Plantin Now
Tabular Type Foundry · Frank Hinman Pierpont · 2025
A considered revival of Monotype's 1913 Plantin, with optical size masters drawn from the original metal caption and display sets, and bold weights redrawn from scratch to correct long-standing proportion problems.
About
Based on Robert Granjon's Gros Cicero (1569) and Monotype's 1913 metal cutting under Frank Hinman Pierpont, the revival retains the typeface's iconic quirks — including the upright lowercase a and the Victorian-flavoured italic — while discarding the original bold's inconsistent proportions in favour of entirely new bold weights. Caption and display optical size masters are derived directly from Plantin 110's historical drawing sets, with the variable font supporting both weight and optical size axes. The designer chose not to digitise the intermediate text set, judging the transitions too minor to justify inclusion.
Classification
A revival of Monotype's 1913 Plantin, itself based on Robert Granjon's Gros Cicero (1569). The typeface sits in the old-style tradition with Renaissance origins, featuring optical size masters spanning caption to display and newly drawn bold weights.