  EXAMPLE 16 EXAMPLE 17 THE “LAYOUT” MANHow does the work of the typographer of the twentieth century compare with productions of the past? In the belief of some the good typographer, like the good Indian, is dead. The truth is that much of the printing done during the first four hundred years was not well done. While the same proportionate result still prevails, the ancient did not have the excuse of the modern—lack of time; nor has the modern the excuse of the ancient—lack of facilities. However, while poor work in any century or any industry is explainable, it is not excusable. EXAMPLE 1 Someone said, “The man who attained his ambition did not aim high enough.” Perfection is not attainable, but it should be the goal in our race. Many typographers are doing good work, altho each is doing it differently. No one is producing perfect typography; but when perfection is the pacemaker no result can be commonplace. The good typographers of the past had the spirit of the master craftsman and their product was inspired. The modern printer to succeed needs only the inspiration that comes of study, hard work and love of his trade. Inspired work, however, is generally the result of preparation. Artists and advertising men realize the necessity of careful preparation for the process of printing, but typographers as a class evidently do not. If they did they would do even better work and make bigger profits possible. Every printshop should have a “layout” man. In spite of the fact that much good printing is done today, fully nine-tenths of the product is partially unsatisfactory because of lack of preparation. When a business man decides to erect an office building he does not immediately go to a building contractor and tell him to build it. He first consults an architectural engineer, examines drawings and exchanges opinions, and when the building contractor starts his work everything has been planned and specified. Should printing be done in a less thoro manner? Is not the making of a book, catalog or business card each proportionately as important and as well entitled to proper attention as the larger undertaking? Good typography cannot be produced if preparation is slighted. Quality printing is not accidental. Shops famed for the artistic excellence of their product have maintained their “shop style” despite changes in the force of workmen and executives, and this individuality, or “shop style,” as it is termed, has been obtained and retained only because the copy has been carefully prepared and the work has been intelligently laid out by some qualified person (artist, ad-writer or typographer) who understands shop preferences in the matter of style. It is the “institutional idea.” In printshops extensive enough to allow of the expense, one or more layout men should be employed, and in the smaller concerns the head job compositor or foreman could do the work. Solicitors, when artistically fitted, could in special cases lay out their own jobs of printing, as personal contact with the customer peculiarly fits them to do it satisfactorily. The important thing, anyway, is to please the customer. While the art side of the practice of typography is important, it is not all important. Typography is also a business. If the customer’s tastes and prejudices were ascertained beforehand, many of the changes now made after jobs are in type, frequently causing inharmonious arrangements, could be avoided. The average printer rarely parallels the experiences of a few fortunate printing concerns which, EXAMPLE 3 EXAMPLE 2 Orders for much of the better class of work are obtained thru “dummies” submitted by printers or solicitors. The customer advises a certain number of such persons that he is in the market for a booklet and would like to receive suggestions. Each competitor prepares a “dummy” on the stock and in the binding intended for the completed booklet. The cover design is roughly sketched or otherwise indicated and the inside pages prepared to represent the finished job. Let us imagine ourselves in a printshop of medium size, which cannot afford the regular services of an artist. From the composing-room force take the most artistic and practical job compositor and install him at a desk. If there is not sufficient desk work to occupy his full time, arrange with him to fill in spare time at the case. In selecting a man for the position it should be remembered that few typographers have qualifications combining artistic perception and thoro workmanship. It is in a great measure true that a nervous, artistic temperament unfits a typographer for thoro, finished work at the case or stone, while on the contrary, a calm, precise, methodical disposition is often accompanied by lack of imagination. EXAMPLE 5 EXAMPLE 6 EXAMPLE 4-a The proprietor or other person in authority should discuss with the layout man the subject of shop style in typographical arrangement. The matter of type equipment should also be gone over, as nothing hinders the layout man so much as to be compelled to use type-faces selected by another having ideas widely different. It is important that the type equipment be appropriate and sufficient for the class of work done. An equipment of a half dozen harmonizing faces of type is far better than one of two dozen ill-assorted faces. Good typography is to a large extent dependent upon the type-faces used. EXAMPLE 4-b The layout man should make a study of the personality and tastes of a customer. He should meet all such that come into the office, and arrange to call once upon each of the regular customers. He must keep in close touch with conditions in the composing-room, so that in the discharge of his duties he does not call for type-faces already set out of the cases, or not a part of the equipment. The mechanic and the artist, to do satisfactory work, must have a certain working outfit. The layout man is no exception; while he could perhaps manage with only a lead pencil and foot rule, it would be foolish to do so. His work will be expedited if he has an assortment of good crayons; hard, medium and soft lead pencils; a pair of shears, a T-square, a gelatine triangle, a type-line gage, a table for giving the number of words to an inch in the various size type bodies; and a library of books and periodicals on printing, especially of those showing examples of type designs. To provide him also with a set of water colors, a jar of Chinese white, a bottle of gold paint, a bottle of india ink and several brushes would not be extravagance. It would be economical and wise if several sample sheets of each kind of stock were kept near his desk in a portfolio or convenient drawer. Book papers could be cut in quarters, cover papers in halves, and cardboard in various convenient sizes, all ready to be used at an instant’s notice. Several each of ruled headings, cut cards and other standard goods should also be included. In laying out jobs, especially large runs, he should make them of such size as will cut from the sheet with little or no waste. If an order is to be rushed, he should ascertain if the stock may be had without delay.
EXAMPLE 8 For an example of the workings of the layout system we will suppose that the principal of a local business college has brought in typewritten copy of about a thousand words to be made into a small booklet. A little questioning brings out the information that the customer desires something attractive, refined, and of good quality. He does not want a cheap job, and neither has he money to spend upon expensive de luxe booklets. The layout man looks over his sample papers and finds that there is on hand a ten-cent white antique paper 25 × 38 inches in size. Taking a quarter sheet he folds it repeatedly until the leaf appears to be about the proper size. Measuring it he finds it to be 4¾ × 6¼ inches. The leaf is then trimmed to 4? × 5? inches (thus allowance should always be made for trimming the edges after binding). For the cover the layout man selects from his samples a medium gray antique stock of good quality. The cover stock should harmonize in finish with the paper on the inside. In this instance an antique finished stock is selected to cover the antique finished paper on the inside. Many are the booklets that would have been improved by attention to this rule of harmony. However, a rough finished cover stock and a smooth inside paper is not as inartistic a combination as a smooth cover stock and a rough inside paper. The cover stock selected in this instance is 20 × 25 inches in size, and an eighth of this sheet folded once gives a leaf 5 × 6¼ inches. Deciding to have the cover lap three-sixteenths of an inch over the edges of the inside leaves, it is trimmed to 49/16 × 6¼ inches. EXAMPLE 10 On one of the inside leaves a page is penciled off, the layout man judging how much of the paper should be covered by print. For cheap work it is generally necessary to crowd the matter into the least possible number of pages, and in such case narrow margins are allowed. For the better quality of work, liberal margins are necessary to proper results. A page should set toward the top and binding edges, the margins at these places being each about the same. The margin at the right edge should be a little more than at the top and back, and the margin at the bottom should be a little more than at the right edge. For the booklet now supposed to be in course of preparation, 2¾ × 4 inches has been determined as the proper size of the type-page. Each page thus requires eleven square inches of type-matter. The layout man refers to the table (Example 7) which gives the number of words to a square inch and ascertains that eleven square inches of ten-point type, the lines separated by two-point leads, should accommodate one hundred and seventy-six words. Multiplying this number by six, allowing two pages at the front of the booklet for the title, etc., he finds the booklet will take 1,056 words, about the number of words in the copy supplied. EXAMPLE 9 For a booklet of this kind the type should be no smaller than ten-point. Instead of stinting margins and sacrificing legibility, as is often done in endeavoring to force copy into a limited number of pages, additional leaves should be added. The cover and inside papers having been prepared in the proper size and number of leaves, the dummy is stitched with wire or sewed with silk floss as may be desired. The arrangements of the title-page, the first text-page and a page entirely text matter are indicated in proper position by means of pencil and crayon; or for booklets of a large number of pages it is well to set the first text-page in type and paste a proof of it in the dummy, getting by this means the customer’s approval of both type-face and general effect. The appearance of the printed page may be anticipated by pasting in position a type-page cut from another booklet already printed. (Examples 2 and 3.) In a shop where much booklet work is done, it would be a convenience to the layout man if a number of specimen pages, set in the available body type (both solid and leaded), were printed for use in preparing dummies. These specimen pages should be about 5½ × 7 inches, a size that would make them usable for most purposes. The cover arrangement was sketched on the gray stock The dummy booklet thus completed is submitted to the customer and when approved goes to the workrooms with the copy. The compositor, make-up man, stockman, pressman and binder have no excuse for any misunderstanding, as, generally speaking, they have merely to duplicate the dummy. The labor of the estimate man, too, is lessened, as the dummy booklet affords a substantial basis upon which to figure the cost. The plan of making a dummy booklet, just explained, can be adapted to many jobs, but of course it should be varied to suit special requirements. EXAMPLE 12 In cases of periodicals and voluminous catalogs, dummy sheets should be printed with the outlines of the page indicated by light-faced rule. With such sheets the layout man is enabled quickly to paste in position prints of the illustrations and text matter from the galley proofs. Getting his instructions in such methodical manner the make-up man can do his work without confusion of orders, and the proofreader’s task is made easy. When illustrations are provided to be incorporated in the text matter there is more or less trouble in making up the pages. To center all illustrations so as to avoid changing the width of the type lines is easy but not always artistic. It is economical to have plates made the full width of type matter, but the printer is seldom consulted until after the plates are made. However, various sizes of illustrations may be attractively grouped on facing pages and the type-matter filled in around them. This method may appear difficult because the text matter is often composed on machines; but it is not difficult if prepared in this manner: Take the prepared body-type sheets, cut them to the required page size, paste them to the dummy sheets, and upon the pages of text matter thus presented fasten the prints of the illustrations in proper positions. The body-type sheets need not be used on pages for which there are no illustrations; in such instances merely the number of lines to a page is ascertained. Example 4-a demonstrates how the print of the illustration is placed over the body-type page, and the “step” shape of the pencil lines shows how the boundaries of the type lines are made to fit the outline of the illustration. The length of type lines should always be ascertained with the pica (twelve points) as the unit of measurement. EXAMPLE 11 Supposing Examples 2, 3 and 4 to be dummies of pages, the composition of which is to be done on the linotype or monotype machine, the layout man with his pica measure starts at the initial letter T and measures and counts the lines, noting the results in the margins. (See Example 4-a. The page as shown is slightly reduced, hence the lines do not measure as set forth.) The figures are copied from the margins onto a slip and will then appear as shown in Example 4-b. This plan emphasizes the necessity of a layout man as a member of the executive staff in the modern printshop. It may be a simple procedure to reset run-around matter at the moment it is needed by the make-up man, but it is an expensive habit. EXAMPLE 13 The average stationery job is sometimes given scant attention in the larger printshops where long runs on cylinder presses overshadow it in importance. This condition leads to unsatisfactory results and the customer is the sufferer; his stationery as a whole is likely to be not only inartistic but a patchwork of typographic styles and arrangements. To illustrate this: A dealer in artists’ materials orders at various times letterheads, business cards and package labels, and the copy is sent to the workrooms with no instructions about style. Assuming that a different compositor gets each order, the jobs are composed as shown in Examples 8, 9 and 10. These specimens EXAMPLE 14 EXAMPLE 15 How different the results had an artistic layout man prepared each order before it was given to the compositor. Examples 11, 12 and 13, roughly sketched with pencil and crayon, demonstrate what could have been done. With stationery thus harmoniously treated a business house would be given credit for individuality and progressiveness. In a printshop doing a good class of work (every printshop should endeavor to do that) the layout man ought to make a study of color harmony. Not that it is necessary for him to attend an art school or devote most of his time and attention to experimenting with prisms and light rays; charts and tables which help to solve the color problem are easily obtainable. After a little study and practice he will learn that while red, yellow and blue (the primary colors) harmonize with each other, mixtures of two or all three give shades that are more pleasing. Olive-green (an art shade) substituted for blue, in combination with orange, produces an artistic blend in place of the gaudiness which otherwise would prevail. This because olive-green is a mixture of blue and orange; a relationship in color composition is established and contrast lessened. A black page increases in interest with the addition of a touch of red, and for this purpose vermilion is recommended. The vermilion shade of red is approximated by mixing white with orange-red. The colored crayons with which the layout man should be supplied are exceedingly useful in determining color combinations. The eye is a reliable guide in this matter, if it is carefully trained to recognize color harmonies. It should be easy to distinguish the right from the wrong color treatment in Examples 5 and 6. The colder color should always predominate; backgrounds of bright red and bright yellow are difficult to harmonize with any color of ink excepting black. From the insert (Examples 16 and 17) will be seen how a color combination may be roughly sketched on the actual stock to be used and the finished result indicated without setting a line of type or inking a roller. When the page is set in type it is well to have the proofs in the colors and on the stock to be used, but it is unnecessary to separate the design into several forms to do so. For a job such as Example 15, for instance, two proofs may be pulled, one in black and one in orange, and the initial cut out of the sheet printed in orange and pasted in position on the sheet printed in black. Another and a more satisfactory way is to ink the entire page with black, then clean the black from the initials, and ink them with orange by means of a finger. It may be relevant to suggest that the human skin is ideal for inking purposes, and that a printer’s composition roller is an imitation of its qualities. The layout man, in addition to the study of ink harmony, should learn to blend colors and tints of paper stock. He should know that a buff or cream inside paper reflects the color of a yellow-brown cover stock, and hence makes a prettier combination than white inside paper and brown cover stock. Another important point is the color blending of a tipped-on illustration and the stock acting as a background. The prevailing shade in a color illustration should be matched by the background or by a surrounding border, or by both. When laying out advertisements or other display pages the size of the type-face should be written in the margin (Example 14). Practice will enable the layout man intuitively to approximate the size needed. EXAMPLE 20 HARMONY AND APPROPRIATENESSIn music there is that which the Germans call “Leit-motif”—the guiding theme in the construction or interpretation of musical compositions. The “Leit-motif” finds a parallel in the central idea or motive governing the composition of a building, a painting, a book or a job of printing. If Gothic is selected as the style of architecture for a building, every detail from the arches to the smallest bit of ornamentation is kept in harmony with the central idea of construction. If the building is to be Colonial, every detail is made appropriate to the Colonial motive. EXAMPLE 18 The person is legion who undervalues the importance of harmony and appropriateness. Houses are furnished without regard to a general plan and furniture is added because it strikes the fancy at the moment of purchase. A Morris chair in dull-finished wood, a Louis XV table with dainty curves and gilt luster, and a mahogany or ebony piano case are gathered in motley discord on an oriental rug. And when this same person has printing done, or does it himself, there is again revealed an utter disregard for the things that make for harmony. What is appropriate? There are times when it is difficult to give an unprejudiced answer, especially when an idealistic art interpretation of the appropriate is combatted by the homely reasoning of a tiller of the soil. As a finishing touch to the classic architecture of the agricultural building at Washington the words Fructus, Cereales, Forestes and Flores were carved in suitable places on the structure. The secretary of agriculture noticed the Latin words and forthwith ordered the architect to have them recarved in the English—Fruits, Grains, Woods and Flowers. Now there are those who say the words as modified suggest a sign on a country store. The architect probably reasons that the words as originally carved were purely decorative, and in their English form are not only unnecessary but are about as poetic as a page of stock quotations in a newspaper or a package of little pig sausages. It requires a discriminating judgment to distinguish between the appropriate and inappropriate. The plain people of one of the new sections of New York City were astounded recently to find the street signs bearing such names as Socrates, Horatius, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Pericles and Seleucus. Names such as Wall Street, Broadway, Bowery and Fifth Avenue are unobjectionable, but Seleucus Street and Pericles Street—! Typographers frequently go wrong in the use of the old Roman V. The V as part of the words PVBLIC LIBRARY on a stone building excites no comment; it seems appropriate and in good taste; but as part of the words PVRE MILK on a grocer’s letterhead it tempts the risibility in our natures. After all, good judgment is one of the most valuable assets a man can possess. Harmonious and appropriate results in printing are brought about by discreet selection and use of these three elements: type, ink, paper. It is one thing to ink the type and pull an impression on paper, and it is another thing to do it properly. It makes a difference what type is used, what ink is used, and what paper is used. There are hundreds of type-faces, many colors and qualities of inks, and a variety of finishes and qualities of papers. As to type-faces: Printers of law briefs and legal blanks need the formal, legible modern romans. Printers making a specialty of commercial stationery, wedding invitations and calling cards need scripts and engravers’ romans. Printers whose chief product is high-class announcements and booklets cannot do without old-style romans, italics and text faces. When everything in printing from the diminutive calling card to the massive A B C D E F G H I EXAMPLE 21 As to inks: There are inks ground in strong varnish for bond papers, inks ground in soft varnish for coated papers, and heavy opaque inks for dark cover papers, and it makes a deal of difference if they are not used appropriately. And then, in the matter of harmony of colors there is a subject for much study. The wise printer will use good black inks and enliven his jobs with mere touches of orange or vermilion. Black and orange are always pleasing in combination and look well on most papers. There are pitfalls in the use of numerous colors, and until the subject of color harmony is understood by the printer he will wisely adhere to black and orange. As to papers: Wove and laid antique papers, white and buff tinted, are appropriate for announcements and booklets in combination with old-style type-faces and black and orange inks. Dainty papers of linen finish in combination with delicate engravers’ type-faces, are appropriate for milliners, florists, jewelers and others catering to the esthetic tastes of women. Dull-finished coated papers are considered more artistic than highly enameled ones, and there are those who prefer it as being more restful to the eyes. EXAMPLE 23 It is a stupendous undertaking, in face of the multitudinous elements that are part of the production of printed work to point out a path that will lead to good typography. There are many printers doing good work and each of them has probably arrived at his point of attainment by a different route. There is no royal road to learning. The student may be assisted, but whether he succeeds depends to a great degree upon himself. He must have an open mind, good judgment, and a liking for simplicity. Simplicity is synonymous with good typography and its path is a straight and narrow one. He who would do worth-while typography must decide wisely when accepting the good things offered by his friends, the paper man, type man and ink man. They are generous in their offerings and willingly assist the doubting one in deciding; but confidence in his own judgment is a necessary qualification for the typographer who would attain success. EXAMPLE 24 The ideal printshop is that one which contains only harmonious type-faces, ink colors and paper stock. This ideal condition being impossible except in a small shop, the best alternative is to have all type-faces as nearly harmonious as possible. It would be wise to build upon the body type as a foundation. Choose a body face that will be suitable for most purposes, and then select a series or family of display types that harmonize with it. If Caslon Old Style is chosen as the body letter, Caslon bold, Caslon italic and Caslon text will afford variety in display while retaining harmony. (Of course the large display sizes of the Caslon Old Style should be included.) The Cheltenham family probably provides the greatest variety of harmonizing faces. Scotch Roman is a dignified and legible letter, and supplemented by its italic and the larger display sizes is a satisfactory face for many purposes. Old Style Antique is a useful letter where a black tone is desired and is pleasing in its original form. There are many artistic letters now to be had that give the effect of hand-lettering, which are admirable for distinctive advertising literature. EXAMPLE 22 While harmony of type-faces is essential, yet a certain amount of contrast is desirable. At one time it was customary to alternate a line of capitals with one of lower-case. This arrangement gave contrast, but not harmony. The best results are obtained by the use of either all capitals or all lower-case. As explained in the chapter “When Books Were Written,” our alphabet in its original Roman form consisted of capital letters only. Lower-case letters, also known as minuscules, are the result of evolution, and in form differ materially from the capitals. Custom decrees that a capital letter be used to begin an important word otherwise in lower-case, but with this exception either kind is better used alone. Example 19 illustrates harmonious combinations of type-faces and borders and also presents several incongruous features. Section A is an all-capital scheme enclosed in a border of heavy and light rule. A border such as this owes its origin to the panels used by the Romans to surround inscriptions on stone, and as these inscriptions were in capital letters only, the appropriateness of the treatment is manifest. As the letter is also formed of heavy and light strokes the harmony is enhanced. In section B there is harmony from both the historic EXAMPLE 25 Section C shows a plain letter of modern cut known erroneously as gothic. Containing no serifs, it lacks a feature which has always been considered necessary to beauty in type-faces. As a harmonious border for this face there is nothing better than a plain rule of the width of the type strokes. The next three panels demonstrate such harmony as may exist between type-faces of different series: D.—This panel shows Caslon bold in combination with Caslon roman, and demonstrates the close harmony existing between type-faces of the same family. E.—Another demonstration of the harmony of the family types. F.—Harmonious, to a certain extent. The type and rule in the next panel do not harmonize for these reasons: G.—The border is too black and square in form. Italic, because of the slant of its letters, looks better not surrounded by a border, but when one is used it should be light and contain some of the characteristics of the italic. In all cases where ornamental borders are used more finished results are obtained if a rule separates the border from the type, as in Section B. The next two panels present the “horrible examples,” which are defective for these reasons: H.—The type-face of the upper group has nothing in common with that of the lower group. That of the upper group is a distinctive old-style roman, with serifs, and is set in lower-case, while that of the lower group is a plain black modern letter, without serifs, and is set in capitals. The main display should never be lighter in tone than the less important type matter. EXAMPLE 26 I fails to harmonize because the type-face of the lower group is slightly extended and the one of the upper group is condensed. The shape of the letters of a type-face should conform to the shape of the page, and so far as possible to the shape of the companion letter, when one is used. Condensed letters should be avoided except for pages that are long and narrow, and an extended letter should not be used except on a wide page. There are more typographic sins committed thru violation of the laws of appropriateness than in any other way. In this regard it would not be difficult to make out cases against the best of typographers, whose sins are washed away by good work in other respects. As in architecture, where one part of a building bears relation to all other parts, so in typography there should be a motive that blends all elements in serving one well-defined purpose. The phrase “Is it appropriate?” prominently displayed above the type cabinets, over the presses, in the stock-room, and over the layout man’s desk, would help to keep in mind this important requirement. An architectural motive was suggested by the copy for Example 20, and type-face and decorative border were selected that the motive should be emphasized. The architecture of the Romans was frequently embellished with inscriptions (see Example 24), and in modern architecture the panel of Roman lettering is a feature; the lettering is generally all capitals of the same size, of a style near that of the ancient lettering; and the panel EXAMPLE 27-a EXAMPLE 27-b Bismarck was called the “Iron Chancellor” because of his great strength of character and unbending will. Strength instantly associates itself with the mention of iron or steel, hence the motive for the construction of Example 22. It may be interesting to know that the design of this page was further suggested by the old lock-plate (Example 23). A printer with imagination can absorb ideas from many sources. The lock-plate is not literally reproduced in type, but a few of its features, including the key-hole, were borrowed and conventionalized. An artist-designer does not copy his models closely; they serve the purpose of suggesting shape and treatment and his imagination does the rest. EXAMPLE 28 For the cover of a small catalog listing rare books, a typographic motive is found in the woodcut borders and initials of the early printers. Example 25 shows what may be done with type-foundry material on such a cover. The border is of black tone and the type and initials are given the strength that harmonizes with it. Old books suggest discolored leather, dusty shelves and plain men, and it is an abrupt change to the subject of millinery, with its bright colored feathers, ribbons and delicate finery. The milliner ornaments his salesroom with vines and flowers and dainty colors, and the printer gets his typographic motive from such sources. Example 21 illustrates a booklet cover treated thus appropriately. The page size is unconventional, the coloring is dainty, and the type lines are neatly diminutive. As a millinery store is unlike an office in which are maps and blue prints and legal documents, so typography for these two purposes should be unlike. Example 26 is a page severely plain and non-sentimental. The types are merely to tell something in a blunt manner. There is needed no touch of decoration or color to interest the reader, because those who read it would do so whatever the treatment. This is the only example in the present chapter in which the advertising element is unimportant. The page may be commonplace because it need not be anything else, altho it is well to do good work even here. From the surveyor’s office our journey of instruction takes us into a church during an elaborate Easter service. Light filtered of its brightness by stained glass windows; high-placed Gothic arches pointing toward the sky; soft organ-music—all these create an atmosphere EXAMPLE 30 When a holiday crowd is gathered, dignity is put aside and all enter into the festive spirit of the occasion. Here is the motive for the typographic treatment of a booklet or catalog of decorative materials as presented by Example 28. It would be excessive emphasis of appropriateness to print such a page in a combination of bright red and blue. The colors should be softened. The page would look well printed in a deep blue with a flat blue tint overprinting the star border. There is room for improvement in the support typographers give artists in the production of booklets and catalogs. In many cases title-pages are constructed with no regard to the motive suggested by the design on the cover. Bibliophiles judge a book not only by the excellence of its execution, but by the harmonious unity that may be expressed in every detail, from the literary contents to the last bit of tooling worked on the cover. The type, ornamentation, paper, ink, margins, leather, the arrangement of the title-page and the cover treatment, all must be selected and utilized in expression of a dominant central motive. The same rule presents the key to good typography in job work. Example 29 shows the Colonial arch adapted as the border of a booklet cover. The artist gives this treatment to the cover because of the motive suggested by the name “Colonial Trust Company,” and when the title-page is set it would be a mistake not to use some Colonial arrangement. Example 30 blends with Example 29 and is modified from the old Colonial title-page treatment just enough to give it a modern appearance without sacrificing the old-time atmosphere. The border suggests both the widely-spaced rules of the Colonial printers and the architectural pillars of Example 29. No letter spacing is used, despite the temptation offered. EXAMPLE 29 Discussion of the subject of harmony and appropriateness could be extended much further than is allowed by these limits. Pages could be filled with descriptions of instances in which the compositor had erred in treating typography and ornamentation inharmoniously or with an unimaginative appropriateness. The use of angelic ornaments on Y. M. C. A. printing, where something