Design Concept

Parmigiano Typographic System (named after Parma, the city where Bodoni established his printing house) has the stated ambition to be the most extensive family of fonts ever to have been inspired by Giambattista Bodoni.

The idea of a sans serif to accompany a roman inspired by Bodoni raises the question of how to apply Bodoni’s design sensibilities to a typeface he would never have designed. Parmigiano Sans owes a design debt to early nineteenth century Grotesques such as William Thorowgood’s Seven Line Grotesque (1834), which were characterized by pronounced contrasts between thick and thin strokes, brusque terminations and an overall roundness of the letters. While these features are quite obvious in the bolder cuts of Parmigiano Sans, the lighter weights show less contrast and the Light cut is almost monolinear.

Parmigiano Sans was designed to strike a balance between the primitiveness of the early grotesques and a less eccentric and normalized structure. Although the proportions and the weights of Parmigiano Sans are based on Parmigiano Text, thanks to the fine crafting of details it gains a unique personality which makes it suitable for a wide range of uses. Parmigiano Sans shows its sturdy and no-nonsense qualities for texts in small sizes. When used in progressively bigger sizes its details gain prominence, which, in combination with its narrow proportions, makes it a good choice for headlines.
Read more about development of Parmigiano▸

OpenType features

Like all Typotheque fonts, Parmigiano includes Small Caps in all styles. Additionally, Parmigiano includes a wealth of other advanced OpenType features. For more information please see the PDF instructions, or the Features section.

Numerals

All weights of Parmigiano include nine different kinds of numerals. Proportional Lining figures come as default figures in Parmigiano. It also, however, includes Old-style figures, Tabular numerals (both lining and OsF), Small Caps figures, superior, inferior, circled and circled inverted numerals (selectable via OpenType features), and slighly taller Lining figures that match the heigh of Capitals.

Author

The Parmigiano Type Family family was published in 2014, designed by Riccardo Olocco and Jonathan Pierini.