Great typography is enduring.
It eschews trends and strives for lasting power. It brings with it its own history.
Bembo is a humanist serif typeface created in 1495 by Francesco Griffo in Venice, Italy. It is an attractive typeface, well suited for book-length text.
Characteristics include thin, asymmetrical serifs with mild bracketing, moderate contrast and moderate x-height. Small beak on ‘e’, stretched ‘f’, and elongated ‘j’. Warm, welcoming and inspirational.
Bembo users include Penguin, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, National Gallery and Yale University Press.
A comparable typeface is Centaur designed by Bruce Rogers in 1914 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with a delicate, subtle feel.