more substantial is desirable; the double-meaning that may be read into the use of a horseshoe ornament on a printer’s letterhead; the placing of illustrations of live fish, lobsters and animal food on banquet programs—these are a few of the things that might be mentioned. High-class catalogs have been marred by the use of stock decorative initials which were at variance with the other decoration. In order to save a few cents both printer and customer are inclined to use stock decoration that happens to be on hand at the moment. Hundreds of dollars are spent on the work and then for the sake of saving thirty cents (the cost of a harmonious initial or ornament) many dollars in effectiveness are sacrificed. Another way of injuring the appearance of a book is to use a type-face on the title-page that does not harmonize with that used for the body matter and the sub-headings. In order to secure complete harmony even the lettering on the cover should blend in style with that used for the title-page, sub-headings and text pages. Altho strict adherence to the laws of harmony and appropriateness is necessary in the production of good work in any field of endeavor, Americans seem to be really proud when they violate such laws. We all know the person who dresses in a slouchy manner because he read somewhere that Horace Greeley dressed that way. And there is the modern politician who wears a slouch hat and constantly carries a quid of tobacco in his mouth because Henry Clay did so. There are also house-organ publishers who use inharmonious and inappropriate type-faces and decoration because Elbert Hubbard thus treats the cover of the Philistine. It is not a question of the sort of clothes a person actually needs to go from one end of a street to another—Lady Godiva reached her destination with no clothes at all—yet we often admire a person dressed harmoniously and in good taste without knowing the reasons for our admiration. As there is art in tailoring and in the selection of clothes, there is also art in printing, and he who investigates will find that the great natural laws of beauty apply even to typography, which some by their work seem to think requires no more thought than ditch-digging. EXAMPLE 43 TONE AND CONTRASTThis chapter is a story of the alpha and omega of color—white and black. Since the creation of the world, when light first illumined the darkness, these two colors (if I may call them colors) have been emblematic of extremes—white, the symbol of purity and goodness, black of impurity and evil. White and black represent extremes in color. Mixing of all the color rays of the solar spectrum produces white, and mixing of all the colors in the solid form of printing ink produces black. From this contrast of white and black maybe drawn a lesson in color. (Example 31.) Light represents warmth, darkness cold. As the colors are toward light they are warm; as they are toward darkness they are cold. Red becomes warmer as it takes on an orange hue, and colder as it takes on a purple hue. A warm color should be contrasted with a cold color—as orange with black. The further in tone the color is from black the more it contrasts with the black. As an illustration: Orange is more pleasing than a deeper shade of red as a companion color for black. Blue, purple or green, selected to be used with black, must be lightened with white ink to get the desired contrast. EXAMPLE 31 White and black as a combination are and ever have been popular with writers, printers and readers. Fully nine-tenths of the newspapers, books, catalogs and other forms of reading matter are printed with black ink on white stock. It is coincident that optical necessities require for best results in reading a black-and-white combination, and black ink and white paper are more cheaply and easily produced than other colors of ink and paper. EXAMPLE 32 This chapter is also an illustrated sermon on uniformity of tone or depth of color, in which is pointed out the necessity of bringing many spots of black or gray into harmonious relation. The esthetic importance of uniformity of tone is universally recognized. Choirs are robed in white and black; fashion has its uniform clothing for the hours and functions of the day and night; theater choruses and the soldiery are living masses of uniform tone and color. As uniformity is important in these things, so is uniformity important in the tone of a page of printing. A type-page exhibiting a variegated mass of black and gray tones is not unlike a squad of recruits in different styles of clothing marching irregularly; while on the contrary a type-page of uniform tone and arrangement maybe likened to a uniformly equipped regiment of soldiers marching with rhythmic tread. A page of display typography composed of a mixture of irregular gray and black tones is inexcusable in the sight of the art-loving reader. As combinations of inharmonious type-faces are wrong, equally so are combinations of incongruous tones. For the sake of contrast and variety in typography, art principles are too often ignored, the printer confessing to ignorance or lack of ingenuity. Contrast is necessary, but it may be had without sacrificing uniformity. Again making use of a military simile: soldiers are marched in platoons, companies, battalions and regiments that the monotony of solid formation may be broken; type is arranged in groups and paragraphs for similar reasons. While an absolutely solid page of type may present a pleasing tone, a slight break in the regularity is desirable for reading purposes. Thus art makes concession to utility, but such concession should always be granted reluctantly. There is classic authority for the arrangement of the type lines in Example 20 of the preceding chapter, but on the majority of printing jobs it is necessary to compromise with utility and emphasize important words, as in Example 19-a of the same chapter. The secret of producing artistic typography in these practical times is to pilot the ideas of the customer into artistic channels; emphasize the words he wants emphasized, but do it in a way that will result in creditable typography. There is a right way and there is a wrong way EXAMPLE 34 The effectiveness of uniformly black tone on a background of white is well illustrated on the beautiful book title shown as Example 32, in which even depth of color is consistently maintained. There is not a weak spot on the page; border, ornament and lettering are of equal tone, and the white background is reflected thru the black print in agreeable contrast. The Germans are masters in their treatment of contrast and uniform tone, and he who bewails the limitations of black and white printing should ponder over the results shown by this specimen from over the sea. Here is a practical demonstration of the workings of the theory of uniform tone in typography. Example 33 displays four ornaments, each of a different tone or depth of color. One of the customs when constructing a booklet cover-page to be ornamented, is first to select an ornament that is appropriate in design and of proper proportions. Upon this ornament the page is constructed, and it dictates the characteristics of the border and of the type-face; its tone determines the tone of the entire page. This is also true of a trademark furnished by the customer, altho such plates are frequently so inartistic that a compromise is necessary. EXAMPLE 35 Assuming that a cover-page is to be designed and that ornament A has been selected for use on the page, a rule border is chosen with triple lines approximating the strength of those in the ornament. (Example 34.) The lines are very thin, and white space is a large factor in producing a tone that is light and dainty, in keeping with the subject of the illustration. A perfect result would be obtained with a type-face of very thin strokes, yet Caslon capitals, slightly separated to let in white space, give good results. EXAMPLE 36 The ornament shown as B has been formed of lines darker than those used in the first ornament, and a mass of white forms a spot of contrast. Rules of the proper tone are selected and a border unit adopted that reflects the spot of white in the ornament. (Example 35.) Cheltenham capitals maintain the tone scheme. In this case, as in others, the type-face is a trifle stronger in tone than ornament and border. This is well. Type-lines on a cover are usually of more importance than the decoration. EXAMPLE 37 EXAMPLE 38. Dark tone—solid EXAMPLE 39. Light tone—spaced EXAMPLE 40 Ornament C differs from ornament A in that it is composed of light lines contrasted with solid blacks. A border is made of a light line and a dark one, and the Bodoni type-face, containing light and heavy strokes in contrast with a white background, assists in producing a decidedly pleasing medium black tone (Example 36). This combination of ornament, type and rule demonstrates there is considerable tone beauty in a well-selected contrast of light and dark lines when set off by liberal white space between lines and in the background. The dense black tone of ornament D is duplicated in the dark-line border filled with black decorative units (Example 37). The black-printing Chaucer Text reflects not only the tone but the decorative characteristics of ornament and border. The tone of this example approximates that of the German page (Example 32). These four examples afford an interesting study in uniform tone. As the tone or depth of color increases from the light gray of Example 34 to the dense black of Example 37, it will be observed that the contrast between the print and the paper background also increases. This leads to the subject of contrast. What amount of contrast is needed on the ideal job of printing? There is conflict between art and utility on this question, but there need be none. Art demands that the print be a part of the paper upon which it is impressed, much as the plant is a part of the earth in which its roots are buried, and utility demands that the print shall be strong and clear that reading may be made easy. The artist-printer lessens the contrast between print and paper by printing with gray ink on gray stock, brown ink on light brown stock, and so forth. The utility printer gets the maximum of contrast by printing with black ink on white stock. As printing is both art and business some compromise must be made, and it is this: On two-color printing have all reading matter in the stronger color and subdue the color of the decoration so that the contrast between the paper and the print of the reading portion of the page is softened by this intermediate tone. Black print on white paper is made artistic by impressing the print firmly on antique paper. This roots the print to the paper, and the result is more idealistic than that presented by the print daintily set upon the surface of glossy, enameled papers. EXAMPLE 41 Lack of artistic feeling among typographers and customers is responsible for unpleasant contrasts in tone. A dense black illustration or initial will be set in a page of light gray reading matter, or type of black tone will be used on a page with an illustration of light lines. Great contrast in any detail of typography is not art but eccentricity; this statement may be made plain by a comparison. One winter’s day when the conventional folk of New York were wearing clothing of a somber hue, they were startled by the appearance among them of Mark Twain in a suit of white. Six months later the humorist’s garb would have excited no comment, but the black clothed mass of humanity around him emphasized the whiteness of his attire, and the conspicuousness thus produced separated him from his surroundings and made him an object of curiosity. Such things are done by great men to show their disregard for custom and by others because they are foolish or are advertising something; but it is common-sense right from Cervantes to do when in Rome as the Romans do (meaning that printed work which both attracts and repels by its gaudy, unconventional appearance is not nearly so good or desirable as the more conventional printed work which EXAMPLE 44 EXAMPLE 42 Several other points are suggested by Examples 34 to 37. A page for a cover should be of darker tone than a page to be used as a title inside the book; this where the body-type of the inside pages is of the customary gray tone. A cover placed upon a book to protect it suggests strength, and the typography of the cover should conform to this suggestion. The reason for the uniform tone presented by each of the four examples above mentioned is another important point. Were the border darker than the ornament and type lines, the ornament darker than the border and type lines, or the type lines darker than the ornament and border, there would not be uniformity of tone, and a consequent loss in the effectiveness that comes from tone harmony. The tone of a massed page is of vital importance in the typography of a book, and a happy medium is somewhere between the under-spaced black type-page of Morris and the over-spaced hair-line type-page against which the Morris page was a protest. Examples 38 and 39 show the manner in which the tone of a page may be controlled by spacing. In Example 38 the page is moderately spaced between words and lines and in Example 39 the page is liberally spaced, presenting two extremes and vividly picturing the manner in which spacing influences the page tone. The tone of the pen-and-ink outline illustration in Example 40 is admirably duplicated in the typographical treatment accorded the page. The result would not have been so satisfactory if there had been no quad lines to break the solidity of the page. The spotted black tone of the decorative border in Example 41 is reflected in the typography of the page, a result obtained by using a bold-faced body-type and separating the words with a liberal amount of space. However, the tone would not be equal printed in one color, but by printing the border in a lighter color the tones are equalized. Here is a suggestion for obtaining even tones. Where one portion of the page is bolder than the other, print it in a lighter shade of ink, or if any part of a type-page must be printed in a lighter color, set that part in a type-face of darker tone (Example 47). Job printers should be interested in Example 42, as it is a good presentation of the theory of uniform tone. The effect of the open-line illustration is duplicated in the spaced Jenson capitals and cross lines. The result would have been even better had the small groups on both sides of the illustration been slightly letterspaced and the line at the bottom spaced less. Example 43, on the insert, is a classic interpretation of uniform tone. The architectural design is formed of lines about the same strength as the strokes of the type-face and the massed capital letters admit sufficient light to give them a tone near to that of the open-spaced border. Example 44 (insert) is a pleasing blend of tone and characteristics. The delicate light-gray tone of the Camelot type-face is closely matched in the decoration and border, and altogether this is an almost perfect exemplification of the subject of this chapter. It is seldom that an artist so carefully considers the characteristics of a type-face and reproduces these characteristics in so admirable a manner as was done in this instance. EXAMPLE 45 Initials and headpieces should approach closely the tone of the type-page of which they are parts. Example 45 shows such a combination, with the tone of the decoration just a trifle darker than that of the text portion. An initial has other duties to perform than merely to look pretty; it must direct the eye to the beginning of the reading matter. In the manuscript books of the Middle Ages, written without paragraphs, the starting point of a new thought was denoted by an initial more or less elaborate. The utilitarian purpose thus served by the initial EXAMPLE 46 EXAMPLE 48 Every rule has its exception and I wish to record one in the matter of uniform tone. On a page composed of display lines and a large amount of reading matter it is an offense against legibility to set the reading matter in a type-face of black tone to correspond with the display lines, considerable contrast being necessary in such cases to make reading easy. (Example 48.) Notwithstanding this exception in the case of reading matter, uniform tone should be retained between display lines and border. EXAMPLE 47 If a catalog is illustrated (and the majority are) it is important to have the illustrations prominent on the page, sacrificing tone to utility if necessary. Sometimes the illustrations are printed in dense black and the remainder of the page in gray or brown. While this causes the illustrations to stand out in relief—an important point when machinery is depicted—it should not be forgotten that the type matter must be read. In advertising composition it is seldom possible to have an even tone on the entire page. The New York Herald advertising pages are unique in this respect. Outline type-faces are used, and all illustrations are redrawn in outline before they are published. This serves to give a uniformly gray tone to the pages, but the advertisers are not enthusiastic over the effects. While other newspapers may not be able to maintain uniform page tone, it is possible at least to have each advertisement present a tone uniform in its displayed parts and border, and the good typographer will secure such effects. The gray shaded type-faces now available should enable printers and publishers to obtain tone uniformity where gray effects are desired and large type sizes used. EXAMPLE 49 Irregular letterspacing has been the cause of many pages of unsatisfactory tone. In a displayed page where one line is spaced between letters, all lines should be similarly spaced. Example 49 presents a decidedly unconventional letterhead by reason of the letterspacing, and it illustrates the point that all lines should be spaced equally. It may be well to warn job compositors inclined to imitate the style of this heading that there are few customers who would concede any merit to such an arrangement, and it should be used sparingly. Unconventional treatment, even tho good along the lines of the style chosen, is not always appreciated. EXAMPLE 58 PROPORTION, BALANCE AND SPACINGSymmetry is necessary to beauty. This law of esthetics is as applicable to typography as to sculpture and architecture. Proportion and balance—the things that make for symmetry in typography—are obtained only by giving the work more attention than seems necessary to the average producer and buyer of printing. Why should the printer worry about esthetics—about symmetry? What has art to do with printing, anyway? Questions such as these find too frequent voice in the printing trade, coming from the employee whose interest and ambitions end when he “gets the scale,” and the employer who is satisfied merely to deliver so many pounds of paper and ounces of ink for so much money. Pity the man whose work is drudgery and who denies that art and beauty are meant for him. He has his antithesis in the man who, appreciating the higher blessings, neglects to give value to the more common and practical things. EXAMPLE 50 There have always been two opposing classes—in religion, politics, art, music, business. On all questions one portion of humanity is “for” and the other “against,” mostly because of the influence of environment upon tastes and interests. Mozart’s and Beethoven’s music charms and enthuses and also lulls to sleep. One class should try to understand the other. Each has good reasons for its preferences, but none at all for its prejudices. The painter Rubens, gathering inspiration in the courts of royalty, portrayed luxury and magnificence. Millet, painting in a barn, pictured poverty, sorrow and dulled minds. What pleased one found little sympathy in the other. During the Middle Ages learned men talked, wrote and thought in Latin, and when it was proposed to translate the Scriptures into the language of the masses these men held up their hands in horror. Not so many years ago the book printer looked upon the job printer as the Roman patrician looked upon the plebeian, but the job printer has absorbed dignity and typographic taste from the book printer. While the book printer’s highest ideal is a volume with uncut leaves ornamenting the book shelves of the collector, the job printer’s mission is to be all things to all men. He prints the refined announcements of art schools one day and another day finds him placing wood type to tell the story of a rural sale of articles “too numerous to mention.” There should be more sympathy between the book printer and the job printer, and also between the printer who regards his calling as a business and the printer who regards it as an art. The employer and employee who consider printing only a means to an end and that end money, are as near right and as near wrong as they who produce art printing for art’s sake and forget the pay envelop and the customer’s check. The first starve their souls, the last their bodies. EXAMPLE 51 The printer who does things artistically in an economical manner “strikes twelve” (in the slang of Elbert Hubbard). Printing need not be shorn of beauty to be profitable to both printer and customer, tho beauty too conspicuous turns attention from the real purpose of the printed job—which, in the case of a booklet, is the message the words convey. An equestrian statue of Napoleon should feature the great conqueror, not the horse, but would be impossible with the horse left out. Art is essential to printing; so are Uncle Sam’s specimens of steel engraving. The more art the printer absorbs the larger should grow his collection of these engravings. Study of art arouses ambition; ambition brings better and harder work. It reveals in the typographer the difference between mere lead-lifting and the artistic selection and arrangement of types. The boy who sweeps the floor and does his best is nearer art-heaven than he who sets type and cares not how he does it. The printer who determines to learn about art—who EXAMPLE 53 In introducing the subject of “Proportion” it is well first to dispose of book pages. In olden times the sizes of books were known by the number of folds to a sheet of paper about 18 × 24 inches. A book made from such sheets, folded once into two leaves, was known as a folio volume and measured about 12 × 18 inches. Folded twice into four leaves, a quarto, measuring 9 × 12 inches. Folded three times into eight leaves, an octavo, measuring 6 × 9 inches. Paper is now made in a variety of sizes, which allow of individual preferences being satisfied. For the sizes of catalogs 9 × 12 and 6 × 9 are becoming standard. The sizes do not depart far from the rule of proportion which holds that the width of the page should be two-thirds its length. Examples 50 and 51 illustrate two widely-used methods of determining page lengths. By the first method (Example 50) the page should measure diagonally twice its width. In this instance the width being eight picas, the diagonal measurement is sixteen picas. By the second method the length of the page should measure fifty per cent more than its width. Here the width being eight picas, the length is twelve picas. These measurements may or may not include the running titles or folios. EXAMPLE 54 If only small margins are possible, the page (exclusive of running title) should be about centered, with a slight inclination toward the head and back. But when margins are reasonably ample the page should set liberally toward the head and back; the margins of the head and back (exclusive of the running title) should be about the same, the outer side margin should be fifty per cent more than the back margin, and the foot margin one hundred per cent more than the back margin. Various explanations of this rule have been put forward, a few of which are: The old book-owner making marginal notations as he read, needed wide margins for the purpose. Early manuscript books were bound on wood, and this wood was extended at the foot and used to hold the book when reading. Two pages being exposed to view were treated as one page, much as double columns are now treated. As book illuminators required room for their handiwork the margins may have thus originated. The principal reason why we should observe such margins is that the arrangement has the sanction of long usage and the approval of the best bookmakers since books were written. The job printer, it is reasonable to suppose, is more interested in proportion as it refers to display typography. He asks: What relation has type, in the shape of its face, to the page of which it is a part? And the answer is: A type-face should conform in the proportion of its letters to the proportion of the page. Let us thoroly understand this. In Example 52 there are shown three widths of type—condensed, medium and extended. The type of medium width is more used than the condensed or extended kind, and most pages have a proportion such as Example 55. From viewpoints of both economy and art, the type-face of medium width should be given preference when selecting type equipment. Condensed types are properly proportioned for use as headings in the narrow columns of newspapers and for narrow folders and booklets. EXAMPLE 55 EXAMPLE 52 EXAMPLE 57 Many of the laws that are necessary to good typography also govern the other arts. As an instance, in architecture it is requisite that a tall and narrow building contain a preponderance of vertical lines, a feature most noticeable in church buildings of Gothic style (Example 54). Because the extent of vertical lines is greater than that of horizontal ones in a condensed type-face, such a face is proper for a long and narrow page (Example 53). The proportion of page shown by Example 55 is about that met with most frequently in printing production. Here the vertical lines are in a slight majority, but it is interesting to observe that in Example 56 where the page is more wide than long, horizontal lines are more numerous than vertical ones. EXAMPLE 56 It is not always possible to follow out in every detail the requirements of proportion. Architects must sacrifice much in the interests of utility and in deference to the wishes of their clients. Printers must do likewise, but as a rule they travel farther from true art principles than do architects. Consider the contrasting proportions of the structures in Examples 54 and 57. In Example 54 notice that the openings have been made to conform to the general proportions, and that vertical lines have been multiplied to emphasize narrowness and hight. As a contrast, in Example 57 observe the width of the openings; how it blends with the general proportion of this structure. Now to ascertain that typography parallels architecture compare Example 53 with 54, and 56 with 57. EXAMPLE 59 EXAMPLE 60 An exaggerated idea of the relation of lines to proportion is furnished by Examples 62 (see insert) and 63. The vertical lines of Example 62 run with the length of the page as smoothly as a canoe floating down stream. The horizontal lines of Example 63 are irritating in their disregard of proportion. For the eye to take in at a glance both the page lines running vertically and the rules running horizontally is as difficult as watching a three-ring circus. Examples 59 and 60 also illustrate this point. I have prepared in Example 58 (see insert) a page in which not only are ornament, type-face and page-design in proportion, but the characteristics of the ornament are reflected in the border, and the tone is uniform. Irregularity of form is valuable in breaking monotony, and in some forms of art may be essential, but as contained in Example 61 this feature is inharmonious. Before experimenting with variety or becoming agitated about monotony the typographer should perfect himself in the things that make for regularity. When he learns to set a page that is harmonious and in proportion then it may be well to introduce irregularity—in homeopathic doses. There is much uncertainty manifested among typographers as to the proportionate strength of display lines on a page. A type line is proportionately large or small as it contrasts with its environment. Gulliver was a giant when among pigmies. The foremost citizen of a country town is considerably reduced in importance when he rubs elbows with the big men of the cities. The homely adage that “a big frog in a small puddle is a small frog in a big puddle,” is applicable to typography. A display line surrounded by other type lines (Example 64) must be made larger or by strengthened strokes made bolder than when alone on the page (Example 65). The old City Hall in New York is claimed to be the most beautiful work of architecture in the city, but is ridiculously out of proportion with the towering office buildings surrounding it. EXAMPLE 63 EXAMPLE 61 Examples 66, 67 and 68 are studies in the proportion of a type-face to the page of which it is a part. In Example 66 the page is largely covered with type, treatment that is necessary on poster, dodger and other printed matter that must force its presence upon the public. In Example 67 the page consists mostly of blank space, the type standing modestly EXAMPLE 64 EXAMPLE 65 Balance is another important subject, as it has a big share in making typography good or bad. The builder works with plumb-line and spirit-level that his walls may be in perfect balance, tho sometimes he is tempted, as the printer is tempted, to work away from the center of gravity. In Italy there is a building, an architectural curiosity—the leaning tower of Pisa (Example 73) in the construction of which gravity has been defied to the limit, and in Canada only recently a bridge in course of construction on this gravity-defying principle, fell in a mass into the river. In typography, safety from blunder lies in type lines horizontally centered. Typographic experts experimenting with out-of-the-center balance, both succeed and fail. Compositors imitating them generally fail. Example 76 is an out-of-the-center arrangement that is fairly successful. Balance is saved by the type-lines in the upper left corner and by the border surrounding the page. Examples 69 and 75 show out-of-center balance adapted to a business card and a booklet cover. EXAMPLE 69 While horizontally the center is the point of perfect balance, vertically it is not. Stick a pin thru the very center of an oblong piece of cardboard and twirl the card; when movement ceases the card may not hang uprightly. Mark off the card in three equal sections and stick the pin thru the horizontal center of the line separating the upper two thirds. After being twirled the card will cease to move in a perfectly upright position. Example 71 shows a word placed in exact center, yet it appears to be low. Example 72 shows a line above center at the point of vertical balance. On a title-page, business card, and on most jobs of printing EXAMPLE 66 EXAMPLE 67 EXAMPLE 68 EXAMPLE 62 EXAMPLE 70 Sometimes the customer gets a notion he wants a type-line placed diagonally across the page in a manner like Example 74. Such arrangements generally show lack of imagination and are crudely freakish. There are so many orderly ways of arranging type that such poorly balanced specimens are deplorable. EXAMPLE 74 Spacing is seemingly one of the little things—merely incidental to the mechanical practice of typography. When the apprentice compositor is told to divide his spaces evenly among all the words in a line; not to thin space one line and double-thick space another; to transpose a two-point lead, or make some other what to him may appear to be trivial alteration in spacing, he judges his instructor to be over-particular. Yet the proper apportionment of space on a page determines the tone and the balance and aids in giving proportion and emphasis. In type-making, when a font of type is designed, not only is each letter considered separately, but in combination with every other letter of the alphabet, that when the letters are assembled into words space may be evenly distributed. The designers of the best type-faces have given attention to this feature and have demonstrated that legibility is increased with proper space distribution. Because of the excessive open space it contains, the capital L gives the most trouble of any letter used as an initial. As part of the word “Millinery” the irregularity of spacing is particularly prominent (Example 79-a). Partly to overcome this irregularity the companion letters should be spaced as shown in 79-b. When the letters A T occur together, and the space between them should be decreased, it is necessary to file the metal in the upper right of the type A and the metal in the lower left of the type T. EXAMPLE 71 EXAMPLE 72 With roman type-faces, important words are usually emphasized by italics or small capitals. The Germans, using for body purposes a text letter which has no italic or small capitals, space the letters to get emphasis (Example 80-a). Letter-spaced words thus used are perhaps as neat as italic, and the idea may well be adapted to roman types (Example 80-b). EXAMPLE 73 EXAMPLE 75 EXAMPLE 76 The relation of lines to proportion, EXAMPLE 77 EXAMPLE 79 EXAMPLE 81 Adapting this principle to display composition, Examples 81 and 82 are enlightening. Example 81 shows the manner in which some years ago display lines were erroneously distributed over the entire page, presenting in effect the faults of Example 77. The manner of rectifying these faults is demonstrated in Example 82, where main lines are grouped at the point of balance in the upper part of the page. The narrow measure to which these words are set necessitates letterspacing. The resulting appearance is far from satisfactory yet it enables illustrations to be grouped pleasingly and makes possible a squaring of the pages which could not be done otherwise. EXAMPLE 78 EXAMPLE 80 EXAMPLE 82 It is not always that results are as perfect as we desire them. In New England there is a printer who, in the opinion of those fortunate to have viewed his work, is producing typography classically perfect; yet this man goes from his work at the close of the day almost discouraged because of the faults that are evident to his trained eye. The artist’s ideal always eludes him and the chase seems a hopeless one, yet he continues on lest he lose sight of it altogether. It is a good sign when one