one
- Typefaces from the 1780s 1 here
- Garamond Claude Garamond, 1530
- Caslon William Caslon, 1722
- Baskerville John Baskerville, 1757
- Bodoni Giambattista Bodoni, 1798
- Times New Roman Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent, 1932
- Trajan Carol Twombly, 1989
- Georgia Matthew Carter, 1996
Sources
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)