Some distinctive characteristics in Garamond’s letters are the small eye of the ‘e’ and the bowl of the ‘a’, which has a sharp hook upwards at top left. The ‘M’ is slightly splayed. The x-height (height of lower-case letters) is low, especially at larger sizes, making the capitals large relative to the lower case, while the top serifs on the ascenders of letters like ‘d’ have a downward slope and rise subtly above the cap height. Garamond typefaces are popular and often used, particularly for printing body text and books.

Garmond, antiqua was designed and cut in Paris in 1535 by the punch-cutter Claude Garamon (1480-1561). It is a pure old-style face. Garamond was the first ot design roman and italic faces and comonents of a type cut. The Garamond faces were later imporved by Robert Granjon and Christoph van Dyck. By virtue of the clarity and harmony of their forms they have survived until the present.

The normal or medium faces are often used in small sizes for marginalia and captions to pictures. The semi-bold, bold, and italic faces are used mostly as display faces.

Since around 1910, many modern revivals of Garamond and related typefaces have been developed. Among these, the roman (regular; upright) versions of Adobe Garamond, Granjon, Sabon, and Stempel Garamond are directly based on Garamond’s work.