In the Nineties I had been asked to provide a lay-out for the Sunday magazine section of Mr. Hearst’s New York paper. I could not do this properly except at my Wayside Press. This the typographic union would not permit, but in the years that followed, I enjoyed an intermittent part-time association with Mr. Hearst—working on magazines, papers and motion pictures.

One of these assignments was Good Housekeeping. This magazine had been published by the Phelps Company, and had achieved a circulation of 250,000 copies. Additional sales would tax the plant and necessitate more equipment and the magazine was sold to William Randolph Hearst. I was asked to design a new lay-out and to take over the art editorship during its formative period. For the new venture Mr. Hearst ordered a Winston Churchill serial—Inside the Cup if my memory is not at fault. Mr. Tower, the editor brought from Springfield, said this would mean taking out departments and a loss of half the circulation—but the departments came out, the serial went in, Mr. Tower resigned, Mr. Bigelow became editor, and circulation mounted into the millions!

In 1915 Mr. Hearst asked me if I could arrange to give him all of my time and art-supervise production of the motion picture serial, Patria, starring Irene Castle. I agreed.

In 1920, after writing, staging and directing Moongold, a Pierrot fantasy photographed against black velvet, using properties but no pictorial backgrounds—an independent production launched with a special showing at the Criterion Theater in Times Square, I returned to Mr. Hearst in an art and typographic assignment including magazines, newspapers, motion pictures and a trip to Europe where commissions were placed with Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham and Frank Brangwyn. Somewhere along the trail Spoils, a drama in verse, and Launcelot and the Ladies, a novel, were written—the former printed in Hearst’s International and the latter destined to carry a Harper & Brothers imprint—but not to become a best seller.

Another Hearst project in the early Twenties was a new format and the creation of a typographic lay-out for Hearst’s International. For the lay-out, the headings of which would have to be different from those provided earlier for Cosmopolitan, I designed a set of initial letters, later catalogued by the foundry and called “Vanity.” Knowing that Mr. Hearst would want to use portrait heads for covers and that they would all have to be made by a single artist whose style did not permit of confusion with the Harrison Fisher heads used on Cosmopolitan, I approached Benda with the suggestion that if he would use one color scheme for both head and background he could probably get the contract. On seeing the first Benda cover Mr. Hearst asked how it happened that this was the only Benda head he ever liked! He was told, and authorized a contract.

These Hearst International changes led to my being asked to give thought to strengthening Cosmopolitan headings in 1923. The request came on a Monday morning. The issue then in hand closed at Cuneo’s in Chicago on the following Friday. Mr. Hearst never urged hurry, but early results were appreciated. Obtaining a current dummy with page proofs, I headed for the ATF composing room at Communipaw, N. J. About half-past four I had personally set, without justification, every heading in the issue—using Caslon in roman and italic in the manner it had been assembled by uninhibited compositors of the Colonial period. That night, at home, I trimmed and mounted proofs in a new dummy. The mixing of roman and italic in radically different sizes and with consideration for desired emphasis, with possibly a 96- or 120-point roman cap starting a 48- or 60-point italic word, resulted just as I had visualized while the type was being set in fragmentary form. No changes were necessary, and every minute of the afternoon had been good fun. Tuesday I left for Chicago; Wednesday was spent at Cuneo’s where, using this reprint copy, all headings were set, made-up with text pages, and proved; Thursday the new lay-outs were enthusiastically approved in New York; Friday, at Cuneo’s, Cosmopolitan’s managing editor closed the forms according to schedule. It had been a grand lark—and within a few weeks that free style of typography began to appear in national advertising.

One morning a request came from Mr. Hearst to use color at every editorial opening in Hearst’s International—a startling innovation at a time when illustrators were accustomed to drawing or painting only for reproduction in black and white or for an occasional insert in process colors. Closing day on the current dummy was only two weeks away. With the aid of editorial substitutions it was thought we could make the date. Taking a dummy showing possible signature distribution of colors, I made the round of studios to find artists agreeable to the use of one extra color.

After ten days’ work I arrived at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, where Mr. Hearst was holding conferences. I had an appointment for noon of the next day. Spending the intervening time at Cuneo’s, I finished the dummy and appeared for my appointment, asking at the hotel that Mr. Hearst’s secretary be informed. The clerk shook his head; orders had been given that no phone calls were to be put through to that floor. The manager was called, I pointed to my brief-case lying on the counter, and said that Mr. Hearst was waiting for its contents. The manager took a chance, made the call, and I was told to go right up.

The conference was in a large room with window seats overlooking the lake. We sat on one of these seats while the dummy was viewed—page by page—twice. Mr. Hearst was pleased and asked if he might keep the dummy so he could enjoy it at his leisure. I told him the closing date would not permit this. He understood, and saying so in an appreciative manner suggesting a pat on the back, he sent me off to catch the afternoon limited so I could reach New York in the morning. There I was shown a wire evidently written and sent as soon as I had left. It was to Ray Long, editor-in-chief, saying: “Shall be pleased if future numbers are as attractive as the dummy I have just seen.” That is the “Chief”—always stimulating and appreciative!