Body-text fonts, pt. 34: Stempel Garamond

(from E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India)

What I really enjoy about Stempel Garamond is that its zero is thickest at the top and bottom ends, rather than at the left and right sides. (This is a feature of the “lining” – i.e., tall or uppercase – zero. The “oldstyle” zero – short or lowercase; in, e.g., “30,” above – is just a thinnish circle.)

It’s unusual for a tall zero to be top-and-bottom heavy.

Cf. the more ordinary tall zero of Adobe Garamond, Stempel Garamond’s plainer descendant.