Designed by Giambattista Bodoni in 1798, Bodoni is a transitional/early modern serif typeface. Hugely influenced by 'Baskerville', Bodoni took Baskerville's stroke contrast and extended serifs and went about emphasising these to the extreme. Bodoni is strongly characterised by its largely unbracketed serifs, lending the type a graceful but modern feel. Where Herbert Bayer saw typography as 'a service art, not a fine art', I feel that Bodoni saw his typefaces as fine art, perfected over his entire working life, and intrinsically beautiful across all his incarnations.
Originally intended as an elaborate body copy, Bodoni's classy aesthetic has since been employed and used by fashion magazines (particularly covers) and fashion houses for years. Harper's Bazaar, Armani and Calvin Klein are all instantly recognisable from their use of Bodoni. Bodoni clearly illustrates a point from Beatrice Warde's 'Crystal Goblet...' essay, 'type used well is invisible as type'. For these brands, their name displayed in Bodoni conveys class and sophistication, one does not look at the anatomical intricacies of the typeface but simply takes in the whole ethos of the brand from the image that Bodoni evokes.
Bodoni's form has been adapted numerous times due to its increased illegibility in smaller point sizes (particularly in digital media). While this most often occurs when display type is reduced to text sizes, different versions of Bodoni have sprung up over the years to compensate, most commonly employing a lower contrast in stroke weight.
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