Bell™ Semibold Italic. The original of the Bell™ typeface was made 200 years ago and is thought by some to mark the introduction of the 'modern' faces. It was made for Bell's Type Foundry by Richard Austin at about the time that the face we now know as Firmin Didot also appeared. Bell did not have a bold weight at that time. This new version, first introducted in 1992, tries to emulate the roughness that they imagine characterized typefounding in the 1780s. The metal version was a favorite of many designers who used it to bring some character to the text they were printing. Character Set: Latin-1