recognizes imperfections; it means that he is gaining ground on success. EXAMPLE 125 ORNAMENTATIONOffer a child the choice of two toys, alike excepting that one has a flower painted upon it, and he will doubtlessly select the ornamented one; proving that the human race has a natural liking for ornamentation. When the old-time trader visited savage countries, he took with him colored glass and brought back gold. The glass soon after ornamented the somber bodies of the savages, and the gold became rings and bracelets worn by the whites. There are those in this day who love the trees and the flowers and hear music in the brooks, but more find pleasure in artificially ornamented ball-rooms with music blown and sawn and hammered from brass and catgut and sheepskin. EXAMPLE 83 EXAMPLE 84 Man was created in a garden of flowers and trees pleasant to the sight, yet he has ever been yearning for a new Eden of pure gold, garnished with precious stones, forgetting that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like the lily of the field. Nature is the great artist, and man’s ornamentation at best is a poor imitation of natural things. The trees of the forest gave the motive for the stone columns and ornamental capitals of architecture, and the plant and animal world furnished themes for talented calligraphers in the days when books were literally written. The blue vault of the skies inspired Michelangelo to plan the great dome of St. Peter’s at Rome, as the sun furnished a model for the Indian while decorating his tepee, and the flowers of the field have provided inexhaustible color harmonies. EXAMPLE 85 In the early days of this country most of the inhabitants devoted their working hours to the struggle for existence, and it has been only within recent years that the average man has given thought to art. Many a one has thrown off his lethargy to discover beautiful things all about which he had never before noticed. Art galleries and libraries all over the United States are aiding greatly in the cultivation of taste for art, and the printer to whom these privileges are accessible, yet who does not avail himself of their advantages, is much like the man who was lost in the Adirondacks, not knowing he was but a half-mile from a railroad. China, who could conquer the world if she only knew her power, has been sleeping for centuries, while a little handful of intelligent people on a small island of Europe wields an influence that is felt wherever the sun shines. EXAMPLE 86 The printer and he of an allied vocation should take less thought of food and raiment and devote more thought to learning the things of today and yesterday with which he may be but little acquainted. If one knows just enough to “make a living” he will never make more than a living. A study of art, of history, of the larger things in the printing business, will result in the good things of the earth being added. Is ornamentation necessary to art-typography? Ask one good printer and he will answer, yes. Ask another and he will answer, no. One of the meanings of ornament as given by the Standard dictionary is: “A part or an addition that contributes to the beauty or elegance of a thing.” A paper may be so pleasing in texture as to give beauty or elegance to an otherwise plain page of EXAMPLE 87 EXAMPLE 88 EXAMPLE 89 EXAMPLE 90 EXAMPLE 91 EXAMPLE 92 EXAMPLE 93 There are printshops in which all ornaments are kept under lock and key; a compositor wishing to use decoration must present good reasons before he gets it. Customers have become suspicious of type ornamentation because of the peculiar use to which printers sometimes put it. A young man some years ago became possessed of a desire to do artistic printing and had a number of type ornaments purchased with which to express his ideas. When one proof after another came from the customer with ominous blue marks upon the cherished ornaments, he realized the necessity of revising his ideas of art. For fully a year after that he worked without voluntarily using an ornament, meanwhile developing all the possibilities of good type-faces and appropriate paper stocks and color combinations. It has been claimed that fasting has a beneficial effect on the body; be that as it may, our friend certainly improved his artistic taste by his abstinence. When he again began using ornaments it was with discrimination and after study of their significance and appropriateness. This leads to the subject of motive or reason in ornamentation. The styles of typography may be generally divided into two classes, one dominated by Roman or Italian influence and the other by Gothic or German influence. During the Middle Ages the Gothic influence was felt chiefly because the pointed style of architecture and embellishment was sanctioned by the Christian church. As art was practically dead outside the church, the art-workers absorbed the Gothic style. EXAMPLE 94 When typography was invented Gutenberg’s first book was based upon the Gothic style—the type-face a pointed black letter, such as was then used on manuscript books, and the ornamentation pointed foliage (done by hand). It was some years after this that typography came under the influence of the Italian Renaissance, and both type-faces and decoration assumed the Roman style. In the old days there was sympathy between the various arts and crafts, and it worked for harmony in effects. Building-decoration, metal-carving and wood-engraving were governed by the same artistic motive, and were often done by the same man, much as the printer at one time was compositor, pressman, binder, typefounder, ink-maker and paper-maker, all in one. Now, many a piece of printing goes wrong because the ideas of several people, inharmonious from lack of relation, are injected into the work during the several stages necessary for its production. The relation of typography to architecture is plainly shown in the formation of the Roman and Gothic alphabets. The letters of the Roman alphabet, dignified in their straight strokes and symmetrical in their rounded lines, suggest features of Roman architecture (Example 106; also see Example 43 of a previous article). In the interesting picturesqueness of the pointed black Gothic letter may be seen reflections of the graceful arches of the cathedral pointing upward like hands in prayer—and of the pointed leaf ornamentation of the Gothic period. (Example 107.) EXAMPLE 98 EXAMPLE 95 EXAMPLE 97 EXAMPLE 100 In the conventionalized decorative art of all ages may be found traces of the things which have inspired the decorator. The lotus leaf, and the papyrus plant (which once gave writing material to the world) thousands of years ago influenced Egyptian design (Example 87). Religion dictated many of the decorative forms in ancient art. The winged-ball-and-asps (Example 88) was a favorite device in Egyptian decoration and has come to us by way of Roman mythology as the winged staff of the herald Mercury, the ribbons on the staff supplanting the Egyptian asps, but later evolving into serpents as in the decorative border of Example 125. The work of the best artists is full of meaning. The Egyptians considered certain animals sacred, and they were reproduced numerously in the picture-writing and ornamentation of the time. The sacred beetle as conventionalized was much used. In Example 125 the cog-wheel of commerce is conventionalized as the rim of the ball, which also contains a seal. The anchor and rope, hour glass, wreath, torch, acanthus leaves, all are conventionalized and blended pleasingly in outline drawing. The tone of the border approximates that of the type matter it surrounds. EXAMPLE 96 EXAMPLE 99 The acanthus leaf (Example 89) is the model for much of the elaborate leaf decoration found on the capitals of Corinthian columns and wherever rich imposing leaf ornament is desired. The anthemion (Example 90) is a palm-like ornament used by the Greeks and Romans, now frequently found in decorative work of an architectural nature. It may not occur to the average printer that architecture is in any way allied with typography—that there is any connection between the ornamentation of a building and a job of printing. Fred W. Goudy, Bruce EXAMPLE 101 EXAMPLE 102 EXAMPLE 103 EXAMPLE 104 EXAMPLE 105 EXAMPLE 106 Let us apply the egg-and-dart and bead ornaments as borders in typography, and notice how admirably they serve the purpose. Example 85 shows the egg-and-dart ornament perhaps too carefully drawn as to detail; and Example 86 demonstrates how the bead ornament may be adapted to panel work. From early times there seems to have been a triple division of taste regarding ornament. In the days of Rome these divisions were given expression in the treatment of supporting columns, the three styles being known respectively as Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. The Doric column is severely plain, the Ionic slightly ornamental, and the Corinthian elaborately ornamental. The Doric style (Example 91) is emblematic of dignity, simplicity and strength, and appeals to the man preferring these qualities in printing. The Ionic style (Example 92) represents refinement in ornament, and pleases the man able to discriminate between the severely plain and the over-ornamented—a quality of judgment worth cultivating by every typographer. Outlined Filled in The Corinthian style (Example 93) expresses the preference of many who delight in ostentation and elaboration in ornament. The elaborate, showy acanthus leaf usually forms the chief decoration for the capital surmounting the column, and the entablature (Example 94) is particularly rich in ornamentation. The Doric pillar has been called masculine and the Ionic feminine, the sturdiness of the one and the grace of the other also being likened to the warlike Spartans who emphasized the development of the body and the artistic Athenians who especially developed the intellect. This difference in ideals and preferences has come down the centuries to our time. A few years after Cromwell, plain, blunt, and even disapproving of sculpture and painting, was ruling England, across the channel Louis XIV. strutted in corsets and on high red heels amid gilt and glamour in the courts of France. EXAMPLE 107 Monks and nuns lived plainly in the company of bare walls and squarely cut chairs, and dressed in subdued browns and blacks, while at Rome surrounded by the art works of Michelangelo and Raphael the higher dignitaries EXAMPLE 109 Morris loved an old worn-out house, squarely-cut furniture, burlap, and subdued colors; while the Newly-riches boast of the magnificence of their mansions, Louis Quinze ball-rooms and imported tapestry. Only recently two church buildings were remodeled. In one were placed ornamental brass railings, lectern, pulpit and candelabra, and stained-glass pictorial windows; the walls were covered with gilt fleurs-de-lis on maroon backgrounds, and the entire effect was one of cheap magnificence. The other church had been an old Colonial structure of square proportions. Dignified mahogany furnishings were selected, the walls were ornamented in pure geometric designs, pale gold on tinted backgrounds, and the windows were made of small panes of glass subdued in color, in harmony with the architecture of the building, with a result that spoke good taste and refinement. Examples 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, present the three divisions of taste—the plain, ornamentless; the slightly ornamental, and the elaborately ornamental—applied to typography and reflected in furniture. The typographer should learn that the arts are related, that the styles of home-furnishings and architecture influence the styles of typography. A few years ago mission furniture was introduced and along with it came architecture that called for exposed roof supports, squarely-cut moldings, coarse fabric wall coverings, subdued green and brown tapestries. And before they knew the reason, printers were using heavy brass rules, rugged type-faces and printing on dark-hued antique papers. Example 96 is a program page produced under these influences. Compare it with the so-called “mission” chair (Example 95) and note the resemblance of motive. Both are rugged, angular and plain. EXAMPLE 110 EXAMPLE 111 EXAMPLE 112 EXAMPLE 113 EXAMPLE 114 EXAMPLE 115. Ornamental hand-lettered effect; obtained by initials, text letter and rule Now for contrast, compare them with EXAMPLE 116 EXAMPLE 117 Because a majority of type-faces are built upon horizontal and vertical lines, rococo type ornamentation is seldom successful in typography. The pen-and-ink border design (Example 98) is a clever adaptation of the Louis XV. rococo style. There is not an absolutely straight vertical or horizontal line in the border, and with the curves and flowers, ribbons, lattice-work and cupids it makes an appeal to women. The type-face combined with the border has similar characteristics—a freedom of line and an abundance of curves. Examples 99 and 100 show a chair and an announcement page, both slightly ornamented to please those folks who like neither the severely plain nor the elaborately ornamental. Ornament is secondary to the real purpose of the thing it embellishes; it should not be so lavish as to distract attention from the more important object. A booklet is issued to convey a message, and should the reading matter be overshadowed by ornamentation, this purpose may not be accomplished. A “flowery” oration may entertain and please an audience, but it may not convince. In 1896 Bryan stampeded a convention by his extemporaneous eloquence and metaphor, but when he came to the “enemy’s country” and faced an audience which wanted facts, he read his address from carefully prepared manuscript. EXAMPLE 118 During the Middle Ages, when nations were fighting for existence and necessities of life were barely obtainable, there was little ornamentation except in isolated instances, but when, about the fifteenth century, the Renaissance came, art received an enthusiastic reception. Ornamentation was indulged in to excess, the artists using all the classic forms and inventing new ones. Example 109, showing wall border decoration, The famous designer Chippendale, first made his furniture serviceable and then added ornament, from which fact the printer should profit. Have a printed job serve its purpose, and ornament it only so far as is consistent to this end. It is frequently advisable to omit decoration and let the type talk without interruption. Ornamentation when used for border purposes has two features which may not be apparent to the superficial glance—regularity in repetition and variety in repetition. Example 101 shows repeated strokes of the same length. In Example 102 by alternating the length of the strokes the design is made more interesting. Examples 103, 104 and 105 illustrate this principle in rounded forms. In the first there is monotonous repetition, in the second there is less monotony because the oval form is less regular than the circle, and in Example 105, by contrasting the forms in both size and shape the design acquires new decorative interest. This principle of contrast and variety is exemplified in most border designs. In Example 107 the light scroll lines contrast with the black leaves, and in Example 106 curves are contrasted with angles. Contrast is sometimes obtained with color, as shown in Example 123. EXAMPLE 119 Ornament as used by the printer may be divided into four classes: Ornament based upon geometric lines (Example 111), ornament based upon foliage (Example 112), ornament based upon the inanimate (Example 113) and ornament based upon the animate (Example 114). The center ornament in Example 111 contains the cross and circle, ecclesiastic devices, and its conventionalized pointed leaves would also admit it to the group shown as Example 112—ornament based upon foliage. Leaves and flowers from the beginning have been a prolific source of inspiration to artists. Before the invention of typography the decorator of manuscript books reveled in foliage, as will be seen by Example 117, and today when decoration is added by the process of printing the same liberal use of foliage is evidenced (Example 118). In both examples should be noticed the custom of filling blank spaces with decoration. EXAMPLE 120. INITIALS The inanimate (Example 113) lends itself better for ornamental purposes than does the animate (Example 114), and the less familiar the subject the better ornament EXAMPLE 121 Initials afford a convenient means of ornamentation (Example 120). An initial well chosen as to tone and appropriateness often satisfies all demands in this line. The mortised Colonial initial indicated by b looks well with Caslon roman and printed on antique paper. The acanthus design a looks well with Washington Text; the Italian design f, with a letter such as Bodoni. Initials are used in a highly decorative manner in Example 115, after the style found in ecclesiastical manuscripts. The possibilities of type and rule are here well set forth. EXAMPLE 122 Sometimes ornaments in the corners of a plain rule border (Example 116) are sufficient decoration. These effects may have been suggested by the corner bolts with which brass plates are fastened to walls. In the booklet decoration (Example 122) the artist has taken his motive from the word “Washington” making the capitol dome and its supports the central figure in the design, which is Colonial in character. Drawing a line down thru the center of the design it will be found that with a few minor exceptions the right half is a duplicate in reverse of the left half. The effect is frequently found in decorative work, as it gives balance and differentiates between illustration and decoration. An illustrative design, showing an actual scene, would not be effective. EXAMPLE 123 Wall paper and linoleum designs are made in patterns that repeat at intervals and for this reason answer the purpose of decoration. Example 119 presents a program page, which, while attractive, has but one ornament, an ecclesiastic design. The arrangement of bands above and below the main display assists in forming a decorative effect. Type decoration in use today shows a preference for forms from Italian sources. Several years ago the Colonial spirit had influenced a preference for Gothic-English forms. The work of Goudy, Cleland and others has had a part in developing taste for the Italian. In closing this chapter it may be well again to warn the printer not to over-ornament. The relation of ornament to typography is well covered in the caution of an experienced architect to a novice: “Ornament construction, but do not construct ornament.” The best art is that which is concealed, and which unobtrusively adds effectiveness to a piece of printing. EXAMPLE 124 EXAMPLE 126 EXAMPLE 127 THE TYPOGRAPHY OF BOOKSGood taste, a quality essential to the successful production of all kinds of printing, is of great importance in the typography of books. In the matter of good taste most of us are specialists—we perfect our judgment in some one respect and let it remain erratic in others. A musician or other artist may stand high in his class and yet, perhaps, show poor taste in dress and manners. EXAMPLE 128 A person of good taste is usually conservative. He weighs all new things in the balance of judgment, and allows enthusiastic faddists to push him off the sidewalk rather than join the crowd and shout with it. He knows the fickleness of mobs and remembers that in a week hosannas have been changed to shouts of bitter invective. The merchant catering to the whims of fashion ever has unsalable stock on his shelves. In the days of militant Rome the crowd which one day cheered Sulla, the next day crowned Marius with laurel. EXAMPLE 129 The natural tendency of humanity is radical. The conservatives are in the minority, yet their influence is great because their opinions are generally based upon sure foundations. Of course a person can be progressive and possess a present-day mind without being either radical or conservative. The natural tendency of job printers is radical. Left much to their own whims and fancies they produce printed things which may please only for the moment. The test of gold is not in its appearance when purchased, but in years of wear. Because a job of printing is made for short service is no reason why it should not be as well done as book composition is required to be. All the art-reasons in book typography EXAMPLE 130 EXAMPLE 131 The book typographer, like the lawyer, is governed by precedent. When the legal man presents an argument he cites Doe v. Doe, and Smith v. Jones, and with each new discovery of precedent is increasingly happy. The common law under which we in America are governed originated in England centuries ago, and the radicals who would dispense with this law catalog themselves as anarchists. The right-thinking man is constructive. When a new thing has been proved good he believes in adding it to what has already been constructed. The radical is destructive in that he would destroy what has been constructed and without always setting some new thing in its place. Attics have been known to hold masterpieces which have been discarded for new, frivolous things that from an art viewpoint are worthless. William Morris set out to change book typography, and in contrast to the typography of the day his ideas may have seemed radical. What he really offered was the good things found in the works of the old masters of Venice and Nuremberg—typography and decoration that had well stood the test of centuries. Book pages produced fifty years ago by Pickering and Whittingham look well today; not because they are old, but because they were in good taste then, and are in good taste now. Pages set by their contemporaries in condensed roman look abominable now, because they were contrary to true art principles then. The book industry in America is tremendous—so much so that because of its magnitude quality in typography is likely to be lost sight of. In New York City in one year eight million books are read or consulted thru its public library system! Could the monk, with his mere score of books chained to shelves, have had a vision of this, what would have been his thoughts? Or, Benjamin Franklin, as he founded the first circulating library? Andrew Carnegie, ridiculed when announcing his intention to use his wealth in providing buildings for public libraries, lived to see himself acknowledged a benefactor of mankind. Next to providing books is the necessity of providing good books and of printing them according to the laws of art and good taste. Continual association develops a taste for the things associated with. If the majority of books are poorly composed or poorly printed, they will unconsciously be taken as standards of book style by the reading public. The style of book typography, averaged in this way, is today far from flattering. It is rarely that the reading pages, title-page and cover harmonize in style and motive. On the average volume the text-pages seem to have been set in any face that chanced to be on the composing machine at the time; the title-page is in some type foreign in style and design to the face used EXAMPLE 132 EXAMPLE 133 The book-page reproductions used in connection with this chapter may prove more valuable if each is considered separately in the order of its appearance. Examples 126 and 127 (Insert).—The title-page and an inside page of a book which in its way is a model. From the viewpoints of art, legibility, good taste, typography, printing, and binding, the book is very satisfactory. The classic restraint of the Italian school and the human interest of the Gothic are here blended harmoniously. These pages will please the lover of lower-case letters, as from the label-title on the cover to the last paragraph of this volume not a line has been set in capitals. The type-face is a handsome old-style roman based upon the Caslon model, and in the book itself is printed upon a hard hand-made paper in a dense and clear black ink. The only decoration used in the book is found in the chapter initials, altho decoration is suggested in the use of brackets on each side of the page numbers. Only two sizes of type are on the title-page, and the chapter headings cling to the type-page in a manner that helps the tone effect of the whole. The reproduced pages are shown in the actual positions of the originals. The margins of a full reading page measure five picas at the fold, six picas at the head, seven-and-a-half picas at the outer edge, and eleven picas at the foot. The type-page covers slightly more than one-third of the surface of the leaf upon which it is printed. The type-page in proportion measures diagonally twice its width, a point illustrated in Example 50 of a previous article. Example 128.—A reduced facsimile of the title-page of a limited edition of classic poems, produced at the Riverside Press under the supervision of Bruce Rogers. This typographer stands among those in America who are giving themselves to the work of steering the printing craft back to the waters in which it sailed in the days of Aldus Manutius. Bruce Rogers came from Indiana with no technical knowledge of typography, but artistic talent soon enabled him to gather the details, and for a number of years he designed books for the Riverside Press that brought him fame and helped to raise the standard of printing in America. Example 129.—There is one feature of Bruce Rogers’ work which stands out prominently, and that is his regard for the appropriate. The literary motive of a book gives the cue for its typographic treatment, and he prints as if he were living in the period so presented, and influenced by its tastes. The “John Greenleaf Whittier” title-page suggests a product of the middle nineteenth century, when Whittier lived, and Example 128 is imbued with the spirit of the Greek Theocritus. But two sizes of type are used in the Whittier page, and these are apportioned according to the importance of the wording. EXAMPLE 134 EXAMPLE 135 EXAMPLE 136 EXAMPLE 137 Examples 130 and 131.—Two pages from a book issued by a prominent publishing house and printed by a prominent press. They are reproduced for the purpose of pointing EXAMPLE 138 Examples 132 and 133.—Two pages in style composite Colonial and modern. Relation between the reading pages and the title-page is established thru use of type of the same series and also by adapting the flower decoration to the running head. Certain books lend themselves to decoration; this is one of them, because it is of the entertaining sort. Serious books, such as those on the subjects of law, medicine and science, should have no decoration. The wise book typographer will not use decoration unless he comprehends just what he is doing. EXAMPLE 139 Examples 134 and 135.—J. H. Nash, who designed the typography of the book of which these two pages are a part, produced results that are exceptionally good from a typographic point of view. The border as seen in Example 134 was used on the title, introduction and contents pages, and the border in Example 135 was used thruout the text pages. The crossed-line border effect was even adapted to the frontispiece. The title-page is an excellent example of consistent typography; not a line of lower-case is to be found on the page, and prominence is proportionately given the title of the book and the names of author and publishers. The reading matter is set within six points of the rule border, that the page should have but one margin. If the space between type and border were larger it would give the appearance of another margin. The initial letters assist the reader in locating the beginning of each story. Example 136.—This page is in a style associated with the modern novel and was set on the linotype in eleven-point Scotch Roman; the lines twenty picas wide, leaded with two-point leads. The running head is in capitals of the body letter, separated from the reading page by a half-point rule, and the page number is centered at the foot. Example 137.—A good example of modern book composition, set on the linotype in twelve-point Caslon Old Style, the lines twenty picas wide, separated by four points. The running head is in a black text letter suited to a book of this kind. An amount of space equal to a line of type and the leading following it, has been placed between the running head and the reading page. Example 138.—No style of typography is in such good taste as that which is based on the old Italian, in which but one Example 139.—A page from a book for children, written and illustrated by Will Bradley. The type-face is a wide, legible letter and was specially designed by Mr. Bradley. Each chapter is begun with a line of old English black letter, followed by several lines of highly decorative italic. The illustrations are interpreted in the grotesque decorative style that Bradley does so well. The running heads and page numbers are in the italic. EXAMPLE 140 Example 140.—A page notable for the harmony between the tone of the type-face and decoration. The illustration has been treated by Beatrice Stevens in a decorative spirit, and is very effective. The capitals of the body matter are used for the “Chapter III” line, and smaller capitals for the descriptive line under it. The plain initial is more effective than an ornamental one would have been. Example 141.—A title-page of classic design in Scotch Roman type. The anchor and dolphin, originally the device of Aldus, as enlarged in outline has much to do with the effectiveness of the page. The dignified beauty of this page makes it worthy of close study. Example 142.—A further demonstration of the beauty of classic typography. Fred. W. Goudy has done many things worth while, but none better than this. He not only designed the smaller type-faces and lettered the large lines in harmony, but arranged the page and, in its original form, printed it. American typography owes much to Mr. Goudy and it is a pleasure to include this page here. EXAMPLE 141 Example 143.—This is a page from one of the Roycrofters’ serious efforts in bookmaking. It was printed in dense black ink on white stock, the large text initials standing forth in pleasing contrast. Example 144.—This is a page from a book by Theodore L. De Vinne, and probably presented his personal ideas in book typography. Notice the spacing around the subheading, and the treatment of footnotes. The first line under the subheading is not indented. Examples 145 and 146.—D. B. Updike, of the Merrymount Press, is responsible for the typography of these pages, which are a portion of a book containing the ceremony of marriage as performed in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The type is a special letter based upon early forms. The book was printed in black and vermilion. Mr. Updike, with Rogers, Goudy and others, believes that the way to improve typography in America is to do typography as well as it can be done. He established the Merrymount Press in 1898, and has arranged and printed many fine volumes, in addition to much high-grade small work. EXAMPLE 142 Example 147.—Books of poetry are usually treated in a typographic style that is light and dainty. The typographer EXAMPLE 143 EXAMPLE 144 EXAMPLE 145 EXAMPLE 146 Example 148.