Bodoni produced Classical Greek, Latin, Italian, French, English and Russian editions for the appreciative continental market. Because of the new look and the exceptional quality of his works, Bodoni became a celebrity. The city of Parma issued a medal in his honour. He was also honoured by the Pope and several European Kings, and Napoleon Bonapart granted him one of the three pensions he received. Bodoni also corresponded with Benjamin Franklin on typographical subjects.
Around 1798, Bodoni designed an extremely high-contrast Modern typeface, Bodoni Book, which created a visual revolution in the typographical design community. The thick stems and horizontal strokes flowed flawlessly into very fine lines and terminated with thin, straight serifs. The first impression one has of a Bodoni typeface is that it is crisp.The classical Bodoni typeface is still used today, mostly in high class advertising, fashion, art oriented printed literature, and Karen's web pages.
In 1788 Bodoni published "Manuale Tipografico" which contained 291 alphabets. These included Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Etrusca, Turkish, Tartar, Ethiopian and several other non-Latin alphabets, as well as hundreds of decorative borders and printing ornaments. The edition also contained many beautiful script types with exotic sweeping flourishes in the capital letters.
Bodoni was influenced by the works of John Baskerville and Pierre Simon Furnier and Firmin Didot and other masters but did no copy the work of his peers. What he produced was stunningly unique, his own style BODONI.
His striking contemporary design created a new visual era in typography, one which fully embraced the age of the industrial revolution.