The TYMA Garamont Roman was inspired by the Berner-Egenolff type sample from the 1560s. The Italic was inspired by a sample from Robert Granjon, also from the 1560s. The name TYMA is short for AB Typmatriser, a Swedish company founded 1948, because the Second World War stopped all import of matrices for Linotype and Intertype typesetting machines. It took until 1951-52 before the import was up to speed again. Until then, Sweden had to fend for itself.

TYMA produced all technical equipment needed for type production, including the pantograph to cut the matrices, a complete set for each size and version. The templates for Garamont Roman were initiated by Henry Alm 1948. Bo Berndal was hired the following year, and continued the work by drawing and cutting templates for the rest of Garamont Roman, as well as for the remaining Garamont family. Bo Berndal stayed at TYMA until it went bankrupt in 1952. At that time Bo Berndal had already kick-started his career as type designer by drawing the typeface Reporter for one of the big daily newspapers, Aftonbladet, a version of Cheltenham for another daily, Dagens Nyheter, and copied several old typefaces for other customers.

Librarian Sten G. Lindberg at The Royal Library of Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, procured copies of original type samples. Henry Alm started the work in 1948, and Bo Berndal completed it - finally in this OpenType version.