—French title-pages of the eighteenth century are furnishing motives for the designing of cover and title-pages for the uses of EXAMPLE 147 Custom has developed a law for the arrangement of the several parts of a book. There is first a blank leaf known as the fly-leaf, followed by a leaf with the title of the volume in small type slightly above center or placed toward the upper right corner. The frontispiece, if one is used, is then inserted. The next leaf contains the title-page, which usually gives the title of the work, name of author or editor, place of origin, name of publisher and date of issue. On the back of this leaf, slightly above center, is the copyright notice, and in the lower center or right corner the imprint of the printer. The table of contents and the table of illustrations follow, taking as many pages as are necessary. The preface, or author’s introduction, is next, after which another half-title may be inserted ahead of the first chapter. The dedication, at one time occupying a page in the fore part of the book, is occasionally used. The index is inserted in the rear of the book. This rear-index is not found in novels, but in books on technical subjects and those used for reference purposes. It is customary to number book pages with Arabic numerals beginning with the first chapter, all pages in advance of the first chapter being numbered with lower-case Roman numerals. The page numbers, when at the foot, should be separated from the type-page by the same amount of space used between the lines. There is tendency among inexperienced printers to place the numbers too far from the type-page. EXAMPLE 148 There is a rule that the running title should be separated from the type-page by space equivalent to a quad line of the size of body-type used, altho the best typographers prefer only about half that amount of space. Pages containing chapter headings are lowered at the head below the regular page hight. Example 127 shows a lowering of five picas space. Other books show more or less than this amount of space, but the space allowed in this example is pleasing. When an initial is used the space between it and the type should be the same, both at the right side and foot of the initial. The position of a book page should be toward the binding and the head. In elaborate books of wide margins this inclination should be great, but in the conventional book of narrower margins it should be less noticeable—say six points toward the binding and eighteen points toward the head. The use of an em-quad between sentences on a book page is encouraged by many printers, but the new-thought compositor uses two three-to-em spaces or less. By referring to example 127 it will be found that the same amount of space separates all words in one line. The capital letter seems sufficient indication of the beginning of a sentence. In the first book printed from separate types (see reproduction of page from Gutenberg’s Bible in the chapter on “The Origin of Typography”) there was no space used between sentences, the period in the judgment of the printer separating the words sufficiently. EXAMPLE 149 BOOKLETS, PAMPHLETS, BROCHURES, LEAFLETSDid I wish to be flippant I would open this chapter by asking, “When is a booklet not a booklet?” and might even be pardoned for doing so, for no other word has been so misused as has “booklet.” A booklet, the dictionaries tell us, is just a little book, as is indicated by the suffix “-let,” which termination forms diminutives from French and English nouns. Yet “booklet” has been used to designate not only little books, but big books, and has led to the rather tautological description, “a little booklet.” When does a booklet cease to be little, and is its littleness in its dimensions, in the number of printed sheets, or in some other feature not recognized in a hurried consideration of the subject? Going back to the lexicons— A booklet, as has been said, is a little book. A leaflet, according to the Standard Dictionary, is “a little leaf; also a tract.” Webster says it is “a sheet of small pages which are folded, but not stitched; a folder.” A pamphlet, we understand from the Standard, is “a printed work stitched or pasted, but not permanently bound; a brief treatise or essay.” Webster says it is “A book of a few sheets of printed matter, or formerly of manuscript, commonly with a paper cover; specifically, sometimes, any such work not in excess of eighty pages, and not bound.” The word “pamphlet” was derived from a popular Latin poem, “Pamphilus,” of the twelfth century. “Brochure” is a French word often used for “pamphlet.” Webster gives its meaning as “a printed and stitched book containing only a few leaves; a pamphlet; a treatise or article published in such form.” A circular is a letter or a note, usually printed. However, for the purposes of this chapter, while I shall endeavor so far as possible to use one of the above approved terms in designating the various examples of printing, the word “booklet” in some instances may have a wider application than “a little book.” EXAMPLE 150 EXAMPLE 151 The chap-books sold in the seventeenth century, containing abbreviated stories, were, perhaps, prototypes of the booklet; but as now used the booklet is a modern conception. It is a result of development in Æsthetical knowledge among advertisers and the buying public, who have learned to discriminate and to demand artistic, tasteful workmanship. When the “dodger” or handbill ceased to be effective as a publicity auxiliary to the newspaper, the booklet was born. State laws consider a few placards or publication in one or two obscure newspapers sufficient notification to the public, but the advertiser knows the futility of such obsolete methods and gets his message to the public in numerous ways—traveling salesmen, newspapers and magazines, trade, technical and class publications, house-organs, catalogs, booklets, circulars, posters, novelties, car cards, electric signs, etc. To an extent the booklet’s mission is educational; it introduces the business house, gives authoritative answers to questions that the prospective buyer would naturally ask, explains advantages and gives reasons for superiority. The booklet is best if written EXAMPLE 152 EXAMPLE 153 EXAMPLE 154 EXAMPLE 155 EXAMPLE 156 Among the users of the booklet as a publicity medium are railroads, cities, hotels, real-estate companies, banks, clothiers, educational institutions, printers, and manufacturers of automobiles, musical instruments, cameras, and tools and equipment of many kinds. If one wishes to purchase intelligently a piano or other expensive article he obtains a booklet on the subject, and whether he buys or not depends largely upon the impression obtained from the booklet; if it is well written, informative, carefully illustrated and handsomely printed, it will be likely to exert an influence in favor of a sale. The printer’s share in producing such a booklet is large, altho he is called upon to work in conjunction with the writer, the artist and the engraver. Much of the booklet printing is planned by advertising writers and commercial artists. The best results are obtained when artist and writer blend their ideas harmoniously; this is possible only when the writer has artistic tastes and a definite understanding of typography. In many booklets the text matter does not fit the decoration. I have in mind an instance in which the artist laid out sixteen pages of marginal illustrative decoration, and the writer supplied only about half the copy necessary to fill the sixteen pages. To overcome the deficiency the printer set the text matter in an excessively large size of type, but even then the space left for the reading matter was only partly filled. If the writer was unable to fill the space, the artist should have decreased the number of decorative pages or else planned his decoration to cover more surface. EXAMPLE 157 EXAMPLE 158 EXAMPLE 159 Those houses that have made a success of booklet printing produce a job that is harmonious Altho such a condition is ideal, it is not absolutely necessary, and it is not always profitable, for a printshop to have under its roof a complete equipment for producing every detail of a booklet. One of the successful producers of booklets—an artist with associates able to interpret his ideas—had in his artistic suite of offices a palm which he enjoyed showing to visitors who asked to see the “plant.” On the other hand, there is the head of a large printing concern producing high-class booklets who has artistic ideas but who depends upon the open field of artists and engravers to develop and perfect his plans. He manages to meet a prospective customer and from conversation with him learns something of his tastes and preferences. This printer then selects an artist whose style of work will most likely appeal to the customer and be best for the purposes of the booklet. He assumes that the most successful artists are those who have specialized on some one kind of work—classic Roman lettering and decoration; seventeenth-century French decoration; Old English or American colonial effects; modern German coloring and decoration; art-nouveau creations, the serious and the humorous; illustrations of child life, or of the Civil War period. While there are versatile artists like Will Bradley who can do good work in many styles, they are not numerous. Some printers retain typographic artists who serve clients by the hour. These artists sometimes are advertising writers who have studied the art side of printing and know that much depends upon the type-face used. To plan a booklet properly the commercial printer must know something of the principles of art and advertising and of good book typography. Booklet printing is really the connecting link between job printing and book printing. The unconventionality of job typography and the dignity and conservatism of book typography can successfully be blended in the booklet. Example 149 (Insert).—This style of title-page is appropriate for a booklet or brochure in which the typography plays an important part in the production. The printer having plates of this kind delivered to him should for the remaining pages endeavor to use a type-face which has some relation in style to the lettering found in this example. The page having been drawn by Frederick W. Goudy, one of his type-faces would, of course, be most harmonious, but other old-style letters such as Cloister Oldstyle, Caslon Oldstyle and Old-Style Antique would also be suitable. Some of the pages would possibly include initial letters drawn in the same style as the decoration, and thruout the work the motif established by the title-page should be maintained. An antique-finished paper blends best with the general decorative plan, but if coated stock must be used it should be of a dull finish. Art work of the quality of this example cannot be procured from every artist. This example is expressive of the personal taste and talent of Goudy. EXAMPLE 160 Examples 150 and 151.—The printer in the main must be his own artist, and he can best serve himself and his customers on such occasions by providing pure typographical effects. This is difficult. The printer must have studied good typography—he must know typography not only as a worker at the trade but as a student of the art. He must be thoroly acquainted with type-faces. His type equipment usually shows his knowledge in this regard; if it consists of odds and ends of type-faces aimlessly selected, he is not in a position to give his customer the proper service, but if his EXAMPLE 161 Examples 152, 153 and 154.—These are the cover-page and first and second text pages of a booklet which is purely a typographical product. There was also a title-page similarly treated. The first two words of the title, “Getting into Print,” were on each of the four pages set in italic lower-case, and the word “Print” was in roman capitals. Scotch Roman was used, and Mr. Sherbow has produced other effective booklets with this type-face. He has a preference for the eleven- and twelve-point sizes and frequently separates his lines with a two-point lead. The result, especially in the narrow measure made necessary by the smallness of the booklet, is a page that one likes to read. There is a freshness, an individuality, about his type arrangement, which quality is probably due to the fact that he never was a practical printer. He began as an advertising writer and studied typography and its use for advertising purposes unrestrained by the traditions of the craft as handed down from compositor to apprentice. His work, however, is influenced by the study he has made of the work of typographers and calligraphers of the past five or six centuries. By this study he has obtained a knowledge that most printers lack because of their reluctance to explore the past. The borders surrounding these pages are made from typefounders’ brass rule, and otherwise the only ornamentation is a floret on the cover and a smaller one on the first text page. Perhaps no new note is struck in the arrangement of the cover-page, but the treatment of the upper part of the first text page is different from that which would be given by the average good compositor. EXAMPLE 162 EXAMPLE 163 EXAMPLE 164 Examples 155 and 156.—These are from an eight-page leaflet, and, like the previous examples, Examples 157, 158 and 159.—Caslon Oldstyle and Caslon Text are factors in the effectiveness of the booklet of which these three pages are representative. These three examples are additional evidence that type alone when properly used is almost as effective from an advertising point of view as if supported by the best decoration and illustration. It might be said that good typography is to be preferred at all times to poor art work, altho really good art work properly subordinated will undoubtedly add attractiveness and interest to a booklet otherwise well treated typographically. The border of contrasted heavy and light rule adds typographic value to the booklet under consideration, and the use of the light rule in other ways on the title-page and under the headings in Examples 158 and 159 also has an influence for good. A two-line initial in color at the beginning of each paragraph and the setting off of one paragraph from another by blank space are distinctive features in the make-up of the pages. Ornaments are used in the running headings, and they are the same design as that used on the title-page. The size of this booklet was 3½ × 5½ inches. It should be noticed that Mr. Lewis in these pages places no more space between sentences than between the various words of the line, altho Mr. Sherbow and Mr. Baker on the preceding examples use more. There is difference of opinion among good printers as to the amount of space between sentences. Some of them prefer the em-quad, which has been used by the average printer for a great many years. Others believe with the ancient printers that the period and the capital are sufficient indication of the beginning of a new sentence without the insertion of a square of white space that affects the tone of the page. It should be noted in Mr. Lewis’s pages that while he has allowed fair margins around the outside of the rule border, he has arranged for very little margin inside, and to this is due a certain compactness that is agreeable. Example 160.—This is the cover of a small book of information. The cover stock was deep red in color and the title was printed on Japan vellum stock and pasted as a label on the cover. The label design is by Thomas Maitland Cleland, whose carefully formed lettering offers suggestions to good printers who know the value of dignity in lettering and decoration. A title label, especially when dark cover stock is used, makes it possible to include a typographic effect on the cover, thus insuring harmony EXAMPLE 165 EXAMPLE 166 EXAMPLE 167 Examples 161 and 162.—Two facing pages from a booklet designed by Edward Everett Winchell and presenting the attractive features of a large New York hotel. There is but a small amount of descriptive matter, confined mostly to two pages in the front of the book, yet the treatment is such that more words would have spoiled it. The plain rule border gives uniform shape to the pages and pleasingly contrasts with the liberal white space inside. In Example 161 the descriptive matter is grouped at the head of the page in Avil, an interesting old-style roman type-face. The fading of the vignetted edges of the halftone into the surrounding white space is effective. Example 162 demonstrates how an illustration which is out of proportion to the page may be placed to get good results. The caption, set in capital letters slightly spaced, is in keeping with the squared style of the page. Compositors should study the position of this caption. Many would be inclined to center it directly under the illustration; this would cause the lower part of the page to seem empty and unfinished. By moving the caption down, so as to break into the white space and divide it, the sense of vacancy is not experienced. Examples 163 and 164.—These are two pages from a booklet in which typography was the chief dependence of the printer in securing artistic effects. The border is made of brass rules and four small ornaments; a decorative initial is introduced at frequent intervals thruout the booklet; otherwise, the effect is due to care in the details of typesetting. The space between sentences is the same as that between the words of a line, and widely spaced lines are not to be found. It should be kept in mind that the best typography is that in which the spacing between words is not excessive. Carelessness in typesetting and in the operation of composing machines is responsible for unpleasant effects produced by wide spacing and by “rivers” running thru the page. In Example 164 the illustration was tipped on. The paper used in this book was a buff antique, the tipped-on prints being on dull-coated stock. The dark-brown ink used for the text pages was also used for the prints, making a pleasing color harmony. EXAMPLE 168 EXAMPLE 169 Examples 165 and 166.—These are rear and front booklet covers, the design of which is striking because of the disregard for conventionality. No capital letters are used, an idea that should be adopted with reluctance by printers unless their customers approve of the innovation. Most buyers of printing are slaves to conventionality and hesitate to accept typography or especially drawn work which is bizarre or in any way a departure from the usual methods of treating printed work. The activity of German, EXAMPLE 170 Example 167.—This page, designed for the prospectus of the twenty-fifth anniversary number of The American Printer, in my opinion is among the best things that Will Bradley has done. There were eight pages and on all the decorative headings were similar, altho each had sufficient change in the treatment to give special interest to the page. The fine line decorative borders were in pleasing contrast to the dark-toned illustrations and the liberal apportionment of blank space. Fourteen-point Caslon Oldstyle, the kind with the long descenders, was used for the text matter. The large Caslon initial added another interesting spot of black. The decoration and type matter were printed in black ink on buff-tinted dull-coated paper, and the large drawn initial on each page was in sepia brown. The original size of this pamphlet was 6¾ × 9½ inches. Examples 168 and 169.—No decoration of any kind was used in this booklet, unless the period groups may be counted as such. The purpose was to produce artistic printing in good taste by depending upon the type-face and the paper for results. Decorative interest (usually welcome in a mild way) was supplied by the swash capitals of the italic and by letterspacing capitals and small capitals wherever they appeared. The chapter headings of all the pages in this book were aligned with one another and not “sunk” as is sometimes done. The pages are made interesting by the varied use of italic lower-case and roman capitals. The size of this booklet EXAMPLE 171 EXAMPLE 172 Example 170.—Lettering, as has been pointed out, has an important place in booklet designing along with decoration, illustration and typography, and from well-lettered designs the printer can obtain valuable suggestions. This example was printed on hand-made paper, and the deckle edges and rough surface of the paper blended with the freehand drawing of letters and border. There was a further blend of the hand-lettering and the Caslon type-face used on the inside pages. The lettering was based upon the same model as the Caslon, which is standard for old-style effects. Here is a hint for printers: Distinction will be added to booklets otherwise printed from Caslon or similar type-faces if the cover and the display headings are hand-lettered. This may be done with fair results by setting them first in Caslon type. After the type has been arranged satisfactorily, take a print in blue tint on paper suitable for drawing with ink. The letters may then be traced freehand with black india ink over the blue print and any desired ruggedness or variation introduced. As light-blue ink will not reproduce when a zinc etching is made, the blue proof need not be carefully adhered to. Italic and small capitals should be introduced in such lettered designs. Example 171.—This is a page from a souvenir booklet containing an account of the exercises held in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the New York TypothetÆ. Almost the entire book was set in fourteen-point Cloister Oldstyle and Italic and printed in black and orange ink on a white antique-finished paper of good quality. The cover was a domestic vellum-like paper which contained the words, “Golden Anniversary of the TypothetÆ,” set in Cloister Italic with swash initials, the two lines being deeply stamped into the paper on gold leaf. In this manner strict typographic harmony was maintained thruout the booklet. Large decorative initials were introduced in several instances and two-line initials of Cloister capitals were used in a minor way. This page should offer suggestions to printers who are called upon to print souvenir volumes; in fact, much work of this kind can be created by the printer suggesting the publishing of such volumes after historic or memorial meetings are held in his city. Example 172.—This is the first inside page of a booklet, the stock of which consisted of a thin straw-colored Japanese paper, printed on one side only. The cover, a heavy, rough dark-green paper, contained only the wastebasket illustration printed on both front and rear in gold ink set into the stock by a heavy impression. The simplicity of the typography accords with the treatment as a whole. Printers will accomplish the most in booklet printing, as in other branches of the craft, if they live in an artistic atmosphere. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great English painter, said: “The more extensive your acquaintance is with the works of those who have excelled, the more extensive will be your powers of invention.” That is the reason painters haunt Italy and other art centers where the works of the old masters are accessible. The printer should take journals such as The American Printer, devoted to the art of typography; for these journals bring to the great army of craftsmen specimens of the work of famous printers and of those who are contributing their mite to the cause of good typography. The helpful atmosphere of the trade papers can be supplemented by specimen booklets for study purposes. These booklets can be obtained by writing to the printers producing them, or to the advertiser; and many can be had from retail houses selling the articles advertised in the booklets. The printer must learn more than he now knows about art or he will become only a caddie in the game of booklet printing, with the artist and ad.-writer making all the puts. The printer is depending too much upon the artist and too little upon himself. The possibilities of type arrangement have not been exhausted and never will be, yet many workers at the printing trade act upon the assumption that good printing is impossible without the artist’s initiative and co-operation. Many a good job of printing has been spoiled by inferior lettering or decoration, the work of a poor artist. Withal, there is nothing more ideal than a good printer and a good artist working together to produce perfect printing. EXAMPLE 175 EXAMPLE 176 CATALOGSRuskin, enumerating three branches of architectural virtue, requires of a building (1) that it act well, and do the things it was intended to do, in the best way; (2) that it speak well, and say the things it was intended to say, in the best words; (3) that it look well, and please us by its presence, whatever it has to do or say. These three requirements, like many others that are important in the eyes of the architect, can be applied to the illustrated catalog, which most printers at one time or another are called upon to produce: (1) The catalog should act well; it should be constructed in a manner fitting the purpose for which it is issued. If, say, it contains a list of plumbers’ supplies, it should be bound in strong stock of a color that will not easily soil. If it contains a list of jewelry and is for retail purposes, it could be bound delicately in light stock. (2) The catalog should speak well; the illustrations should be faithful presentations of the articles to be sold, and the descriptive matter should be well written, accurate and informative. (3) The catalog should look well; the type-faces, paper, ink, binding and other elements should be harmonious; the illustrations and descriptive matter should be arranged with regard to balance and proportion, and the treatment as a whole should be pleasing and interesting. There was a time when catalogs were printed without attention to these things, or if the first two requirements were complied with the third was ignored. It will necessitate no effort for the reader to recall the days when merchants had no orderly plans for displaying their wares—when the average storeroom and window looked like a curiosity shop. Those were the days when the catalog was a heterogeneous collection of woodcuts and type-faces, packed on the pages to the very edge of the paper. Now many show windows and salesrooms are delights to the eye, and similar care and taste are shown in the printing of the catalog. EXAMPLE 177 The catalog is a portable showcase and from it the customer makes selection, often without seeing the article itself. These facts make it essential that goods be displayed invitingly and in good taste. An article well displayed requires few words to sell it. Place a girl of plain features, but handsomely dressed, in the midst of beautiful colors and lights, and a dozen millionaires will want to marry her—an extreme illustration of the power of attractive display, emphasizing the necessity of “playing up” the ordinary to create the desire of possession. It is possible, also, to accomplish this purpose by different methods. It is told of Josephine that, wishing to gain the admiration of Napoleon, she appeared at a reception in a gown of pure white, without ornament. The contrast of her simple dress with the elaborate costumes of the other women and with the elegant furnishings of the room was such as to draw compliments from the emperor. It should be remembered, however, especially by the typographer, that mere plainness of dress did not win Josephine her triumph, but that artistic simplicity did. A block of marble rough-hewn from the quarry is plain, but, carved into statuary by a Rodin, is far more than that. This point is worthy of meditation by all who wish to produce the effective and attractive catalog. Efforts have been made to standardize the dimensions of catalogs; it would be well for printers and others to assist in accomplishing this purpose. A committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, after investigating the sizes of catalogs in common use, recommended that the standard size of catalogs be six by nine inches. The recommendation was also made that the size of bulletins and large catalogs be eight and a half by eleven inches. Other suggestions by the committee were: Paper-covered catalogs intended to be permanently filed should be trimmed to exact size, cover and all, barring deckle edges. Overlapping covers are favored only when the covers are stiff enough to support the catalog’s weight when standing on edge. Titles should be printed on the exposed backs of the catalogs, reading from top downward. The date of publication should appear on the title-page. EXAMPLE 178 EXAMPLE 179 Before proceeding with the composition of a catalog the printer should insist that the copy be legible, orderly prepared, and all points settled as to type-face, headings and position of illustrations. A dummy page should be planned and set up, and it should be studied and discussed by customer and printer before work is begun on the catalog as a whole. If the catalog is to be elaborately treated, all drawings should be approved and plates made before the type work is commenced. If the printer is assisting in the general preparation of the catalog, he should keep before the customer the fact that decoration is merely supplemental, and should urge first attention to the type matter and illustrations. Example 175.—This catalog is one of those productions which in style so closely express the personality of an individual that they are not a direct help in teaching typography or catalog planning to others. Most typographers must proceed according to defined requirements and plan their work with regard to set styles. Mr. Cleland and a few other typographic artists in this country carry out their ideas without the assistance of an advisory board. The average typographer or artist, on the other hand, must not only incorporate the suggestions of half a dozen persons, but must submit to the deletion of most of the little things that to his way of thinking give his work character and make it worth while—the penalty of being merely an average typographer. Mr. Cleland is a student of the best printing of past centuries, and his refined taste and wonderful skill with the pen enable him to produce effects that would be envied by the master printers of old. On this page he has used Bodoni Book, slightly spacing the capital letters and grouping the matter so that it dominates the blank space in the lower portion of the page. The cartouche, or panel, as here used for the car name was in favor in Bodoni’s day, a hundred or more years ago. The horizontal position of the illustration adds to the pleasure in examining the catalog, for when an illustration runs the long way of such a page the necessary turning of the book is an annoyance. Example 176.—Brass rules are seldom well applied in typographic work, but when they are, as in this instance, the results are pleasing. This page, because of its tabular nature, was doubtlessly difficult to arrange, and every compositor, appreciating that fact, will admire what Mr. Cleland has accomplished. It should be noticed that words of roman capitals have in every instance been letterspaced, while those in lower-case have not. This treatment gives effects that are unusual and well liked by persons of good taste. Example 177.—This shows the cover of a catalog of plays. Will Dwiggins in his usual clever manner has made a design full of character, human in the absence of the mechanical. The lettering contains suggestions for effects that could be approximated with some well-designed type-face. It will probably be well to warn against EXAMPLE 180 EXAMPLE 181 Examples 178 and 179.—In many catalogs a page illustration is faced with a page of reading matter describing it. In this instance the descriptive matter is small in amount and for that reason presented a problem in typography. The printer, however, solved the difficulty by using a type-face fairly large in size, but of good design, and placing the group in the upper part of the page aligned with the top of the illustration. It is well to keep in mind that in booklets, catalogs and similar work good results are frequently obtained by aligning all pages at the head. The effectiveness of these two pages is helped also by the fact that a red border surrounds each page and the halftone has a dark background. Example 180.—There is evidence in this specimen that it is possible to obtain variety and interest by simple means. The italic, especially with the decorative quality found in swash letters, is a factor, and the rule at the head, with bits of decoration at the ends, also helps. It will be noticed that no leaders have been used; their omission is sometimes advisable, at other times not. An antique-finished white paper is best for old-style effects such as this. Example 181.—This cover-page has been built on the small illustration. From the old fireplace the view of the room fades into the paper stock. After the border line is extended from the drawing, there remains a large amount EXAMPLE 182 EXAMPLE 183 EXAMPLE 184 EXAMPLE 185 Example 182.—Modern German typographical ideas have found expression in this grocery-catalog page. The lettering is type, the black tone and decorative form of which were probably inspired by strong lettering designed for poster purposes. Rules seem to have a place in the building of modern German art effects, as will be seen by this design. Bold type as used here is possibly unnecessarily forceful, but when color is to be shown in its true values it is desirable. Color never shows to advantage in thin lines, while broad lines bring out the color qualities of the ink. This is why colored inks printed from light-faced types seem to lack the brilliancy of the prints from flat-surfaced plates in ink-makers’ sample books. Examples 183 and 184.—Every printer at some time is called on to produce catalogs in which books or other published articles are listed and priced, and on such occasions wishes to see what “the other fellow” has done in this line. For this reason the two pages are of interest. They show a title-page and a representative inside page from a catalog issued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The type-face is of the class usually designated as French Oldstyle, and its proportions blend harmoniously with the dimensions of the page. The distribution of blank space on the title is pleasing; the type lines are so grouped as to secure value from the background of white. In Example 184 the heads and subheads are pleasingly contrasted by the use of capitals in some cases and small EXAMPLE 186 EXAMPLE 187 EXAMPLE 188 Example 185.—Scotch Roman type is used to excellent advantage in this book-catalog page. The title in each case is in large capitals, the sub-title and the name of the author are in smaller capitals, the explanatory matter in roman lower-case and the technical details in small italic. It will be seen that the advertising points have been carefully considered. A rule border and two ornaments add decorative quality. The closeness of the border to the type matter merges it with the page in an attractive manner. As in this case, decorative treatment should be a part of the general design and not something separate. Example 186.—On automobile catalogs typography seldom receives the attention it deserves. Illustration and decoration are given great attention, and what type matter is used seems to be like a guest invited at the eleventh hour. However, this example is from a catalog in which type acts an important part. In its original form this page was about twice the size of the reproduction and was printed in dark gray and orange on white antique paper. It will be seen that beginning with a colored initial the reader can without effort or eyestrain read the descriptive matter, which is followed by technical details in smaller type and a line illustration of the car. Scotch Roman was used, and it was not found necessary to introduce italic. Example 187.—The treatment of this page is uncommon for catalog purposes. A Goudy type-face was printed in dark brown (border rules in light brown) on an Italian hand-made paper. The size was more than twice that shown here. Sub-headings have all been grouped in the panel at the left, each so placed as to be opposite the paragraph to which it belongs. The effect was one of richness and suggestive of quality. Illustrations of the cars were of page size printed by the gravure process. Example 188.—Few printers would use rules in tabular form for a high-class wine list; tabular work is supposed to offer no opportunity for art expression. We know of the stone rejected by the builder which became the headstone of the corner. We have also heard of Michelangelo carving a masterpiece from an ill-shaped block of stone that had been discarded by other sculptors. Mr. Cleland did an equally interesting thing when he selected rules to give decorative quality to this wine list, supplementing characteristically drawn head- and tail-pieces. Caslon Oldstyle was used and the paper was hand-made. A pleasing effect was obtained by letterspacing the capitals in the headings. EXAMPLE 189 Example 189.—We usually expect strong, masculine effects from German typographers and decorators, and when we come across a wine list as dainty as this one we are surprised and pleased. There is remarkable harmony of type-face, decoration and illustration. The type-face is uncommonly legible for so ornamental a letter, and the light decorative lines of the illustration and border reflect the qualities of the type-face. In the original there was an additional border around the one here shown, and it was printed in a very light gray-brown tint. The tint also appeared in parts of the illustration. EXAMPLE 190 EXAMPLE 191 Examples 190 and 191.