Without the design style that came from the German school of Bauhaus from1919-1933, I would not exist

today. I owe my fame to the Bauer Type Foundry, which commissioned me out of a reaction to Ludwig & Mayers seminal Erbar of 1922, a typeface similar to my own.

Despite my sans-serif typeface, my geometric lines and curves are evident. I was finally released to the world in 1927, inspiring a new modern approach to fonts, hence my trendy name. Some of my original characteristics can be found not in my own letters, but in those of the typeface Architype Renner. Im thankful that my designer avoided the unnecessary decorative lines that some other typefaces possess.

I owe the existence of my Old-Style serif-self to the letterpress and a 15th and 16th century punch-cutter. Claude in fact named me after his own surname. Thank you, Claude, for my legibility and consistency. And without French King Francis I, my creator would never have been commissioned to create a Greek that would influence my future popularity.

Thankfully the French Court adopted my Roman type so that I influenced France and Western Europe. I owe the fame I gained after the mastermind behind my fluid letter type passed in 1561 to Christopher Plantin, French printer Jean Jannon and Cardinal Richelieu. And now that its 2012, you should check out my 20th-century commercial, Garamond #3.

The year 1978 was a great one for Giambattista because he created me. And he thought my alternating thin and thick strokes would be so timeless that he gave me the same name as his last.

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But I cant give him all of the credit. John Bakersville inspired my designer to create such interesting stroke contrast. The typeface Bakersville reveals where my slightly condensed and more vertical characteristics stem from. Some of the fonts in my family are extremely narrow and feature flat serifs with no brackets. I would describe myself as two extremes thick and thin. Some even note the dazzle that results from my two opposite strokes.