Bookman Swash Font:

Bookman was a classic text design that saw widespread usage during the early 1900s. Though eventually disfavoring, its popularity rebounded with phototypesetting technology and survived into the 1970s. Revivals often added swash characters as part of its character set when OpenType fonts came along and allowed more sophisticated typographic solutions to be introduced into revivals of this font family.

This new version from URW introduces true italics and provides complete Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek support.

Characteristics:

Bookman is an elegant text face designed by Alexander Phemister around 1860 for Miller & Richard and quickly became a popular workhorse typeface used for book and newspaper printing. While descended from Caslon’s earlier eighteenth-century typeface design, Bookman features wider character designs, higher x-height, and moderate stroke contrast for added versatility and display purposes.

Over time, several variants of Bookman have been created by different designers and companies. ITC’s version was designed by Ed Benguiat and featured similar metrical characteristics as the ATF original but with larger lowercase letters and more extensive swash characters. First released as part of its Bookman family in 1975 and later made available separately as ITC Bookman Swash.

Mark Simonson created the digital URW Bookman font in 2011. By combing through all possible swash options and adding his own, he produced both a faithful reproduction of ITC Bookman as well as an innovative 21st-century typeface containing ligatures, stylistic alternates, small caps, italic swash capitals, and italic swash small caps – as well as extensive support for Latin-based languages as well as Western European ones.

Bitstream’s version was known as Revival 711; other revivals have since been created under different names; Itek produced their version under the name BM, while BB&S developed theirs under Bookman; both models are based on other designs by them: Custer and Monitor No 5.

Weights:

Bookman Old Style, commonly referred to as Bookman Old Face, is an easily legible text face used in display typography and trade printing. In modern graphic design, it is most associated with revivals popular during phototypesetting systems during the 1970s; large character repertoires could then be stored on film or glass phototype master disks and printed any size rather than being limited by bulky metal type.

Revivals from this period featured a diverse character set with many swash characters that made them more suitable for text than some serif families. When compared with the original ATF version, these revivals featured wider lowercase letters (with higher x-heights) and additional details like compressed descenders on the letter G for tighter line spacing; their caps had similar forms but with slightly open forms making them somewhat more readable than their predecessor.

Ed Benguiat created the ITC Bookman font family for International Typeface Corporation, featuring four weights with complementary cursive designs in four weight families and true italics that take on handwriting forms; these differ significantly from traditional ATF Bookman revivals which use slanted Roman italics instead.

Mark Simonson created Bookmania in 2006 based on ITC Bookman and other ATF Old Styles lacking digital versions, such as Alt versions or OpenType stylistic alternates. He extended the design by including more swashes, alternate styles through OpenType stylistic alternates or Alt versions as well as ligatures, small caps, extended language support, and ligature support.

Alternates:

Bookman was a transitional serif design that enjoyed immense popularity during the early 20th century before gradually falling out of favor and reappearing as a popular trend again with phototypesetting technology in the 1960s. Revivals emerged throughout this time, often boasting extensive repertoires of glyphs for various swash characters.

Ed Benguiat’s ITC Bookman was one of the most successful revivals from this era, released in 1975. Benguiat designed four weights plus matching cursive designs in this font family; expanded the lower case by widening and tallening, as well as adding ornate swash alternates and including true italic characters that differed from earlier italic versions that only featured obliques.

Mark Simonson created Bookmania for Adobe in 2011 as a five-weight family with matching italics and small caps; its ornate swashes can be configured in many combinations to create that 1970s look.

Ed Benguiat’s ITC Bookman had become so different over time that many had difficulty with it, that Mark took steps to bring back its original, more “handsomer” versions that never made their way into digital type at that time. Mark selected from various swash options the best existing ones to form his 21st-century typographic package; including all necessary features like ligatures, stylistic alternates, small caps with swash small caps as well as italic small caps if applicable.

OpenType features:

Bookman Swash Font requires advanced typographic support for its more elegant glyphs to display accurately, such as ligatures and swashes. It works best when used with programs like Adobe Creative Suite or QuarkXPress; otherwise, a glyph palette or window must be displayed to access these features.

Bookman Old Style has been revived several times over the last century, though none so successfully as in Mark Simonson’s revival of Bookmania. He selected from among many possible swash possibilities and packed them full of 21st-century typographic amenities for maximum impact.

Revivals of Bookman were common on phototypesetting systems during the 1960s and 1970s as typefaces became less dependent upon metal-type manufacturing processes. New digital technologies made adding large repertoires of alternate characters and decorative glyphs like swashes easier, thus leading to many revivals from this era including an extensive set of decorative glyphs.

Monotype also released its version of Bookman at this time; they marketed it as a traditional old-style font and called it Monotype Bookman. Unlike its counterpart issued by Miller & Richard, Monotype Bookman features almost vertical stress; additionally, it boasts true italics, unlike ITC’s Bookman which included obliques.