—These pages are from an exhibition catalog. D. B. Updike is responsible for the typography, hence the pages afford an interesting study. The catalog is printed in four sizes of type, altho a cursory view of the pages would lead to the impression that a less number is used. There are three sizes of capitals and one EXAMPLE 192 Example 192.—This shows a page from a catalog of sewing machines and sewing-machine parts. The workings of the machine were pictured in such a realistic manner that the effect was almost equivalent to a demonstration on the machine itself. The border did not force itself on the attention, yet furnished the decorative element to the page. The type matter, in Caslon roman, was stylishly arranged in harmony with EXAMPLE 193 EXAMPLE 195 EXAMPLE 194 Example 193.—This firm has gloves to sell and in a particularly pleasing and artistic manner catalogs them for the information of the buying public. By means of the four-color process the gloves are shown in their natural colors, and placed in the “spotlight,” as it were, by the gradual fading away of the dark background about them. A general talk on the subject of gloves is carried from page to page, while the number and description are placed in smaller type directly beneath the articles. Example 194.—In commercial catalog work the illustration of the article to be sold is of the same importance as the article on the counter in the salesroom. The usual method of selling is to show the customer the article and then by giving information about it and telling of its good qualities to persuade the customer to buy. The illustration, then, is important, and by looking on Example 194, we can see how one printer recognized this fact. The roll of yarn is prominent in the page and the name of the yarn is second in seeking attention. The goods are displayed attractively in surroundings that are interesting. The decorative border (made of rule) has merged with it the name of the manufacturer. Example 195.—It requires the skill of a typographer and the talent of an artist to make a good-looking page from tabular matter. Where this combination is lacking the result is commonplace and unsatisfactory. It was not lacking on this example, for one seldom sees a tabular page so attractively arranged. EXAMPLE 200 PROGRAMS“Let all things be done decently and in order.” These words of Paul, while possible of wide application, have peculiar significance applied to the program. The program exists because of recognition of the necessity of orderly procedure “where two or three are gathered together.” Historically, the program has come to us from the early times, when all knowledge was transmitted by word of mouth. Church services are the result of evolution from ancient ceremonies, and other exercises for which programs are used originated in the far past. Programs familiar to printers could be divided into four classes: Programs of sacred services, dance programs, banquet programs, and programs for various entertainments. In this order they will be considered. EXAMPLE 201 The historical side of the program of sacred services should not be overlooked. It is a mistake for printers to produce church programs in the same style of typography employed on secular forms. Church programs, more than any other line of printing, offer opportunity for artistic treatment, and their production is pleasure to the artist-printer who believes significance is an important element in good typography. EXAMPLE 202 The key to the proper treatment of ecclesiastical printing lies in the old manuscript books written in the monasteries. Black ink was commonly used for the main portion of books, and vermilion, a red earth (rubrica), for titles and important parts of the text. In the writing of Missals (containing services of the celebration of mass), of Psalters (containing the psalms), and of Books of Hours (containing prayers and offices for the several hours of the day), maltese crosses and uncial capitals were written in vermilion. Uncial capitals are now made by several type foundries as Missal initials, Caxton initials, Sylph initials, etc., and maltese crosses are easily procured. As black text letters were also used on these missals and psalters, the type-faces now known as Caslon Text, EXAMPLE 203 The Church of England, the American branch of which is known as the Protestant Episcopal Church, deserves much credit for the modern development of an ecclesiastical style of printing. Because of the custom of using red ink in forms of service, for the parts giving direction as to the conduct of the services, these parts have become known as “rubrics.” It is necessary to mention to printers generally that when colors are used on programs or books of service the “rubrics” should be in red. This treatment is illustrated in the page from the marriage service shown as Example 146 in the chapter on “Books” which also shows an uncial initial. When only black is used it is customary to set the rubrics in italic. EXAMPLE 205 Example 200 (Insert).—This title-page presents a modern interpretation of the historic ecclesiastical treatment. The black type-face is Caslon Text, and is a copy of one of the early manuscript letters, as before mentioned. As pointed Gothic is usually accepted as the style of church architecture, so pointed Gothic type-faces have been adopted for church printing by typographers who know. Uncial rubricated initials as used on this title-page are known commercially as Caxton initials. The red lines which are a prominent part of the page have historic significance. Now grown to possess decorative value, they originated thru the necessities of writers of manuscript books, and were originally guide lines for writing. They designated the position of the page and the lines of letters. With the ancient churchmen the maltese cross was the symbol of Christ, and today also these crosses have that significance, altho to a great extent they are now considered merely as ecclesiastical decoration. The square device in the center is in the Celtic style of ornament. The significance of the design lies in the decorative cross and the letters I. H. S. (Iesus Hominum Salvator, Latin, meaning “Jesus Saviour of Men”). It may be well to suggest that treatment of church printing should be varied sometimes with the denomination for which the work is done. The majority of clergymen will be pleased with printing treated in the accepted ecclesiastical style, yet there are some, prejudiced against “high church” liturgies and emblems, and others with individual ideas of what is appropriate, who must be considered. The writer recalls an instance in which the customer, an Episcopal clergyman, objected to what he called a “Latin” cross, used as an ornament on a title-page, and was satisfied when a maltese cross was substituted for the purpose. Many church programs which now appear commonplace would take on a churchly aspect if rubricated, even tho that be possible only on the title-page. The example under consideration (No. 200), it will be noticed, is constructed on squared lines, a shape dictated by the large decorative device. While the page as arranged is interesting and fairly harmonious, the pointed letters in the type lines would blend better with a device of the pointed Gothic kind; or, again, the squared device would be in closer harmony with a squared type effect such as could be obtained with roman capitals. EXAMPLE 204 Example 201.—This page EXAMPLE 206 EXAMPLE 208 Example 202.—This page has not the compactness of the preceding one, yet esthetically it is more pleasing. It is an almost perfect specimen of church-program printing. As already mentioned, the horizontal red lines and the black text letter used for titles have an ecclesiastical motive. Careful disposition of blank space has given a pleasing tone to the page, which is also helped by the position of the second stanza of the hymn at the foot. The type-faces are harmonious, the use of black text, old-style roman and italic affording a pleasing variety. By including in the color the initial letters and the title “Holy Communion,” all parts of the page are blended and related. Example 203.—The printer may be naturally curious to know how a typographer such as D. B. Updike, who is known to specialize on ecclesiastical typography, treats church programs. Here is an Updike page, from a program of Lenten services, arranged in the simple, classic style of typographic treatment that he always renders so well. As will be noticed, the main portion of the type page is aligned at the left. The manner of using capitals, small capitals, lower-case and italic is an interesting study. While examining the page it is enlightening to note that A.M. and P.M. are in small capitals, and that no space other than furnished by the period is placed between these abbreviations or the degrees D.D., Ph.D., etc. EXAMPLE 207 Example 204.—This is the title-page of a small program which was in booklet form, a page being devoted to each event on the program. The title-page is in missal style, with cross rules and uncial initials. The spaced Pabst capitals at the foot are not sufficiently strong in tone to balance the upper part of the page. Perhaps the effect would be better had the missal style of treatment been extended to the lower portion of the page. Example 205.—This is the second page of a small program used at the laying of the corner-stone of a new church building. It would have been possible to get all the type matter on one page, but crowding into small space is often done at the sacrifice of beauty, and this program profits by the liberal margins. The rule lines at the head were used to obtain uniformity of page width and hight. The outline type ornament gives ecclesiastic dignity to the program. The two-line initial at the beginning of each hymn adds style and finish to the typography. The dance program is a far step from the church program. The contrast between the subdued and reverent atmosphere of the house of worship and the gayety and frivolity of the brilliantly lighted ball-room emphasizes the necessity of printers using their best powers of discrimination in treating the various programs that come to their shops. EXAMPLE 209 EXAMPLE 211 EXAMPLE 212 Example 206.—An Indian border was used around this dance card, but its strong lines were softened by printing in gray and red. White stock was used. In the headline, instead of the customary periods, dots are centered decoratively. Artists often place a dot or small ornament between words of a lettered design for the purpose of benefiting the tone. More often practically no space at all is placed between words if in lower-case beginning with capital letters. Example 207.—A part of an outing program, this page carries the style of all the other pages as regards border and head panel. It illustrates the effectiveness and economy of uniform border treatment on a program. There are very few programs that would not be benefited by decorative borders in color. But one border need be set in type, duplicates being obtained by electrotyping. If there are to be only a few hundred programs, two borders may be set in type and printed on all the sheets, running only two pages on. If desired, a hand-drawn decorative border could be engraved and afterward duplicated by electrotyping. Example 208.—There is nothing conventional in the design of this dance program. It is different from most others. The rule lines extend to the border, and the heading “Dances” sets slightly to the right of center, supported underneath by the graceful flower ornament. Punctuation is omitted. This page is recommended for dance cards, when the printer desires to have the job exclusively typographic. EXAMPLE 210 EXAMPLE 213 The banquet program not so many years ago here in America and in England was commonly called a bill of fare. Now only the cross-roads hotel and the cheap city eating house have bills of fare. The polite title is now “menu,” pronounced men-yu or meh-noo. Some writers claim the word came to us from “Manu,” a mythical sage said to have sprung from the god Brahma. Yet the dictionary would seem to indicate that the word is French, meaning small, and was derived from the Latin minutus, little. It is possible that the small portions now served in many restaurants suggested the use of “menu” because of the contrast with the generous “helpings” of the old-fashioned meal. In 1512 a EXAMPLE 214 EXAMPLE 215 In the banquet program the printer has great opportunity to make use of his inventive faculties. No other kind of program allows of such varied treatment. There is no limit to the shapes, the type arrangements and the color treatments that are suitable for banquet programs. An association of leather merchants holds a dinner and the members may find beside their plates a program bound in a miniature hide, the sheets of the program attached by a leather thong. Bankers meet and the program may be in the form of a checkbook. For an athletic association an oval-shaped program suggesting a football will “score.” Newspaper publishers will appreciate the menu list presented as a papier-mache matrix of the type form. Commercial travelers would be pleased were their banquet programs designed in imitation of a mileage book. A literary society dinner would be appropriately graced were the program printed on parchment and wound around a wooden or ivory rod, as “books” were bound in ancient times. EXAMPLE 217 Pyrography could be blended with typography in producing odd effects in banquet programs. One way of getting results by this method is to print the menu page on a piece of soft wood, say a quarter of an inch thick, and then, by means of the pyrographic writing tool, burn a decorative border around it. Type ornaments and borders could be printed on the wood as a guide for burning the designs. Many effective menu forms could also be evolved with the assistance of the bookbinder. Pulp board covered with an artistic cover paper makes a handsome background for mounting the menu page, which should be printed on a harmonizing stock. Italian and Japanese hand-made papers are particularly suitable for such work, and when the style of typography is made to blend with the stock the effect is rich. Domestic manufacturers, too, make a large line of artistic papers applicable to the purpose. Example 209.—This page is from a booklet program, and is companion to Example 125 inserted in a preceding chapter. It sets forth the value of the decorative border on programs. The arrangement of the type matter is the customary one. The minor dishes are set in small type, while the damp stuff from the wine cellar is represented at the left in rubricated text letters. Example 210.—A halftoned decorative background in olive was a feature that lent value to this page, which is one of a number of similarly treated pages in a booklet program. The classic panel design makes a good background for a menu page. The idea is applicable in many other ways. EXAMPLE 216 EXAMPLE 218 Example 211.—This chapter would be incomplete without one or two Bradley specimens. Here is an EXAMPLE 219 Example 212.—Here is a novel banquet program. Each dish on the menu was presented in the form of a check on the “Printers’ Bank of Dyspepsia,” and the “bank” was ordered to pay to the order of the guest a portion of food or drink, in this instance oysters on the half-shell. The checks were signed by appropriate names, “A. Shellgame” in this instance. The entire lot of checks was bound in the customary checkbook style. Example 213.—In this program the menu is termed “Hash” and the toasts “Rehash.” The treatment is unique, especially in the arrangement of the list of palate ticklers. EXAMPLE 220 Example 214 (Insert).—Suggested for a menu page in two colors. Banquets are occasions of gayety and enjoyment, and humor is appreciated. Displaying choice drinks prominently, and then in a note at the foot calling attention to the fact that they can be had at the bar at regular rates, is a bit of fun that has not been widely perpetrated. Typographically the page is refined, yet is sufficiently decorative to appeal to a large class of customers. Example 215.—A classic menu page by Updike. Roman capitals and italic lower-case only are used. Perhaps this is the way Aldus would set the page were he alive today. The page as a mass is symmetrical. Example 216.—This page is from a program used at a master printers’ banquet, all pages being treated in a style appropriately humorous. The word “Stock” tops the page instead of the usual “Menu.” “Make-up” heads the list of officers, and in this manner were the guests’ funny-bones agitated. Example 217.—Here is a program for those accustomed to eat in a foreign language. The typographic treatment is refined and dignified, the roman capitals and the italic blending classically. Little side hits such as those to the right are always appreciated, especially when carefully selected. EXAMPLE 222 EXAMPLE 221 Example 218.—An artistic treatment simulating woodcut decoration suitable for many occasions is presented by this page. The four initial letters give the appearance of a decorative heading and blend well with the border. It is appropriate that capitals should be used thruout EXAMPLE 223 EXAMPLE 224 Example 219.—Bradley suggests another good arrangement in this page. It is simply constructed, yet possesses interest and style. The original was in black and light-brown inks on buff antique stock. EXAMPLE 225 Example 220.—This page has the merit of being unique while containing elements of the artistic. The important dishes are set forth prominently, the minor dishes appearing in small type grouped at the right. Uncial initials blend with the Old-Style Antique type. The horizontal rule and the large flower ornament play necessary parts in obtaining a balance. EXAMPLE 226 EXAMPLE 227 Programs for entertainments and exercises, while not allowing the unrestrained workings of the fancy that those for banquets do, are yet proper vehicles for carrying artistic ideas. The program should be artistic. The commonplace program is a disappointment to the intelligent auditor and an evil in that it influences the public taste towards mediocrity. The printer who cannot produce a good entertainment program has need to study art principles and observe the artistic programs being produced by others. Example 222.—A refined program page by Updike. In the original the border was printed from a copper intaglio plate on smooth-surfaced hand-made paper, the reading portion being printed clearly and sharply from type. Updike’s work is noted for the clearness of the print. Just enough ink is carried to prevent the print being called gray. Of course the type must be clean and unaffected by wear, the ink well ground and the impression firm. This specimen is almost entirely in italic, with “swash” or decorative capitals that add interest to a page of dignified typography. Swash italic capitals properly used are valuable aids in securing attractive yet refined typographic effects. Examples 223 and 224.—These two pages by Bruce Rogers should have interest for every printer who loves good typography. The zinc reproductions of these pages, also that of the preceding example, fail to present the sharp print of the originals. Roman lower-case is absent from this program. Rogers and Updike, with Aldus, have demonstrated that roman lower-case is not essential to typography. Perhaps that is why their work has distinction—other printers set most of their type from the roman lower case. On the title-page the features of particular interest are the long s in the word “music,” the swash italic capitals and the woodcut ornament. The program page is interesting in its construction and its details should be studied closely. Unless suitable ornamentation is available, program pages had better be treated plainly as here, with such attention to the details of the type arrangement as will obtain finished results. It is a test of typographic ability in the production of a program page to compose work that, without the friendly aid of decoration, is pleasing to look upon. Example 225.—This page shows admirable treatment of a brief program. The various sizes of type are well distributed, and the consistent use of roman lower-case is pleasing. Example 226.—The type in this page overprinted the decoration which was in pale orange and pale green. The decoration was appropriate in that the program was for a meeting held on the fruit-growing Pacific Coast. Example 227.—The Gothic style dominates this page. Excepting the two uncial initials, only one size of type has been used. That fact alone is interesting, as the result is remarkably finished. Decoration of quality for similar effects can be obtained by having historic decorative borders from old books photographed and redrawn upon the photograph with such alterations as are desired. The face of the photograph can then be washed away, leaving only the drawing, from which the plate is made. EXAMPLE 228 Example 228.—The list of characters in a dramatic entertainment is here displayed in an unusual manner. It is so easy for compositors to set copy such as this in the conventional type-leader-type method, but this compositor has arranged it to conform to the proportion of the page. The program containing small advertisements, especially the theater program, is possible of much improvement. Such typography should be given better attention, as theater programs exert large influence in forming public taste. EXAMPLE 229 ANNOUNCEMENTSPublicity is doubtlessly essential to success in every business and profession. The public is interested in the man who does things, but this interest is obviously confined to the man who it knows does things. The great men are advertised men. The great deeds of history are those advertised by poets and historians. Shakespeare made famous many ancient characters, as did Plutarch before him, and the most famous acts of the American Revolution are those performed near the homes of poets and writers. We would not be familiar with the rides of Paul Revere and “Phil” Sheridan had they not been advertised by means of printers’ ink. Several years ago in New York an influential art society recognized the work of a mural painter by awarding him a medal. In accepting it the artist sadly remarked that the recognition came too late in life for him to “use it as a help to live with,” which proves that in the heart of the most proud and sensitive artist or professional man there is a feeling that he needs publicity—recognition, if that word is less offensive—in order that his life work may be successful. It is fashionable for prominent persons to employ press agents, and goings and comings and doings are told to the public at every opportunity. In the days before the development of newspapers and other typographical mediums for advertising, the people depended upon the public crier to make all sorts of announcements. He would attract a crowd by sounding blasts with a horn or by ringing a bell, and then make known his message. The modern representative of the crier is the printed announcement. It is not confined to any definite size or shape, often consisting of one page only, printed on card or paper stock. EXAMPLE 230 EXAMPLE 231 The announcement form may be considered the most EXAMPLE 232 The printer is depended upon by most customers to furnish suggestions for the physical make-up of the announcement, and he is also frequently asked for advice in regard to the phraseology. This places a responsibility upon him that he cannot well ignore, and he should be able to respond with proper suggestions. Being thus qualified to assist the customer has many times led to further and profitable business. The printer possessing the confidence of his customers has an asset of great value. The most common form of typographic announcement is that printed from roman, text, gothic or script type-faces in imitation of engraved intaglio printing. The styles of this form of announcement change slightly with the fashions in copperplate effects. Printers desiring to do such work would do well to obtain samples from one of the leading society stationers and follow them closely in arrangement, spacing of words and lines, and size and kind of stock. This class of work allows of little original or decorative treatment. If other forms or treatments are desired a standard type-face, such as Caslon or Cloister, should be used. Many compositors err in combining copperplate-engravers’ faces with rules and borders, or in other ways misusing them; for such results are “neither flesh, fish nor fowl,” as the saying goes. If the customer requests an imitation copperplate effect, give it to him as closely as you can; that is good business policy, and is in accordance with the sound advice to “Do your best, no matter what the circumstances,” reminding one of the old rhyme: If I were a cobbler, it would be my pride The best of all cobblers to be; If I were a tinker, no tinker beside Should mend an old kettle like me. But, whenever possible, get on higher ground. If you must be a tinker, be a good one, but rather be a producer of new things than a builder of patches and something that is “as good as new.” Printers should test their earnestness with tasks that develop their art instincts and, accompanied by proper financial return, bring that satisfaction which comes from work well done. EXAMPLE 233 Example 229 (Insert).—Usually the printer should not set an advertising page all in capitals, nor should he use many rules in its composition; Examples 230 and 231.—These are the first and third pages of an announcement originally printed in black ink on brown-tinted hand-made paper. The type-face, Caslon, was sharply impressed into the stock. It may be advisable to state here that all Caslon romans are not alike. The face usually sold by typefounders has the descenders shortened, that the letters may conform to the system of alignment adopted some years ago in America. This shortening of descenders, seemingly a trivial matter, affects the general appearance of the type-face. Attempts to “improve” the Caslon face are apt to end disastrously to the effectiveness of the letter. It has characteristics that are essential to its beauty, and shorn of any of those characteristics it loses attractiveness proportionately. This announcement folder is of a quality seldom attained in printing, depending as it does upon detail in typesetting and presswork. The reproduction cannot present these points, because the finish of the paper, the clearness of the print, the spacing, the apportionment of margins, the tone, all counted in the finished result. Example 232.—This circular announcement in its original form was 9½ × 12½ inches in size, the paper upon which it was printed being gray-green laid hand-made. The positions of the groups of type matter and the sizes of margins are features worthy of study. Other points of interest are: the treatment of heading and initial, the use of florets at the beginning of each paragraph, and the committee signatures. The last-named lines are set in italic lower-case with roman capitals, Aldus style. The border was printed in dull red, close to the edge of the paper. Example 233.—This meeting announcement is of the same series as the preceding example, but, set all in black text letter without border, the effect is totally different. The peculiar black and gray tones of the Caslon ornaments blend well with similar characteristics presented in the massed black letter. The page was printed in vermilion and black on buff laid hand-made stock. The effectiveness of this style of announcement is due not alone to the typography and stock, but to the generous size of the sheet used—good paper and plenty of it. This announcement was mailed without envelops, the double sheet being folded into thirds and the lower end inserted into the upper end. EXAMPLE 234 EXAMPLE 235 EXAMPLE 236 EXAMPLE 237 EXAMPLE 238 EXAMPLE 239 Example 234.—This announcement page is lettered in a style that suggests the sturdy masculine character of the lettering that has been developed with the new German decorative art. Typographers should not make the mistake of assuming that a page set in the so-called gothic types of the typefounders would give this effect. While the letters are without serifs, as are the gothic types, yet they have not the mechanical perfection of those types. Type-faces, lettering and drawing of any kind seem to be better liked when they possess the human quality of imperfection. I once called on Boardman Robinson, then cartoonist of the New York Tribune, and found him at work on a cartoon for the day. I noticed that he had considerably altered the picture on which he was working, and I asked him about it. With a smile, he stated that he had been working on the cartoon for several hours in order to make it look as if it had been drawn in fifteen minutes. German typefounders have made type-faces that carry the qualities of this poster style of lettering. The young printer should not infer from this that careless and unfinished typographic work is preferable to a careful, finished product. It will be found that the artist or printer who can best give this little touch of human nature to designs is one who first learned to do the work as perfectly as possible. Example 235.—This design was the first page of a folder of which Example 234 was the third page. Oswald Cooper, who lettered this announcement, used the figure of a dog that had been drawn by the German poster artist Hohlwein, but gave him due credit in the upper left corner. This style of lettering, as has already been mentioned, is appropriate to the subject of German posters and in harmony with the poster illustration used. Heavy treatment of this kind offers a rich opportunity for the use of strong and harmonious colors. Light-faced type is very unsatisfactory as a carrier of color, but the broad strokes of this style of lettering make possible a liberal showing of color on the page. An extra color has been introduced, altho the original announcement was entirely in brown on a brown-tinted card. Example 236.—From the viewpoints of art and dignity an announcement card such as this one is always in good taste. Its style is classic, being arranged along the lines of an architectural inscription plate. The border is the reliable egg-and-dart pattern and the type-face is Caslon. Capitals are essential to best results in this sort of design. Example 237.—The idea suggested in this page, of using ornaments as eye-attracters, is a good one. While the design as a whole is decorative in character, the advertising element is not overlooked. The several articles of merchandise are prominently displayed, as is also the name of the store. In the series of type designs of which this was a part, the designer strongly emphasized ornamentation. There was a reason for his doing this, as he was engaged in introducing new typographic decorative material, but printers working for the commercial public are engaged in a different vocation. In attempting such designs as this, compositors should decrease the prominence of the ornaments and border and increase that of the reading portion of the page. EXAMPLE 240 EXAMPLE 241 Example 238.—This announcement was printed in black ink on a Government postal card. The young compositor will, no doubt, recognize the small amount of actual typesetting necessary for this page; however, he should not overlook the fact that the results were really secured by one-tenth manual labor and nine-tenths brain exercise. A specimen such as this is good not because of what is put on but because of what is left off. There are only a rule border, a small silhouette illustration and four lines of type exclusive of the signature, yet the busy man gets the message and experiences pleasure in getting it. The type in the original was no larger than was necessary to be easily read. Compositors frequently forget that announcements of this kind are read at a distance of only a foot from the eyes, and that twelve-point type is really large enough for the purpose. It is usually a mistake to make the type-face very large or very small. One is an unnecessary size and the other is an illegible size. Example 239.—This is another announcement set in twelve-point type, with a liberal distribution of blank space. The personal mark of Mr. Baker adds a decorative touch of color that attracts attention and helps to make the page distinctive. EXAMPLE 243 Example 240 (Insert).—This announcement has typographic interest in that it shows how variety and advertising emphasis can be obtained by the proper use of italic and small capitals with lower-case roman, especially with a type-face such as Cloister Oldstyle. The small capitals are letterspaced; they usually respond pleasingly to such treatment. Typographers who have studied the matter of spacing have found that capitals and small capitals can be letterspaced with good results, and that roman and italic lower-case seldom look well if the letters are separated by spacing. It is probably an exaggeration to say that lower-case should never be spaced, as typographic artists such as Will Bradley have produced very effective results with letterspaced lower-case; but the average compositor had better adhere to the rule of never letterspacing lower-case letters. It will be noticed that on this announcement the name of the organization, the words “Dinner” and “Exhibit” and the name of the guest, are set in capitals and small capitals with letterspacing. The names of the books, the title of the talk, and the request to return a card, are in italic. Only one size of type has been used, excepting for the committee group at the foot. In order that the words “Program Committee” should not look exactly like the other lines in this group, they were letterspaced. EXAMPLE 242 EXAMPLE 244 Example 241.—This announcement form, like No. 240, EXAMPLE 245 Example 242.