蒙纳公司当时制作这款字的目的在于他们需要一款更粗的字形以适用于光面纸张的印刷[3] 在设计构思时，蒙纳公司的工程部经理弗兰克·辛曼·皮尔蓬特特地到安特卫普的普朗坦-莫雷图斯博物馆拿到了一些字体样张[4]。这款字也是蒙纳公司第一批不是单纯复制英国流行的印刷字体而进行传统复刻的字体之一，自发布之后广受欢迎，让蒙纳公司之后的二三十年加速了对其他经典字体的复刻。Plantin也是三十年代制作Times New Roman字体时的参照字体之一。[1][5] Plantin字体家族包括常规体、细体、粗体以及配套的意大利体。
设计灵感
Steel punches, the masters used to stamp matrices used to cast metal type, at the Plantin-Moretus Museum. Its unique collection of original sixteenth-century matrices and punches inspired the Plantin design.位于安特卫普的普朗坦-莫雷图斯博物馆
Miller & Richard's Old Style, a delicate reinterpretation of pre nineteenth-century printing styles that became popular in the late nineteenth century. While offering a version of it as one of their first faces, Monotype in creating Plantin aimed to offer a more solid design that would print clearly.
以精美印刷闻名的Claude Lamesle在其1742年样张中展示了格朗容字体原有的风貌。[9][8] Mosley has close-up images of some characters of the face.[10][a]而Plantin保留了格朗容设计中高大的x字高的特点，但把降部改短，并放大了小写字母a、e的字怀[4]。并非所有字体都源自格朗容，因为十六世纪的法国并不使用字母J、U和W；另外在印刷字体样张时，小写字母a被替换成了一个十八世纪风格的设计。[12][10]
应用及影响
A digitisation of Times New Roman below Plantin and two other typefaces originally considered as a basis for the Times project: Perpetua, Baskerville and Plantin. Times is most based on Plantin, but with the letters made taller and its appearance "modernised" by adding eighteenth- and nineteenth-century influences similar to Baskerville and Perpetua, in particular enhancing the stroke contrast.A sample image of Plantin created by Fontshop, showing infant styles and the condensed "News" and "Headline" styles sold for newspapers.
这款字以其粗狂、扎实的设计在二十世纪早期大为流行，广泛用于商业以及报纸印刷。[13][14][15][16]}} As the basic font is relatively dark on the page, Monotype offered a 'light' version as well as a bold, which Hugh Williamson describes as "particularly suitable for bookwork."[17]
Plantin也是蒙纳公司最著名的Times New Roman字体的设计基础。[21][22] Times与Plantin非常类似，但通过增加笔画对比显得更现代、更锋利。[23][24][25] Allan Haley commented that Times New Roman "looks like Plantin on a diet."[26]
Mosley, James. Comments on Typophile thread. Typophile (archived). [16 December 2016]. （原始内容存档于2011-10-13）. The consensus appears to be that not only the wrong-fount a in the cases at Antwerp but also the italic that Monotype adapted for their Plantin (which can be seen on that first page of the 1905 specimen) may be the work of Johann Michael Schmidt (died 1750), also known as J. M. Smit or Smid.
Mosley, James. Reviving the Classics: Matthew Carter and the Interpretation of Historical Models. Mosley, James; Re, Margaret; Drucker, Johanna; Carter, Matthew (编). Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter. Princeton Architectural Press. 2003: 31–34 [2021-02-14]. ISBN 9781568984278. （原始内容存档于2020-11-05）. Plantin was a recreation of one of the old types held at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, of which a specimen, printed in 1905, had been acquired by Pierpont on a visit. The type from which the specimen was printed was not only centuries old and worn almost beyond use, but it was contaminated with wrong-font letters (notably the letter ‘a’) and the italic did not even belong to the roman. The revival, derived by Monotype from an indirect and confused original, is as sound a piece of type-making as was ever created in the 20th century…behind the foggy image of the roman type lies the...'Gros Cicero' Roman of Robert Granjon, acquired by the Plantin printing office after the death of its founder.
Luna, Paul. Small Print. Designer. 1986. The first national to install a Lasercomp, it overcame the lack of suitable text faces by commissioning its own, a slightly condensed version of Plantin.