—This announcement circular affords a study in tone values, especially in the original size, which was 9 × 12½ inches. The type, Old Style Antique, was twelve-point, with six-point slugs between lines. The black tone of the type-face and the liberal spacing found relationship in the black tone and open lines of the initial letter at the head. This harmony was carried out in the entire page, the black and white tones contrasting thruout. No gray lines were used; even the monogram at the foot was constructed of strong lines. In obtaining an effect like this it is necessary that the type-face be of medium black tone somewhere between the gray tone of the Caslon face and the heavy black tone of the John Hancock or other extra-black faces. It may be well to call attention to the margins inside the rule border. The artist avoids monotony in margins. In old books the four margins surrounding a type page differed. The foot margin was the largest, the others being smaller in this order: outer side, head, inner side. In this announcement page the foot margin is larger than the others, and the head presents the smallest amount of marginal space. The side margins were made equal because, unlike the paired book page, this page stands alone. Example 243.—Harmony of type-face and decoration is the chief attraction of this announcement card. Some of the characteristics of Washington Text in tone and stroke are also found in the initial letter and border, and to this the harmony is due. Placing of the initial letter so low on the page was a bit of daring, yet balance is retained, due to the heading. Example 244.—While only a little folder, 3½ × 4½ inches in size, this job was exceedingly effective. It was printed in black on white antique stock. Such a form could well be adapted to many brief announcements. Example 245.—This form was set in type during the Colonial revival that interested good printers about the year 1900. Caslon type and Colonial decoration give an individual character to the page. Colonial effects are not so common just at this time, which fact is quietly digested by the wise typesetter as he recognizes his opportunity. EXAMPLE 246 EXAMPLE 247 EXAMPLE 248 Example 246.-This announcement demonstrates the possibilities of typography along the lines of appropriateness. A Colonial organization wished to announce a meeting at which would be celebrated the founding of the first American newspaper, and desired something in Colonial style. The printer looked up a reproduction of an early newspaper and set the heading in a style such as was given the headings of newspapers in the early days. The society had an emblem or seal engraved in the serifless and characterless style of lettering that the average engraver will give an organization. The printer had the emblem redrawn, giving instructions to the artist to draw the entire design in freehand and to be careful that the lines and lettering be not too regular. Instructions were also issued to have serifs on the lettering and to have it contain the contrasted light and heavy strokes of the roman type-face of the Colonial period. As will be seen by the example herewith, the idea was well carried out by the artist. The society had appropriately phrased the announcement. The printer carried the idea along by using a small size of “e” in the word “ye,” and a long “s,” made by cutting a part of the cross from the “f.” A suitable hand-made paper was selected and the paper was dampened before printing it. The announcement was then folded up and sealed in the style of Colonial times, without an envelop. Examples 247 and 248.—These are the first and second pages of a large circular announcement printed in black and light olive-brown on buff-tinted laid antique paper. No embellishment is used, nor is any needed, the treatment being sufficiently artistic. The arrangement of the first page is uncommon. The lack of margins around the type group and the absence of print on three-fifths of the page would be counted by some printers as mere eccentricities, yet to others these things spell art. Compositors interested in this arrangement should notice how the type lines fit the phraseology. The advertising element has been considered by the designer along with Æsthetic requirements. The double line of capitals at the head of the second page was duplicated on the third. The second page shows simplicity and legibility that are admirable, the liberal margins and the three-line initial being noteworthy features. EXAMPLE 249 Example 249.—This is the second page of a convention announcement and is evidence of the success that is possible with the proper use of a well-designed type-face, an EXAMPLE 250 EXAMPLE 252 Example 250.—This announcement, originally printed on hand-made paper, all in black ink, was designed by a famous New York artist-typographer, who believes that there is greater legibility when the lines are separated by a liberal use of leads than when they are “set solid.” The arrangement is unusual in several respects—the placing of the name in the far-off upper corner, the use of the initial “A” in the midst of a sentence, the setting of the names of the officers in italic and their titles in roman, and the liberal leading previously referred to. EXAMPLE 251 Example 251.—This specimen also has the feature of an initial in the midst of a sentence, and it may be well to suggest to young compositors that it is better not to use an initial in this manner. This page would probably be even more effective if the entire word “announces” were in lower-case. The announcement was printed in black and gray on a light-gray stock. The foundry that made this series of type also made ornaments that would harmonize with it and thus enabled the printer to produce an artistically pleasing page. This letter is one of a few that closely suggest good hand-lettering. The selection of type sizes and the arrangement and apportionment of margins help to make a result that reflects credit on the printer’s art. Example 252.—A blotter was the vehicle that carried this announcement, which is in the rugged Colonial style of typography of the year in which this piece of work was produced. The tone is pleasing, as is also the contrast of white and black. The ornament blends in shape and style with the accompanying typographical treatment. In the production of his own announcement forms the printer is not hampered by the requirements of customers. He works with the unrestricted freedom of a Michelangelo and there is little reason why his work should not be of the best, if he will read and study books and trade magazines. EXAMPLE 257 EXAMPLE 258 EXAMPLE 259 TICKETSIt is said of printers who make no attempt to learn the principles governing art typography, that once or so in a lifetime they produce an artistic job of printing. They become much elated at the phenomenon, not realizing that it was brought on by the unconscious introduction into their product of art principles. The experience may be likened to that of a child who accidentally touches an electric button, causing the room suddenly to be illuminated. The child knows the light is there, but does not comprehend how it got there. Now instead of being the cause of an oriental handshake, a good job of printing ought to be an everyday occurrence, and the stirring of the waters should be left for the bad job of printing when, unfortunately, it happens along. Lack of interest is the reason for the non-development of many printers in the art side of typography. Because, to many compositors, printing is merely a means of making a living, only enough knowledge is acquired to enable them to “hold their jobs,” or, in the cases of employers, to retain their customers. Time spent in the printshop is considered drudgery and the pleasures of life come after the whistle has blown. There are young printers who know comparatively nothing about good typography, yet are authorities on the rules of pinocle, baseball, or other pastimes. And there are older printers, too, who could write a book about chicken-raising, yet do not know when type-faces harmonize. Any man who is not interested in his vocation is to be pitied. Unless his heart is in his work, a lawyer, preacher, editor, ad-writer, artist or printer will not be successful. Interest may be developed. If the typographer will devote a portion of the time now spent on outside matters to the study of his craft, and especially the art side of printing, his work will become lighter and the hands on the clock will chase each other. The same concentration of thought now devoted to unimportant side interests would bring large dividends if invested in the study of typography. Efficiency is a guarantee of steady work and good pay to the employee, and an assurance of steady customers and better prices to the employer. EXAMPLE 256 The typographer who prefers freedom from care, and the blissfulness of ignorance, is a poor member of society. He should line up among the world’s workers and accept some of the responsibilities. The first things he observes, should he become a student, are the imperfections of his own product. Work that before looked good to him, now, viewed in a new light, is defective, and finally the old verdict is reached, “There is none perfect, no, not one.” While to the experienced art-printer expectations of absolutely perfect results are known to be futile, he tries for one hundred per cent just the same. A man lacks something in his make-up when he is satisfied to be rated as a twenty-five or fifty per cent printer. Tickets, altho only a minute part of the printing-office product, afford opportunity for the practice and development of art printing. In typography there are many themes and styles and their incorporation into type-designs is an interesting and instructive study. The compositor or layout man should know and understand these various styles, that he may be able to adapt himself to any demand made for “something different.” Resourcefulness is a valuable characteristic for any printer to possess, and close examination of the nineteen ticket forms, and careful reading of what follows, should serve to develop that quality. These forms were designed by the author especially for this chapter. Example 256.—It is fitting, in commencing a series of type arrangements, first to show one based upon a classic motive. The design is old to students of art, yet may be new to printers in general. The arrangement has been used for many years by leading architects on inscription tablets, and the idea itself comes from ancient Rome. The egg-and-dart border is a standard embellishment in architectural designing. The roman type-face is historically proper, especially the adherence to capitals, as originally there was none but what we call capitals, the small “lower-case” or minuscule letters having been evolved during the Middle Ages. The letters of roman type-faces usually set very close together and to get certain results the capitals should be slightly spaced. One-point spaces have been used in this example. White cardboard is preferable to a colored one on which to print this design. Example 257 (Insert).—The historic Gothic or church style furnished the motive for the treatment of this ticket. Both border and type-face possess characteristics peculiarly Gothic—notably the pointed form of the letters and floret. There is also blend of tone, and similar contrast of heavy and light strokes in letter and border. EXAMPLE 260 Example 258 (insert).—The style of this ticket is a modern conception and originated in the art revival of the latter part of the last century. The motive is masculine and its features are contrast of tone, massing of lettering, and liberal blank space. It will be noticed that while in this specimen the margin inside of border is wide, on the previous specimen (Example 257) there is practically no space inside of the border. These features are necessary in the correct interpretation of the respective styles. The motive of the specimen under consideration is particularly applicable to tickets for minstrel performances, smokers, club outings, and other affairs in which men are interested. Example 259 (Insert).—The color border on this specimen suggests a means of varying the treatment of tickets, the extension of the border into two of the corners adding distinction. Such a design as this is likely to meet approval among college students, as they welcome odd and striking effects. The strong italic lower-case is a relief from the many more familiar roman faces used on such tickets. Emphasis of important parts is obtained by increasing the type sizes until proper contrast is obtained. EXAMPLE 262 EXAMPLE 263 Example 260.—The treatment of this example may be described as modern based upon the Colonial. The Caslon type-face furnishes a Colonial atmosphere, and the border treatment of color inside surrounding rules blends with the type-face. Only two sizes of type are used and lower-case is consistently adhered to. The shape of the main group gives a pleasing symmetry to the arrangement, the floret serving well to complete this result. The effect as a whole is bookish, and may be adapted to various literary and art purposes. White or buff stock would be suitable, antique finish preferred. EXAMPLE 261 Example 261.—There may be an idea here for course tickets in which a number of lectures are listed. The form as shown is not complete, the idea including the attachment at one side of coupons containing the names and dates of the lectures. Only capitals are used and the three main lines are aligned at each end of the measure. The narrow border gives a finish to the general design, which is well suited for printing in black ink on white stock. EXAMPLE 264 Example 262.—Here we have a ticket of peculiar interest to women and the treatment is daintily appropriate. Caslon italic is an admirable letter for the purpose, as it is graceful and neat. Bold treatment and large type have been avoided, the main portion of the copy being grouped in the center and surrounded by liberal blank space. The outline illustration underprinting the type group gives added interest to the ticket and may have EXAMPLE 265 Example 263.—This ticket presents the geometric, or so-called secession style; a mild example, tho. Because straight lines form its motive, some call it the mission style. There are possibilities in it for the typographer looking for fresh ideas with which to vary his work. Right here it may be well to warn compositors against becoming enthusiastic over every new style of type arrangement that may come to his notice. There are men who in their endeavors to do something to win fame—something astonishing and entirely original—set out on unknown seas without rudder or compass. The result usually is shipwreck. The printer who starts out to produce typography not founded on some proved and tried base builds a house in the sands that may come tumbling down at the first test of endurance. A type-face of squared shape such as the capitals of lining gothic is best fitted to accompany the squares and angular ornaments of the mission or secession style. A gray stock on which to print this example would be a wise selection. EXAMPLE 267 EXAMPLE 268 Example 264.—This specimen will be recognized as an adaptation of the missal or mass-book style of treatment, mentioned in a previous chapter. It is an accepted ecclesiastical arrangement, and proves as pleasing on a ticket as on a title-page. Uncial initials (as are here shown in color) may be had of typefounders in slight variations. White or buff card admirably supports missal treatment. Example 265.—Inspiration for ticket designs may even be drawn from the work of William Morris and the Italian printers who used the black-toned decorative border, altho this style should not be undertaken unless the proper border is available. The one here adapted carries out the idea fairly well. Old Style Antique set snugly to fill the panel gives the proper results, the capital lines also being necessary to this style. Tickets for educational and art functions especially lend themselves to this treatment and white card should be used. EXAMPLE 266 Example 266.—The motive for this ticket form came from observing that art workers during the Middle Ages frequently engraved inscriptions around the margins or borders of plates, slabs, doors, and like objects. This suggested the adoption of the idea to carry a few pertinent words on an entertainment ticket. Cardboard of almost any color could be used. Example 267.—Perhaps this arrangement could be described as a modern application of classic type effects. The display lines are in Cheltenham, a face that approximates some of the ancient Roman lettering, and the treatment of the ticket as a whole is chaste. The ornaments, surrounded as they are by blank space, emphasize the classic simplicity of the ticket. The type group is tapered to give proper symmetry. EXAMPLE 269 Example 268.—This is purely a Colonial effect and Example 269.—Dainty, refined effects are demanded by certain customers. This specimen demonstrates the effectiveness of such treatment on a ticket. Two sizes of type (Pabst), all capitals and slightly spaced, give the proper results. The ornaments are used as symbolic decoration. EXAMPLE 270 Example 270.—The typography of this ticket is distinctly masculine. This result has been obtained by the use of capitals of a robust type-face, so distributed in size as strongly to emphasize the important phrases. Had this form been printed in one color, the two type lines now in color should have been reduced a size. It is well for compositors to keep in mind that when orange is used in combination with black, the portion printed in orange will be lighter in tone than that in black, unless the difference is provided for by bolder or larger type-faces. Any color of stock excepting dainty tints would do for this ticket. EXAMPLE 272 EXAMPLE 273 Example 271.—This unusual arrangement was dictated by the nature of the cab ornament. The shapes of the type groups are built about it. Were the cab ornament not used, another arrangement would be necessary. There are social clubs of all kinds in every city, and balls are frequently held for which tickets are needed. An element of interest such as is given by the cab ornament would surely be appreciated by such customers. EXAMPLE 271 Example 272.—Occasionally there comes to the printshop a customer wanting a ticket which cannot easily be duplicated by any one with a press and a few fonts of type. Instead of referring the customer to a lithographer the printer should ascertain if he is not in a position to produce such a ticket. The style of the one here shown is suggested for such emergencies. A type border printed in color forms the background. Over this print the reading matter, and for the display lines use a type-face that happens not to be possessed by other printers in the same city. In providing a border for this ticket a rule with double lines has been used, thus blending it with the double lines of the type-face. White stock should be selected for this ticket. Example 273.—The corner decoration is in keeping with the subject of this ticket, and the arrangement as a whole is suggested for similar purposes. Any color of cardboard is suitable. EXAMPLE 274 Example 274.—The decoration of early French books furnished the motive for the typographical treatment of this ticket. It is submitted simply to demonstrate that ideas for arrangement can be picked up in many quarters, and as a suggestion that typographers go thru the world with eyes open. EXAMPLE 275 EXAMPLE 276 EXAMPLE 277 EXAMPLE 278 LETTERHEADS & ENVELOPSIs there a standard size of letter sheet and envelop for commercial correspondence? A look thru the letter files of any business house will reveal the interesting fact that most of the letters are on sheets measuring 8½ × 11 inches. Letter sheets of about this size have been in use for many years. From De Vinne’s Price List of 1871 we learn that 10 × 16 inches (8 × 10 folded) was the favorite size of letter sheet, and that for commercial letters the size 10¾ × 17 inches (8½ × 10¾ folded) was sometimes required. Note sheets were then in two sizes: Commercial note, 8 × 10 inches (5 × 8 folded); and packet note, 9 × 11¼ inches (5? × 9 folded). The typewriter and modern commercial requirements have since developed use of the single leaf, altho for personal correspondence and certain refined business purposes the folded note sheet is proper. In passing it might be noted that in the price list above mentioned the printer is urged to charge an increased price when “brass or French flourishes are used in excess.” The composition of “one plain heading, of not more than four straight lines,” was to be charged at seventy-five cents; “one ornamental heading with curved lines,” twenty-five or fifty cents additional. EXAMPLE 279 EXAMPLE 280 As has been stated, the standard size of the present-day commercial letterhead is 8½ × 11 inches. Strange to say, the standard size of envelop (known as No. 6¾ Government) used for the carrying of these letter sheets measures 6½ × 3?, tho if a snug fit were required the envelop would be about 5¾ × 3 inches. The standard size, however, should usually be selected, as all sorts of enclosures are made to fit it. The large “official” envelop is also used extensively for business purposes, the most common size (No. 10 Government) measuring 9½ × 4? inches. It takes a letter sheet of two parallel folds, and also provides for business and advertising enclosures larger than those planned for the standard envelop of smaller dimensions. Distinction is given business stationery by folding the standard letter sheet twice so that, folded, it measures 5½ × 4¼ inches, and by using an envelop (Baronial) that measures an eighth or a quarter of an inch larger each way. For private or semi-private purposes this kind of envelop is preferred, especially if the letter sheet is used as a double note sheet. The heading is frequently printed on the fourth page of the double note sheet, so that when the message is written on the fourth and first pages and the sheet is opened, the letter appears as two pages in a book. Another size of men’s personal correspondence sheet measures 5 × 8 inches folded once. After being written upon the sheet is again folded, and it then measures 5 × 4 inches. When the customer is willing to pay a price for which the best quality of stationery may be furnished, the printer should secure from houses specializing in society stationery envelops that are made with a more stylish flap than those commonly used for business purposes. Another size of letter sheet, used for men’s personal correspondence and for giving an exclusive appearance to commercial stationery, measures about 7¼ × 10½ inches. The paper is given two parallel folds and fits in an envelop that measures about 7½ × 4 inches. EXAMPLE 281 EXAMPLE 282 Since the typewriter is in such general use, ruled letter sheets are seldom called for; in fact, ruled correspondence sheets of any kind are now in poor taste. The old-time notehead is also little used, the half-letter sheet (8½ × 5½ inches), and the two-thirds letter sheet (8½ × 7? inches), printed the broad way, taking its place for brief business messages. EXAMPLE 284 The typographical treatment of letterheads and envelops should have some relation, and it is now generally conceded that the paper should be the same in both cases. A good grade of paper is now considered essential for bona-fide correspondence, a cheaper grade being allowed for form letters. A light-weight paper of a high grade is preferable over a heavy-weight paper of a low grade. Quality isn’t a matter of weight, altho if it can be afforded the heavier weight is not in the least objectionable. Twenty-pound folio (17 × 22) seems to be most easily obtained in the various papers. As to the style of typographic treatment, the printer must in all cases consider the tastes of his customers, and especially the business or profession for which the stationery is to be used. As an instance, the style of typographic treatment of doctors’ and lawyers’ stationery seldom changes. It should be kept in mind that simple, neat, refined typography is appropriate for almost every order of stationery, while elaborate typography in many cases is inappropriate. Color is seldom well used on stationery. Most letterheads that the writer has seen which have been treated in three or four colors would have been more pleasing if given but one printing. A test of typographic skill is to design a letterhead that in one printing will look attractive and distinctive. The heading should usually be printed in black or some darkened color, and if another impression is desired a very small part of the design printed in orange or vermilion will add a touch of bright color. All the reproductions shown are reduced in size, those on the inserts being only slightly smaller. EXAMPLE 283 Example 275 (Insert).—Lithographers and steel-die printers really furnish the styles for the conventional arrangement of letterheads. They work along standardized lines and usually produce well-balanced, appropriate headings. Typographical printers should study stationery produced by these processes and observe how the parts of headings are grouped and the advertising points emphasized; for a letterhead is one form of advertising. There are limitations, however, in the copying of such letterhead arrangements. Only plain designs should be studied for this purpose. Imitations of shaded and ornamental lettering are seldom successful. Example 275 demonstrates how a good letterhead can be designed along lithographic lines. The effectiveness of this heading depends a great deal upon the use of both light- and dark-faced type. Where there is a great deal of matter, as in this instance, the heading Example 276 (Insert).—Professional stationery must be treated with dignity and refinement, and the type should be small. Treatment such as this would undoubtedly meet with approval from the professional customer. It would be a mistake to apply to professional stationery the variety of attractive and interesting arrangements that are applicable to stationery used for many business and advertising purposes. The printer would save resetting of the work and more surely please his customers if, in filling orders for doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers and other professional men, he attempted nothing but the conventional dignified treatment illustrated by this example. The type is an imitation engravers’ gothic slightly letterspaced to give the effect usually found on steel-die work. Example 277 (Insert).—Ministers, included as they are in the professional class, like to have their stationery dignified and neat. At the same time they do not object to the use of text type, as it has a churchly suggestion. This type, too, must be small, that used here being eight-point in size. EXAMPLE 287 Example 278 (Insert).—Stationery for a lawyer, like that for a doctor, should be dignified and refined. It is well to give him the professional customer’s style of typography such as that of the doctor’s heading, but if a departure is to be made from the imitation steel-engraved lettering, it is possibly well to use a modern style of type such as the Bodoni, and letterspace the capitals, as was done in this example. But one size of type-face has been used here (eight-point), capitals, italic, and small capitals being utilized. Example 279.—Practically never should a letterhead be treated with the elaborateness of this one unless the customer expressly desires such treatment and is willing to pay for it, or the letterhead is the printer’s own, as in this instance. The reproduction, unfortunately, does not present the rich qualities of the original, which was printed in green-gray and red-gray on a gray hand-made paper. The typography was merged with the paper stock, and there was not the contrast found in the reproduced specimen. EXAMPLE 285 EXAMPLE 286 EXAMPLE 288 Example 280.—Old-Style Antique, as this heading shows, is a good type-face for the letterhead of an art publication company. Capitals have been used thruout and grouped so as to form a symmetrical arrangement that harmonizes well with the decorative device placed EXAMPLE 289 EXAMPLE 290 EXAMPLE 292 Example 281.—Successful treatment of a heading like this depends upon the typographer’s ability so to arrange the copy, without resorting to letterspacing, that all lines are the same length. It is necessary also to use all capitals of an old-style face of dark tones in which the letters set fairly close together, a result such as can be had with Old-Style Antique or Cloister Oldstyle. The decorative device in its shape harmonizes with the formation of the group of type lines above it. The liberal blank space that surrounds this heading is an important factor in its attractiveness. The original was on brown paper. Example 282.—When the printer receives copy as brief as that used for this letterhead he experiences difficulty in producing an effect that will be attractive. With the customary engravers’ type-faces nothing very satisfactory is possible, but by using a type-face of character, such as Caslon Oldstyle in its original form, as was done here, artistic interest can be added. Two sizes of capitals, spaced, were used for the firm name. Italic was selected for the word “Grocers,” with a swash or decorated capital that accompanies the old Caslon type-face. Capitals and small capitals were utilized for the date line. A touch of decorative interest was added to the heading by the use of a rule, on each end of which was placed a dagger, such as is usually a part of book fonts. This treatment could be made even more effective by printing the letterhead on a white bond paper of good quality. Example 283.—This letterhead is offered as a suggestion for artistic treatment when not much copy is furnished and it is possible to use a small decorative device. The type-face should have old-style qualities of an artistic nature and should be slightly letterspaced. The lantern device on this heading is really a monogram, cleverly designed. The original was in black and orange on buff-tinted paper, and as shown by the reproduction, the heading was placed very high on the sheet. EXAMPLE 291 Example 284.—For some reason a border made of a heavy line and a light one harmonizes with the type matter in Caslon Oldstyle, especially when liberal blank space separates the type and the border, as in this instance. It is well usually not to have the border darker in tone than the type matter, but on this heading it would be a mistake to lighten the border, which, however, would look well printed in vermilion or orange ink. A buff-tinted paper of an antique finish would blend with the Caslon typography. It is a departure from conventional methods to place the names of the firm members in the lower part of the panel. This was probably done so that the name of the bindery would stand out without interference from type matter above it, but as a concession to conventionality it would probably be well to place the names in the upper part of the panel. Example 286.—There is suggestion of the architectural panel about the arrangement of this heading. The suggestion is continued by the use of a classic Roman type-face mainly in capitals. Panels are not as successful on letterheads as they would be if more judgment were used in forming them. This heading should prove helpful in working out the panel idea. Its proportions could be smaller with good results. The original was printed with green-black ink on a primrose color of bond paper, but would also look well on white stock. Example 287.—A letterhead is successful if by its treatment it suggests the line of business for which it is used. This one measures up in that respect. By the use of the old text type and Maltese crosses an ecclesiastical touch is given. The old church missal books of the manuscript days were brilliant in rubrication, a feature of which were ruled lines, crosses and initials in vermilion. The arrangement of this heading is also one that could be used for many purposes. Some of the facts about the business are blended with rules in a decorative band that gives breadth to the heading. EXAMPLE 295 Example 288.—Letterheads arranged so that all lines are the same length, especially if such arrangement allows proper emphasis of the firm name, usually look well and have artistic interest. This heading is one such as almost any printer with a good old-style type-face could produce. Like Example 281, this treatment requires the use of capitals. Lower-case in square or block formation does not shape up harmoniously. Capitals exclusively should be used when such effects are planned. Example 289.—A letterhead for a general store invariably presents a problem to the printer who wishes to produce a harmonious and well-balanced heading. It is difficult properly to display copy which includes such a variety of articles as furniture, jewelry, stoves and coffins. The typographer responsible for this letterhead set it in Caslon Oldstyle, grouped it as well as he could, and introduced decorative value by means of florets printed in color. The name of the merchant was given the most prominence, and “Furniture” was featured for the reason that it seemed to constitute the principal part of the business. The printer who objects to this arrangement should try his hand at resetting it. As copy, this heading is in strong contrast to that supplied for Example 282. EXAMPLE 293 EXAMPLE 294 EXAMPLE 296 Example 290.—This example is a resetting of a letterhead on which the printer had imitated bricks by using oblong border units printed in EXAMPLE 297 EXAMPLE 298 Example 291.—There is a dignified yet novel attractiveness about this heading. The light cross-rules give shape, and individuality is injected by slightly spacing the letters and confining the color to three small initials. Gothic (sans-serif) type looks well treated in this manner. As will be seen, liberal blank space is necessary for a right effect. The original was printed in black and vermilion ink on gray bond paper. EXAMPLE 300 Example 292.—The designer of this letterhead planned to get something different and succeeded. He did it, too, with the good old Caslon type-face. This type has proved its worth in commercial job work, and there seems to be no limit to its usefulness. By spacing the letters in this heading a peculiar tone has been obtained which gives the letterhead much of its character. The position of the lamp ornament is odd. Black and orange ink and white paper were used. Example 293.—While it is safer to print club stationery in the conventional style of professional stationery, there are clubs which will appreciate any individuality and attractiveness the printer may introduce on the letter sheet. This heading is a suggestion of what might be done in this direction. Washington Text has been combined with decorative initials. Example 294.—The problem here was to produce a letterhead for men who appreciate typographic neatness, and the problem was met by setting the heading in Caslon lower-case and introducing italic in several places where it would be of the most value. As will be seen, the names of the officers were grouped on the left, and balanced on the right by a group that tells of the things the store has to sell. It is likely that copy such as this would meet with different treatment from the average compositor, who would be inclined to distribute the copy over all parts of the letterhead. The lesson to be learned is that the several parts of copy should be orderly apportioned to positions on the letter sheet, as in this instance. Example 295.—This is an excellent example of a good letterhead, originally produced by the incised copperplate method. Study of its details would benefit the typographic printer for the reason that, as mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, designers of letterheads produced by lithographic and intaglio processes have given much thought to letterhead arrangement. The main part of the heading is symmetrically arranged in a group in which attention has been given to spacing. The illustration is disposed of at the left, and an added line has been placed in the upper right corner and printed in red. The neatness and dignity of this letterhead are an inspiration. EXAMPLE 299 Example 296.—The copy of this letterhead presented a problem which was solved by making two distinct groups of the type matter. In the main group were placed the matters of national Example 297.—Perhaps the use of italic capitals exclusively would have been more consistent, yet the one line of roman capitals does not detract from the pleasure the neatness of this heading affords the admirer of good printing. The distribution of color is uncommon. The italic short-and (&) adds a touch of decoration to the heading. Typographers will find that these old-style italic short-ands look well in display lines substituted for the spelled-out “and.” The roman short-and (&) is severe in character and is not so pleasing. Example 298.—Occasionally it is advisable to inclose type matter in a panel, altho in most instances the typographer will find that a letterhead is neater if no rule panel is used. However, there is something attractive and different about the panel treatment of this letterhead. Without the rules the heading would be neat, but would lose a distinction that is now given it by the rules. The type-face, Packard Oldstyle, possesses a quality found in hand-lettering and looks well on this heading. Example 299.—A line border finishing off the edges of the letter sheet adds a quality to the appearance of the stationery that makes it worth while when the printer uses the idea on his own stationery or a customer is willing to pay the increased cost necessary for such an effect. On the Fell letterhead the border was in a shade of ink lighter than that used for the type. The arrangement of the heading is worthy of study, especially the disposition of the officers’ names, which are placed one under another instead of being conventionally arranged in a line at the top of the sheet. While this heading is hand-lettered, it is suggestive of similar effects that could be produced with good type-faces of an old-style design. Example 300.—Another letterhead in the Caslon type-face, roman capitals and italic lower-case being used. Much of the attractiveness of the heading is due to the spot of decorative color made by the shop device, which in design blends well with the type-face and because of its position brings the eye to the title of the press. The names of the officers are placed above the center, and the service rendered by the press is outlined in the end groups. EXAMPLE 303 Example 301.—The cross-line panel is here adapted to letterhead purposes with some success. The decorative border is a suitable one for such arrangement and affords relief from the plain brass rule. However, it only departs from the plain rule sufficiently to add an interesting touch of irregularity to the lines. Text type has been used for the center, and where Caslon capitals are found in the panel they are letterspaced. EXAMPLE 301 EXAMPLE 302 Example 302.—While German treatment in advertising design and typography is usually thought to be strong and forceful, yet certain classes of work are produced in a dainty yet characteristic style. This letterhead is presented because of the interest it will doubtless have to American printers. EXAMPLE 304 Example 303.—This notehead printed in two sizes of capitals is interesting in that it is the work of a noted book typographer. The larger capitals are not letterspaced, but the smaller ones are. A triangular formation of periods EXAMPLE 305 Example 304.—Humor in a notehead is questionable and should be used only in exceptional cases. Mr. Glover, however, has used it to good advantage. Printing has always been such a serious business that customers may welcome a printer who can smile even on his note sheets. EXAMPLE 307 EXAMPLE 308 The envelop is an acknowledged convenience in correspondence. It not only protects the letter from being soiled or tampered with, but is a convenience to the post-office and a means of advertising. The first use that the printed part of an envelop has is to inform the postal authorities of the name and address of the sender so that if a letter cannot be delivered it can be returned. On government-printed envelops this information is given in the briefest and plainest possible way. However, the greater number of business men recognize the advertising possibilities of the envelop, and not only have the paper match that used for letterheads, but see to it that the typographic treatment is also in accord with that on the letter sheet. The treatment of the face of the envelop should be neat. It is not only in poor taste to cover the envelop with printing, but is against the post-office regulations. There are those who prefer to print the type matter on the flap of the envelop, and others who print the type matter in the usual corner and the trademark on the flap. Example 305.—This is a specimen of a conventionally treated envelop corner in imitation steel-engraved lettering. The old-fashioned “After five days return to” as here used is not much in vogue, and printers would do well to omit it unless the customer insists upon its inclusion. This envelop corner is in the same style of typography as the letterhead that accompanied it. EXAMPLE 306 Example 306.—Artistic interest of a medieval character has been given this envelop corner by the use of Old-Style Antique, and especially by the decorative device in color. The design of this envelop is distinctive, and mail from this source would easily be recognized after one or two letters had been received. Example 307.—Occasionally it is good policy to bring out the name of the business in a prominent way, especially if it can be treated in a decorative letter such as the one used in this instance. Not every business will allow of such prominent treatment, and in this matter the printer needs to use judgment. The type has been aligned at the left. Example 308.—It is seldom that an envelop corner is treated so harmoniously and artistically as the one under consideration. The general character of the decorative device is matched by the style of the type-faces used. The squaring of the type group also adds shape harmony. This corner card, designed some years ago, is proof of the fact that good work is always good. EXAMPLE 309 Example 309.—Seldom should an envelop corner card be as elaborate as this one, but when such an arrangement is allowable, as in this case, the design shown is worthy of consideration. The type-face is Caslon with Caslon Text, and the bands are made by using square ornaments with alternating blank space inside of rules. EXAMPLE 312 EXAMPLE 313 BILLHEADS & STATEMENTSThe printer called on to produce a billhead has a responsibility seldom fully realized. He has a duty to himself, to his customer and to those who come after, which is best carried out by suitable and dignified type composition. A business house has been known to use the same design of billhead for fifty years, and it is a fact that many merchants cannot be persuaded to change the style of the billhead, no matter how homely it may be. Billheads and statements should correspond in style to that of letterheads and other forms of stationery, and in changing the design it must not be forgotten that these other forms should also be altered to harmonize. The paper should be of the same finish and color, and the main features of type arrangement similar. The type-face must be the same on all. The standard sizes of billheads for commercial purposes are: 8½ × 5½ inches, 8 out of a sheet 17 × 22. 8½ × 7 inches, 8 out of a sheet 17 × 28. 8½ × 9? inches, 6 out of a sheet 17 × 28. 8½ × 14 inches, 4 out of a sheet 17 × 28. Professional billheads are usually an inch or two smaller than the smallest size of commercial billheads. There is a variety of sizes in statements. Popular sizes are those cut out of folio (17 × 22 inches), which then measure 5½ × 5? inches, and 5½ × 8½ inches. EXAMPLE 310 EXAMPLE 311 Whether ruled or not, it is customary to allow about 2¾ inches for the printed heading on both billhead and statement. Because of the extensive use of “window” envelops, the heading should be so arranged that the name and address of the Use of the typewriter and window envelops has brought a change in the arrangement of billheads, and printers, whenever they have opportunity, should alter the old billhead arrangement to conform to the new requirements. Most billheads a quarter of a century ago contained in the upper right corner in script (usually) a date line, and under it at the left was a dotted line beginning with a large script M. Immediately following came the firm name (usually rather large) flanked on the left by the word “To,” and on the right by the abbreviation of debtor, “Dr.” So the apprentice boy was taught, and he would then be further instructed to place the words “Dealers in” (or their equivalent) in small type, centered; then to display the words indicating the line of goods carried. In a small line at the lower right corner was the street address, and aligned opposite were the mystic words “Terms Cash.” EXAMPLE 314 The probable reason for the “M” being discarded in recent years on commercial billheads is that many business houses are now corporations, which fact makes “Mr.” and “Messrs.” no longer suitable as forms of address. EXAMPLE 316 Example 310.—This specimen presents the main features of the average commercial invoice, or billhead. Usually there are conditions of sale which can be placed at the top of the heading with a rule underneath, altho they are sometimes arranged at the side or at the foot of the invoice. The name of the company is given most prominence, followed by mention of the commodity or product. The number, street and city naturally should be displayed so that the customer’s location can be referred to quickly in correspondence. “Sold to” precedes the space left blank for the customer’s name, and this, as has been explained, should be in the lower left corner. Blanks for the date, terms, invoice number, ledger number, customer’s order number and other notations of record may be grouped in convenient open spaces. Example 311.—The composition of a billhead really begins with the composition of a letterhead. It should be possible to take any letterhead and by adding a few lines convert it into a billhead. The specimen under consideration shows how this is done. The original of this billhead was exhibited as Example 283 in the preceding chapter. The conventional phrase “Sold to” is placed in its customary position and the other phrases added at suitable spots. Printers should keep this suggestion in mind and, when laying out a billhead, design the upper part as they would a letterhead. EXAMPLE 315 Example 312 (Insert).—This is an interesting representative of the non-stock-ruled heading, and it also illustrates the changes the typewriter has wrought in billhead printing. When bills were written in by hand, script type and dotted rule prevailed, but because of the use of typewriters, script and horizontal guide lines are gradually disappearing from the face of billheads. The example under consideration also demonstrates the effectiveness of Caslon lower-case for billhead purposes. When every line is in roman lower-case there is harmony, but sometimes there is also monotony. In this instance, however, the introduction of italic and small caps would alter the plan of the heading and detract from its distinction. The rule border and the panel for the insertion of customer’s name and address give distinction. Example 314.—Here is a billhead, or statement, in classic typography that suggests the style of the fifteenth century. The heading is practically in one size of type. Advertising distinction is obtained by using capitals for the name, capitals and small capitals for the business name and address, and italic for “In account with.” There is not much that is striking about this billhead, yet, printed on a fine quality of writing paper, it would make one really glad to receive a bill of this kind. EXAMPLE 318 Example 315.—D. B. Updike makes plain by this specimen, as well as by the preceding one, that typographic art and good taste can be used in the designing of a billhead as well as in the designing of a book. The woodcut device has the same good quality as the typography. The old-fashioned “M” and “Dr.” are used, and blend well with the old dignity of the heading. The ruling on the lower part of both of these headings was printed from rules. There are other good printers who prefer brass rule to the ruling machine for billhead purposes. Machine ruling is convenient, but is not in good taste for billheads, statements and letterheads of really fine quality. Example 316.—The stationery of a book dealer should have a bookish character—that is, the typography should be inspired by the same skill and taste evinced in the treatment of a good book. A well-designed type-face should be selected, and there should not be a great contrast in the sizes used. When it is possible to have two printings, the extra impression could take the form of a simple rule border in color, as on this specimen. The first type line runs almost from border to border at the head, and another portion of the copy is arranged directly under it in three even lines. The “Sold to” occupies its approved position. No guide lines are provided for the accountant’s part of the bill, as with a typewriter the various items can better be filled in without them, and a billhead really looks neater without the rules. Example 317.—For printing on colored stock strong treatment is sometimes advisable—treatment such as has been given this heading. On white paper the type sizes should be kept small, as the light background illuminates the print. White and black form the greatest contrast. There is not much contrast between blue ink and blue paper, for instance, and it is necessary to strengthen the print by the use of a larger or bolder type-face. The arrangement shown is unconventional. A full line has been made of the business title, the name itself being slightly emphasized by printing it in color and giving an initial effect to the first letter. Other parts of the copy are grouped at suitable points, “Sold to” occupying the usual lower left corner. EXAMPLE 317 EXAMPLE 319 Example 319.—A decorator’s stationery seems to offer opportunity for effects away from the customary plain treatment of the average heading. This statement, in the same style as a letterhead that accompanied it, shows a decorative type-face and an arrangement that could possibly be called decorative. The upper two type groups are joined by the uncial initial, and the two groups at the left are connected by the flower ornament. EXAMPLE 320 EXAMPLE 321 Example 320.—This is an unusual arrangement for a billhead. As the business is stated in the firm name, there is not the usual necessity for a second display line. While this arrangement could be carried out in some other type-face, the serifless “block” letter as here used is not displeasing. The grouping of the branch houses is good, and other groups are also well placed. Example 321.—Most business houses find need for credit bills, to be used when goods are returned or some error has been made in billing. Such forms are easily provided by using the billhead, adding the words “Credit Memorandum” at the head and changing “Sold to” to “Credit.” In order that credit bills may look unlike regular bills, they should be printed in color as is here shown. Example 322.—All professional stationery should be refined. The sizes of paper and type should be small and the whole effect restrained and polite. Such work seldom changes in style, and consequently there is little variety. The form shown here would probably prove acceptable for many years to men of the medical and similar professions. It may not be out of place to remind the reader that an invoice (or bill) is a list sent to a purchaser or consignee, containing the items and charges of merchandise that have been forwarded to him. As to the statement: It is a common practice to send each customer at the first of the month a statement showing the debit balance of his account to date, whether it is due or not, enabling him to compare the statement with the ledger account. In order to call the attention of customers to the fact that payment is desired, many business houses send a statement whenever a bill is due (when goods are purchased on January 10, as an instance, at ten days, a statement is sent January 20). There are numerous other forms used in business, such as checks, deposit slips, drafts, promissory notes, bills of lading and the like, but there is not space to show them here. Such forms, if possible, should be in harmony with the style of the letterheads, billheads and other stationery. The same type-face should be used and the arrangement of display parts should have similarity. EXAMPLE 322 EXAMPLE 323 EXAMPLE 324 PACKAGE LABELSThe effect of an attractive package is recognized to be of such importance that a widely known manufacturing concern recently sued a competitor for imitating the appearance of its packages and labels. However, not all business men feel this way about it. After spending time and money in the production of merchandise of high quality, it is more than foolish to economize on the packing. It is possible, with good clothes well selected, to make an unattractive person attractive, and it is also possible to make an attractive person unattractive by poor clothes ill selected. Apply this. The wrapping paper should be strong, and of color and finish suited to the article to be wrapped. Some stylish city dry-goods houses use paper with distinctive stripes or small monograms printed over its surface. A well-known haberdasher wraps his hats in soft black paper. The selection of the wrapping stock should of course be governed by the character of the business and the class of customers, but as in similar instances, it is dangerous to underestimate the taste of one’s customers. The persons who lack appreciation of a neatly wrapped and attractive package are very few indeed. Among merchants, druggists are known to wrap the neatest packages. This seems to be due in part to their professional training. Not many printers give their product a similar attractiveness at the time of delivery. EXAMPLE 325 EXAMPLE 326 The art of making a good impression also includes the fastening of the wrapper. Cord and twine are commonly used, and interest is sometimes added by selecting appropriate colors. Linen tape for a business of an exclusive nature gives distinction. Gummed-paper tape, while convenient, seldom looks well, and when printed on looks worse. Corrugated board when properly used adds both neatness and protection to the package. Some printers have cartons made from this board, in which their product is packed and delivered. The printed label is of the most interest, as it affords a spot of attraction and furnishes information needed in the delivery of packages. All labels should be planned with the wrapping paper as a background. A label may look well alone, yet when placed on the package may appear weak and uninteresting. In order to test this, two labels of contrasting treatment are pictured mounted on a sheet of conventional wrapping paper. It will be admitted that the stronger label is more striking and catches the attention. There are those who will prefer the weaker label because of its neatness and beauty, yet we must not lose sight of the fact that labels, unlike business cards and letterheads, are not usually seen at close range when on packages. A business card is examined a few inches from the eyes, while a label on a package is frequently viewed from a point several feet away. EXAMPLE 327 EXAMPLE 328 EXAMPLE 329 There does not seem to be any standard size for labels. They vary from four, five and six inches wide to three, four and five inches high. When The American Printer conducted a label competition it specified the size as five by four inches, and this seems to be a good average size. The paper on which the label is printed should be stock that pastes easily. White is used to the greatest extent, altho a cream-tinted color such as comes in Japan vellum is preferred by some persons of good taste. Example 323 (Insert).—As has been said, this label shows the effectiveness of heavy effects. A design such as this has advertising value. It can be seen and read at some distance, yet is not offensive in appearance. The red border is attractive, and merges the label with the wrapping background. The type-face has decorative quality. The combination of black, red and cream in strong contrasts is worthy of study. As will be noticed, all capitals have been used, and there is not much space between the lines or between border and type-face. Example 324 (Insert).—For small packages and for a business that places emphasis on daintiness this label treatment would be just the thing. The classic simplicity of its design and the mere touch of color should appeal to many. The main line is set in fourteen-point capitals and the other three lines in twelve-point small capitals. Letterspacing adds decorative interest and merges the letters with the background by allowing the paper to show thru. The type-face is Goudy Oldstyle. The dots between the words are hyphens slightly cut. The border is arranged to suggest an architectural panel. This label and the preceding one have been composed merely to suggest possible effects. It would not be difficult to adapt most label copy to the styles shown. Example 325.—This and other hand-lettered labels included in this chapter are presented as studies for the typographer. Hand-lettered designs by good artists are usually arranged with much thought, and the details give many ideas to those who have trained themselves to grasp them. It will be noticed that the border of this label is composed of three lines, a heavy and light line close together and a light line a trifle removed. At the head are two lines of roman capitals and one of italic. Do not overlook the smaller capitals “M” and “O,” and the close spacing of the words in italic. The device is small and in color. The use of roman lower-case, capitals and small capitals and italic in the lower group should be examined carefully. While it is not possible to obtain exactly these same results with type, they can be approximated effectually. It is well, however, to emphasize at this point that in approximating the effects of any good piece of lettering it makes a difference what type-face is used. It will be noticed that the italic capitals in this specimen have a decorative quality. Such an effect can be imitated in a small way by the use of the swash letters that are furnished with some old-style italics. Example 326.—This is another lettered design that is rich in suggestion. No border is used, and the lettering is arranged close to the Example 327.—There is suggestion of Italian art in this label. Similar effects could be closely approximated with typefounders’ material. Attention is called to the manner in which the letters are treated so as to avoid an excess of blank space in such groups as the “ATA” in “catalogue.” Rule guide lines in a panel are provided for the address. This space is usually left blank on modern labels, altho conservative houses are inclined to retain the rules. In line with old ideas, the “M” is included in the address portion. This letter is usually omitted on labels for the same reason that it is left off of billheads. Example 328.—Closely spaced black-toned lettering is still liked by some persons, and there is no use denying that when it is well rendered the effect is pleasing. This example presents a mass of black lettering in three lines of equal length, the lines merging with one another to preserve the mass effect. The border, formed of a heavy and a lighter line, is drawn with human irregularity that is in keeping with the character of the design as a whole. The “For” in italic affords contrast in both form and color. Also note the treatment of “St.,” which is made small and placed in a position above the base of the other letters. This treatment is typical of antique typography. Example 329.—That artistic quality and interest may be put in a label form by means of typography is proved by this example. The lacelike border, the spaced Kennerley types and the words and rule in red blend attractively. Advertising value is present, yet it is so merged with the general composition and the label that it is not offensive. In fact, it adds decorative qualities. This label form would look well clearly printed on a rough-finished paper of good quality—a hand-made paper if possible. Example 330.—Another typographic label of character, a study in black and white. The border (a combination of a heavy and a light rule) was made intensely black to contrast with the white background, an effect as of color. A type-face (Bodoni Bold) with similar strong contrasts was then selected, arranged with liberal margins in the upper part. A suitable ornament in dark tones added the picture element, and the words “Deliver to” were widely letterspaced, as they were used decoratively. This and the other typographic specimens indicate the possibilities that are present in the everyday tools of the printer and the material that is available. Many printers feel that they are not able to produce typographic work of real quality, assuming that special equipment is needed. The truth is that many are not able to produce good printing because their type equipment and decorative material have not been well selected. The fact that there is a lack of suitable type-faces usually reveals itself to them after they have learned that one type-face is not so good as another. In the finished work there is nothing seen of the presses, of the imposing stones, or of the composing frames, but the print of the type-face is on every sheet. EXAMPLE 330 EXAMPLE 331 EXAMPLE 332 EXAMPLE 333 EXAMPLE 334 EXAMPLE 335 Example 331.—A specimen in Caslon, in which roman capitals and italic lower-case (the Aldine combination) make up an interesting label. The swash italic capitals add a specific decorative quality. The large lower-case “f” gives a graceful touch to the “for.” Dotted rule inside the black border is a change from the conventional continuous line. This form was printed on Japan vellum. Example 332.—This is another hand-drawn label with qualities that can be approximated in typography. Border, decorative device and lettering are in the same key, and the harmony is agreeable. There are those who thoughtlessly condemn black borders as funereal, a judgment that is based on prejudice and not on an understanding of their use. It is well, however, to caution the young compositor against abuse of the black border; it would be well if he were to use no black borders until he had developed taste in the practice of typography. Example 333.—An unusual label design that could probably be improved with careful typography. The initials of the text lettering are not exactly harmonious, and the space between words in the lower group is excessive. Printers should practice on the improvement of the design. Example 334.—A characteristic Goudy type arrangement, with a freedom of treatment that is distinctive. How many printers would give the prominence to “From” that it has here? This suggests the custom of printers of the sixteenth century in starting a title-page with a large size of type regardless of the importance of the word or words. Example 335.—This label was used in mailing to a special list some fine pieces of printing. The name of each addressee was printed in with type as shown by the reproduction, and, needless to state, attracted attention. The treatment of this label is uncommon in another respect—the modest inconspicuousness of the phrase, “From the Bartlett-Orr Press, New York.” It would do no harm if printers also studied the stock labels manufactured by certain stationery houses. They will find much that is poor and commonplace and little that should be directly copied, but there are many suggestions in label making that could be adapted. The “reverse-plate” idea is one. The label is set in type and a proof sent to the photo-engraver, who makes a plate in which the letters show white and the background black. This plate can then be printed in color on gummed paper and the paper trimmed so as to “bleed” the edges of the printed background. EXAMPLE 338 EXAMPLE 339 EXAMPLE 340 BUSINESS CARDSPolite society requires that a visitor shall be announced by a card bearing his or her name, and the courtesies of business call for this same formality. The man called on unexpectedly is placed at a disadvantage if he has not understood the visitor’s name and has no idea of his business. A card that clearly tells both name and business prevents embarrassment and misunderstanding. The card makes it unnecessary for the caller to explain who he is. Without the printed information he would likely need to introduce himself thus: “I am James Johnson. I am president of the Johnson Manufacturing Company. We manufacture machinery for the making of paints. Our office is at 320 Broadway. Our telephone number is Worth 4653.” But with all this neatly printed or engraved on a card, dignity is maintained and embarrassment avoided. The sizes of business cards are far from being standardized. Examination of about one hundred business cards showed a range of sizes from 3 × 1½ to 4 × 2½ inches. The size of which there were most and which gave an indication of standardization was 3½ × 2 inches. Fully one-quarter of the cards were of that size. From this investigation it would seem logical for printers to use that size unless the customer orders otherwise. White cards predominated in the lot examined, and this suggests that it is in good taste for the printer to use white stock on most of the business cards that he is called on to print. EXAMPLE 336 EXAMPLE 337 Example 336.—If an effort were made to standardize the contents and arrangement of a business card, the plan presented by this example would probably result. The customer’s name is placed at the point of greatest prominence, a trifle above the center of the card. The words describing the business are second in position under the customer’s name. The street and number are taken care of on the next line, and under the street and number is the name of city or town. In the lower left corner is provision for the representative’s name. The telephone number, for which a business card is frequently preserved, finds place in the upper part of the card. A variant for the position of the street and number and the name of the city or town is in the lower right corner. Example 337.—Here is a card that is a model of dignity and of simple business-card treatment. A good word can be said in favor of using the individual’s name in the center of the card and the firm name in a less prominent position. When a card is handed to a business man, he looks at it first for the purpose of finding out who it is that wishes to see him. A card of this kind tells him instantly. In many cases the individual’s name alone would be sufficient. No business is mentioned, as it is one of those cases in which it is assumed that the name of the firm provides sufficient identity. In omitting mention of the business, one should make sure that the firm is as well known as he assumes it is. If the name is not familiar to the person receiving it, he will be perplexed, not knowing if the visitor desires to sell him books, insure his life, or buy a bill of goods. In the typographic treatment of this card Cloister Oldstyle, capitals, has been used for the smaller line and Cloister Bold, capitals, for the larger line. This slight contrast in the strength of lettering in many instances gives quality and legibility to steel-engraved and lithographed business cards and stationery. The printer by having a well-designed type-face in two strengths will be able to introduce similar good qualities in his work. The spacing between words on this card is closer than that usually allowed by compositors. Close spacing between words is a quality found in good lettering and in good typography. Example 338 (Insert).—While EXAMPLE 341 Example 339 (Insert).—Conceding that a conventional arrangement on a white cardboard is best for most purposes, it cannot be denied that a design of the strength and interest of this one would often be received with pleasure by the man in the business office. It is not unlikely that the thought would occur to him that the printer who can produce a card of this kind is qualified to design and print publicity matter equally attractive for other purposes. Bewick Roman is the decorative type-face shown. The border and ornaments used are essential to the good results in this design. The card would not be as pleasing with the ornaments or the border taken off. This card, by the way, is one of the good things arranged by Will Bradley back in 1905. EXAMPLE 343 EXAMPLE 344 Example 340 (Insert).—Quality is added by an attractive black monogram on a background of white supplemented by the gray formed by the type group. This is an interesting specimen of business-card typography, suggestive of architectural panel treatment. The lines (in Cloister Title) are graded in size according to their importance, the telephone line occupying an unusual position between the street address and the name of the city. Because of its position, it also adds a bit of legibility and prominence to both of these lines. Example 341.—This treatment is similar to the preceding example, with the decorative device in color. EXAMPLE 342 Example 342.—This card is an interesting contrast to those that have just been considered. Example 343.—Here is a card French in motive and of a style that emits exclusiveness. It almost pictures the high hat and frock coat of the man who would probably use it. All the formalities are observed, the abbreviation “Mr.” preceding the name. The man who uses a card of this kind would no more think of mentioning his business on a card than he would of putting a business sign on his residence. The open-face type is College Title and the italic is Caslon. Example 344.—An unusual arrangement in blocked Caslon capitals slightly letterspaced. Arrangements of this kind are difficult for the compositor and should not be attempted unless he is not hurried and can experiment with the details of the composition. The shape of the monogram lends itself to the general arrangement. EXAMPLE 345 Example 345.—This is a compact arrangement built EXAMPLE 346 Example 346.—This card would better please the average person if italic capitals were substituted for the roman. However, there was a historical motive for treating it in this manner. When Aldus Manutius introduced the slanting style of type we know as italic, only lower-case letters were cast, and roman capitals were used with them. Example 347.—The Germans in the designing of business cards seem to have abolished conventionality, as they endeavor to have each card in its design possess distinct advertising value. This example is representative of such effects. EXAMPLE 348 Example 348.—The designer of this business card took his cue from the word “decorators” and endeavored to form a card with decorative values. This was the reason for the selection of Bewick Roman for the type-face and the Italian ornament to occupy space that is usually left blank on business cards. EXAMPLE 349 Example 349.—When dainty effects are desired, Caslon italic, as used on the greater portion of this card, almost always looks well. Example 350.-A strong ornamental effect, such as appears on this card, is liked by some people, but the printer would make a mistake to use it unless he was sure that the customer would care for it. The typographic treatment is simple and compact and lacks nothing in legibility. The shape of the border corners fits into the space left by the contour of the type group. EXAMPLE 347 Example 351.—An arrangement that has a suggestion of the classic. All lines are in one size and in capitals. This treatment should not be used excepting in special cases, as it would not meet the approval of most customers. Example 352.—In the amount of matter it contains this card contrasts strongly with Example 343. Some small business men find it good advertising to give as much information on their cards as the size of the card will allow. This example shows how a great deal of copy was treated so that the general effect was not displeasing. In order to accommodate this amount of copy, it is usually necessary to enlarge the size of the card a trifle. Bodoni was used for all excepting two lines, the firm name and address, which were set in Bodoni Bold. Example 353.—A decorative card that could be merged in color treatment with an antique-finished stock of some suitable tint. EXAMPLE 350 Example 354.—Horizontal lines crossing the face of a card are rarely successful because they usually separate EXAMPLE 351 EXAMPLE 353 EXAMPLE 354 Example 355.—This card in Bodoni and Bodoni Bold capitals, letterspaced, with the use of a few rules, has distinction that could be successfully carried to other forms of stationery. The contrasting heavy and light rules blend with the heavy and light lines of the Bodoni Bold. These specimens will convince both printer and user that there is more than “one right way” to design business cards. Typography is the interesting study that it is because, to paraphrase the words of Shakespeare, age cannot wither nor custom stale its infinite variety. Some style of typographic treatment is available to meet the likes and dislikes, preferences and prejudices, of every one using business cards. The strictly conventional person can be supplied with a strictly conventional card, proper in all details. The artistic person, he of the flowing tie, can obtain a card with sympathetic qualities. The noisy huckster can be supplied with a typographic effect that almost shouts the message it contains. In fact, character and personality can be expressed typographically on the business card, and the printer will find this matching of typography with human nature an interesting study. A large city wholesale house cannot afford to circulate the cheap-looking, inharmonious cards that some owners of small shops on side streets seem pleased to use. EXAMPLE 352 More than an ordinary amount of thought should be given to the physical construction of a business card. Because of the present great interest in all forms of advertising, more individuality is permissible than formerly. As typography can give distinction and attractiveness to business cards, printers should study the use of type on this class of printing, and give their customers the best possible service. EXAMPLE 355 Printers are producing cards in imitation of intaglio work to satisfy customers who do not consider that a truly typographic design “looks like a business card.” There is no use denying that copperplate engravers set the style for much of the business-card printing. Shops doing this imitation work should have samples of the best card work done by engravers, so that their imitations may be as accurate as possible, so far as concerns style, face and arrangement. There is little pleasure in being an imitator unless you are a good one, and here is opportunity to gain a reputation for the clever printing of imitation engraved work. Good stock, a dense-black ink and perfect types are means to this end. Pleasing results have also been obtained by using green-black ink or dull gray-black ink, which assists in conveying the soft, pleasing effects of lithography. EXAMPLE 356 THE BLOTTERBlotters have a place in modern business which, while not so important as that of business cards, is fairly well established. Business cards are left with customers as reminders, and altho blotters are sent for the same purpose, they have the added quality of usefulness. The treatment of a blotter should be as well thought out as that of a business card. In a sense the blotter represents the business house sending it, and while it may show less restraint and dignity than the business card, coarseness should be avoided in the handling of both type and illustration. EXAMPLE 357 The blotter as a means of publicity much used by advertisers is no longer an experiment; it is a familiar form in the printshop. The advertising value of a blotter seems to lie in its ability to do one of two things—strongly and favorably to attract attention when received, or thru attractive simplicity to grow in favor during use. The former may be likened to a rocket which compels attention and pleases for a moment, and the latter to a star whose beauty attracts forever. In planning a blotter it is well to keep in mind its utilitarian character and make it as useful as possible. The size is determined by the sheet of stock out of which blotters are cut. As the stock measures 19 × 24 inches, most printers cut blotters a trifle less than 9½ × 4 inches, thus securing twelve blotters to a sheet of stock. There are others who prefer the blotters not so wide and make them 8 or 8½ inches. Another reason for the blotter size of a trifle less than 9½ × 4 inches is that it fits nicely in a standard No. 10 Government envelop, which measures 9½ × 4? inches. A size of blotter that is also much used measures about 6 × 3¼, and fits in a No. 6¾ Government envelop, which measures 6½ × 3?. This size is most convenient for inclosing with everyday business mail, and it is possible that most of those actually using blotters prefer the smaller size. The blotter with an enameled surface on one side is probably the best for use. A person naturally rubs his hand over the blotter to absorb the wet ink, and an enameled surface feels more pleasant to the touch. When not many blotters are on hand in a business office those with absorbent surfaces on both sides render the greater service, but usually advertisers keep offices well supplied. From a printing point of view the blotter stock with one side enamel-finished is better for illustrations or small type, while rough-finished stock is suited to typographic treatments that require antique effects. EXAMPLE 358 Example 356 (Insert).—This blotter represents not only the size of a great many blotters but the contents, as it is customary to include a monthly calendar. Too frequently forms of this character are made inharmonious because stock calendar plates are utilized and are accompanied by type-faces of another design. This lack of harmony is seldom necessary, as the printer in his typography should match the style of type used for the stock calendar plate. Sometimes in addition to the calendar plate a stock illustration is also introduced, with consequent duplication of spots of attraction. Either the calendar plate or the illustration should be used; not both. The typographic arrangement of blotters oftentimes is of a poor kind because the copy is separated into numerous display parts. In so far as it is possible, the treatment should be simple, and in order to suggest such treatment this example has been prepared. It will be noticed that the entire blotter has been set in one design of type-face—all EXAMPLE 359 Example 357.—Most blotters contain too much type matter. The business man would probably appreciate a modest little announcement and consider it a relief from the sledge-hammer advertising that too often forces itself on his attention in an unwelcome way. As one rubs over the average blotter he finds it almost necessary to close his eyes because of the strong character of the design or color treatment. The arrangement of this example is a suggestion for a little blotter that would doubtless be welcomed by many. It could be of a size that would fit in the personal checkbook. Because of the intimate character of its use the typography should be confined to a simple paragraph or to a group arrangement as shown. Both the message and the treatment here given are in good taste for such a purpose, and, as has been suggested, it is likely that similar treatment on a larger blotter would win approval. Example 358.—This blotter was used in the writing room of a convention hall and was prepared for a state meeting of a church organization. It will be noticed that only the week of the convention is given in the calendar, and that it begins on Thursday and ends on Wednesday. Some of the factors that make this blotter pleasing are the liberal blank space, the black lines of the rules, and the ornament in color. Text type is used because of the religious character of the convention, and it is letterspaced. As a general rule it is well not to letterspace text type, but here in order to obtain a certain distinctive effect it has been done with good results. Example 359.—Here is a suggestion for a simple typographic arrangement with strong but pleasing contrasts. The color of the rule border contrasts with the white of the background and the black of the illustration. The gray effect of the type group is a harmonizing factor that softens the contrasts. Only one face of type—Cloister Oldstyle—is used, and that of a size that makes it possible for the business man to read the message as he blots his EXAMPLE 360 EXAMPLE 361 EXAMPLE 362 EXAMPLE 363 EXAMPLE 364 Example 360.—This blotter has the character of an architectural panel, a motif that is adaptable to many forms of typography. The general gray effect of the Forum Title and the architectural border is satisfying, especially as the type group and border are separated by a liberal amount of blank space. The shape of the type group suggests a keystone. This is one of those blotters that the business man should find pleasure in using and looking at frequently. It will be noticed that the spacing between the words is less than the en-quad which the typographer would customarily use in capital lines. It would be a mistake to separate these Roman capitals with more space than that used here. Example 361.—It has been said that two important factors in good typography are the material that is used and the material that is not used. Horace Carr has done many good things with the Caslon type-face, but none more pleasing than this blotter. It is a model of good taste in blotter typography and the sort of treatment that has proved to be good blotter advertising. This particular example was received by the author some years ago and was then reproduced. Testing it with careful examination after all this time, it looks as well as ever. Example 362.—Here is suggested a neat, refined arrangement, in which type group and illustration are placed practically in the center of the blotter and surrounded with blank space that accentuates its neatness. Example 363.—This blotter—one that was submitted several years ago in a blotter competition—shows treatment which calls for the use of large type that occupies almost the entire surface of the blotter. While an effect such as that of the previous example is preferable for most purposes, there are times when it is desirable to have the typography arranged on a large scale. Example 364.—It is customary to design a blotter the broad way, but occasionally printers desire for the sake of novelty to arrange it the narrow way, as is done on this example. The blotter has decorative quality because of the use of the gray border and the lower-case of Kennerley Oldstyle. Lower-case properly used is usually attractive. EXAMPLE 365 Example 365.—A touch of appropriateness is given to this blotter by the use of the scroll decorative piece, and the harmony is further carried out by the selection of Bodoni Book for the type portion. EXAMPLE 366 POSTERS, CAR CARDS, WINDOW CARDSPoster printing is a specialty in large cities, where plants are equipped for the economical and effective production of such work. However, consideration of the subject in this chapter will be confined to the interest it may have for the general commercial printer, he who is called upon at one hour to print a business card and at another to produce a window card, car card or other form of poster printing. The type equipment of the poster specialist includes strong gothic and Clarendon faces, of a variety of widths that enable him to make a full line of almost any word or combination of words. When such strong-printing capital letters are used, most of the lines should be full, as the general effect should be one of compactness. A very little amount of spacing is sufficient. No extended reference will be made here to the conventional poster that carries these heavy types, as its arrangement is merely one that emphasizes in a plain manner the various important parts of the copy. Skill is necessary, but not the skill of an artist. The wood-type equipment of the general commercial printer need not he elaborate, but it should be well selected. There should be a blending of styles in type-faces from the smallest size of metal type to the largest wood letter. The wood-type makers duplicate most of the standard job faces, so that harmony in this respect need be no idle dream. EXAMPLE 367 Among poster printers a sheet 29 × 39 inches is taken as a unit and is known as a “one-sheet.” “Four-sheet,” “twelve-sheet,” etc., are terms designating the number of units or “one-sheets” in the whole display. On the other hand, the commercial printer’s “sheet” poster is generally the full 25 × 38-inch paper, a “half-sheet” being 19 × 25 inches and a “quarter-sheet” 12½ × 19 inches. The size of car cards—the advertisements used in trolley, elevated and subway cars—is usually 11 × 21 inches. The most common sizes of window cards—advertisements placed in store windows by courtesy of the merchants—are quarter-sheets (11 × 14 inches) and half-sheets (14 × 22 inches), the unit of which is the standard sheet of cardboard (about 22 × 28 inches). Posters in their most attractive form are designed in pleasing combinations of decorative illustration, lettering and harmonious coloring. The printer with type alone cannot give the picture element, but he can give color and lettering. What a poster authority has said of the pictorial poster can to some extent be said of the typographic poster: “The poster should be simple, clever, attractive, perhaps sparkling, spontaneous, appropriate, sometimes humorous, but in good taste, and should tell the story at a glance. It should not be elaborate in detail or labored; the designer should know where to stop. The coloring should be brilliant, yet simple; when many colors are used most of them are wasted, as the eye does not see them all. As detail in a poster is lost at a distance, it is unnecessary. The best posters have no background and not much lettering, as small lettering cannot be seen across the street, which is the test.” It is assumed that the typographic poster is viewed at closer range, as in its smaller sizes it is usually hung in stores and offices or posted in convenient locations that permit of easy reading; yet the printer who sets the work, as well as the man who writes the copy, should keep before him the manner in which the poster, car card or window card is to be used. A person sitting on the opposite side of the car should be able to read the EXAMPLE 368 EXAMPLE 369 EXAMPLE 370 EXAMPLE 371 Example 366 (Insert).—The possibilities of typographic effects in poster printing are to be seen in this example, arranged by Frederic W. Goudy. Forum Title, designed by him, was selected as the type-face. In order to obtain the larger sizes, the type was set in a smaller size, a clear proof pulled and a photo-engraving made. This poster measures up to the qualities outlined by the poster authority previously quoted. It is “spontaneous, appropriate, simple, clever, attractive.” Example 367.—Altho this design is lettered, it should prove of great value to the typographer as a study of composition. In the production of this effective poster Mr. Dunn has given of his talent as an illustrator as well as of his skill as a letterer. The apportionment of blank space in the margins and at the head is pleasing, and it helps to make effective the black masses of lettering and the octagonal illustration. The border of thick and thin lines ties the design together. Example 368.—Most cards in urban cars are made up greatly of design and illustration, but in this one we find the illustration taking a minor position. The lettering is the main feature, and it should suggest treatment with type that could be almost as effective. Example 369.—The strong contrast of black, red and white in this car card could be approximated with bold, well-designed wood type. The trade name is given most prominence, altho the remainder of the copy is also strongly presented. A suggestion of decoration is to be found in the ruled lines at the head and foot. Example 370.—Seldom is copy such as this furnished for car cards, yet its conversational style probably caused it to be read more than other cards. As an advertisement it is an improvement over the common method of merely stating name and business. It presented opportunity to the printer to use types in a sane, simple manner, and he did so. A two-line initial letter starts the reading pleasantly, and the name in capitals has sufficient prominence. Example 371.—At an exhibit of German modern-art posters the design that stood out most strongly was one which contained only a name lettered and an article illustrated. There was no detail to detract, and the effect was altogether pleasant. This shoe card is planned along similar lines, and the idea could well be put to further use. Example 372 (Insert).—This is a presentation of a three-sheet poster which attracted the attention of the writer a few years ago because of its simplicity. For such effects as this, which carry but little copy, lower-case letters are appropriate. It is seldom, however, that the commercial printer is provided with so few words for his posters. Lower-case display, to look well, requires plenty of surrounding blank space, while capitals accommodate themselves to close quarters. EXAMPLE 372 EXAMPLE 373 Example 374.—Printers seldom take advantage of the opportunities offered for unusual effects. This copy did not suggest anything to the compositor who first set it and the result was commonplace, with nothing to excite anything but ordinary interest. The fact that the birth of Franklin was to be celebrated should have been sufficient to suggest an arrangement such as is here presented, but it did not. Benjamin Franklin purchased his type in England, some of it at the old letter foundry of the Caslons; and what is more interesting than a poster announcement of a Franklin dinner set in the style of type-face that Franklin himself used? This has been done in the example under consideration. Roman, italic, capitals and lower-case have been blended in the interesting manner in which this was done in the eighteenth century. The long s (?) of Franklin’s time is also used, to carry along the interest; it appears, as will be noticed, in all cases excepting at the end of words. A Caslon ornamental band is at the head and foot. Example 375.—This is another instance where the copy furnished a motif that could be developed typographically. Reproductions from the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works were available and from them an initial and two decorative bands were enlarged to the desired size. The typography of Shakespeare’s time was then studied and worked into the poster. The Caslon type-face is not exactly the same as that used in the seventeenth century, but there is sufficient similarity to make it suitable. Many persons of the present day will shy at the use of a single capital letter immediately following the initial, but that is the way it was done in the old days. Typographers should early begin to accumulate a library of books. They should frequent the second-hand bookstores, and occasionally purchase some old volume that shows the style of typography of fifty, one hundred or more years ago. The best printers do this. Example 376.—It should be an easy matter to produce attractive window cards or paper hangers in this style. Selections from the many artistic and odd cover papers obtainable, supported by harmonizing color combinations, make possible any number of attractive effects. Only one size of type should be used, and the border should be one that reflects the character of the type-face. Plain rules for border purposes are more successful in obtaining harmony than is decoration. As most letters contain two widths of line, a rule border matching the wider line, or both lines, is pleasing. EXAMPLE 374 EXAMPLE 375 Example 377.—The Colonial style of type arrangement is here adapted to window-card purposes. The window card has the same advertising reason for its existence as the paper EXAMPLE 376 Example 378.—Sunday-school excursions furnish copy for many window cards. The printer may appreciate this suggestion for an arrangement of such a job. It is sufficiently unconventional to attract attention, at the same time providing a simple way of arranging the matter that usually comes in with such orders. The arrangement has merit from an advertising point of view, the information being given concisely and legibly. It is probably true that the majority of printers have given no thought whatever to the arrangement and treatment of posters. It is even likely that there are job printers who feel that poster composition is beneath their dignity. In view of these conditions, it is to be hoped that what has here been written regarding the poster will serve to create new interest in that line of work. Years ago the author knew an old printer who had the reputation of being the best sale-bill compositor in the county. His work was confined almost entirely to the setting of posters announcing sales of farm goods, yet he did it so carefully and efficiently that residents of the county traveled miles to place an order with the concern for which this man worked. EXAMPLE 377 Poster printing should not be attempted unless the equipment is such that the work can be done profitably. Lack of sufficient wood type will result in poor printing and makeshift arrangements. However, absence of equipment did not worry a certain printer who did business some years ago. He had no wood type at all, yet he accepted orders for posters and, taking advantage of the craft courtesies of those days, borrowed all the type lines from a competitor. It frequently happened that when the competitor desired to set up a bill he found that the type was mostly in the possession of the borrowing printer. EXAMPLE 378 The large two-sheet and three-sheet posters look very big indeed to the printer in the small shop whose product is confined to the output of his platen presses, yet poster printing is merely printing on a larger scale. The builder of the New York subways was once asked how he found it possible to put through such a large undertaking. He replied that he knew he could build a cellar, and a subway was merely a multiplication of cellars. The printer who learns how effectively to produce a small piece of printed advertising matter should be able, by developing and enlarging on his ideas, to produce good poster work. EXAMPLE 381 ADVERTISEMENTSNot every business man can write an advertisement well. Not every printer can set an advertisement well. Of the poor advertisements that mar newspapers and periodicals, fifty per cent of the ineffectiveness should be blamed on those who write them and fifty per cent on those who set them. EXAMPLE 379 In this chapter we are interested not in writing the advertisement, but in properly treating it typographically after it has been written. Some day advertising typography may become so standardized that a compositor can be told in a few words just how he shall arrange it. Meanwhile as there is more than one way to set type for advertisements, we must for the present depend on the study of good type work, the advice of those who have theories, and our own judgment. EXAMPLE 380 It is possible, however, to learn something about advertising typography by giving thought to the ways of the orator, who swayed human beings long before printing was invented. We have all listened to oratory in the church pulpit, the public square and the Chautauqua tents, and in halls on the occasion of political gatherings and organization conventions. Our most agreeable recollections are of those moments when we were so pleased and impressed with what the speaker was saying that we did not think of his manner of saying it. Probably the most successful printed matter is that which pleases and impresses without one’s being immediately aware of the cause. A good speaker will enunciate clearly and speak in a moderate tone that can be heard. A good typographic advertisement will be set in a legible type-face and in a size that can be easily read. Print can be too small or too large, too gray or too black. If a speaker is addressing an exclusive group of persons, he lowers his voice and talks in polite diction. If he addresses a large crowd, many of whom are of less fastidious tastes, he raises his voice, perhaps using all his power, and most likely mixes with his English a little popular slang. Thus advertising printing of the exclusive kind would likely be set in type smaller and in design more classic than that used for publicity matter that has wide and promiscuous circulation. The typographer must keep in mind that while bluntness and forcefulness are liked by some, they give offense to others. There are orators so eloquent and flowery that one is led away from the message by pleasure and admiration for qualities that should merely carry the message. There are advertisements so attractive in decorative beauty that one sometimes forgets to read them. And then there is the heavy-voiced orator who emphasizes every statement. He startles and he tires, and is as unsuccessful as the speaker who croons his audience to sleep with uninteresting monotones. How like such EXAMPLE 382 The speaker who gracefully accentuates his talk at important points has the same good judgment as the typographer who neatly displays or emphasizes significant parts of his copy—not forgetting the orator who gets applause at the wrong time, and the printer who by carelessness in arrangement suggests the wrong thought. Many speakers use the same words that Shakespeare used, but “they phrase them differently,” just as printers arrange type differently. The orator has a message, and he tries to “get it over.” The advertiser has a message too, and he calls on the typographer to assist him in gaining customers. The problems are not unlike. EXAMPLE 384 Examples 379 and 380.—These two advertisements picture the difference between setting type with a stick and setting it with the head. It would be illogical to assume that any thought at all was given to the type composition of Example 370. It not only is unpleasant to look at, but is difficult to read, notwithstanding the size of type used for the text. Benjamin Sherbow, who has given much time to the training of type to act for the advertiser, took the same material the newspaper compositor had to work with, and at the crack of his whip the words assumed a new formation. Keep in mind that Mr. Sherbow was not attempting to improve the looks of the advertisement; he did improve the appearance, but what he started out to do was to make the message easy to read. He labored from the viewpoint of the reader and not from that of the advertiser or printer. The difficulty usually is that the merchant and typographer are too close to the details of their own daily occupations and fail to view the advertisement as does the prospective customer. The important first sentence was emphasized by subordinating the type below. The smaller type is nevertheless easier to read than the same words as originally arranged. The border serves to catch the reader’s attention, as in the newspaper this little advertisement dominated the page. Example 381 (Insert).—The department-store advertisement as represented by this example is really a multiplication of small advertisements. It is necessary for the writer and printer to give attention in detail to each of the small paneled advertisements, but someone must assemble them into a harmonious whole. This is usually done by first making a layout in actual size. Such a layout as planned for the Lord & Taylor page under consideration probably looked just as this advertisement would look if everything but the panel borders, headlines and illustrations were removed. Each panel was numbered, and the copy in each instance contained a corresponding numeral. EXAMPLE 383 The style of lettering used for the firm name (Caslon italic) is a sort of trademark, as it is to be found on the store’s stationery, on its building and on its delivery cars. The ornamental border, especially the festoon effect at the head, EXAMPLE 385 Example 382.—This is one of those easily read, conversational styles of advertisement set in Caslon Oldstyle. The first paragraph, in type a size larger than the rest, invites the attention of the reader. The ornament in the upper left corner adds attraction at the introductory point. EXAMPLE 387 Example 383.—Like the house of Tiffany, the makers of Knox hats do not have much to say in their advertisements. The name and the trademark are depended on to sell the hats. Cloister Oldstyle, the type-face, surrounded by liberal blank space, is effective. Example 384.—The purpose of this advertisement is to popularize zinc, and for this reason that word stands out so prominently. The rule band at the head and foot attracts the attention, and the Caslon type-face makes the advertisement readable. Example 385.—An easily read advertisement, due to the size and kind of type and the use of blank space. Hart, Schaffner & Marx appreciate the value of good typography. The two-line initial at the head guides the eye to the beginning of the message. The signature at the foot is so placed that it is not forced on the attention, yet it cannot be missed after the two large paragraphs have been read. EXAMPLE 386 Example 386.—This arrangement of an advertisement shows a style liked by the Mellin’s Food Company. The decorative border confines the attention to the reading matter it contains, which is presented in Old-Style Antique, a dark-toned, interesting, EXAMPLE 388 EXAMPLE 389 EXAMPLE 390 Example 387.—The principal points in this advertisement are the name of the company (which is accentuated to catch the eyes of the many who know this house) and the three lines at the head (which are informative to those who may not know the Gorham company). This advertisement serves well as a study in advertising typography. Careless handling of it in the composing-room would have spoiled its effectiveness. The border has probably been used to attract attention, yet it does not interfere with the reading of the advertisement, as the typographer has maintained a liberal margin around the type matter. Example 388.—This is one of the many clever advertisements that are inserted in newspapers by John Wanamaker, and is different from most others because it is a picture-story of the goods on sale. The type matter is secondary thruout excepting in the introductory panel at the head, which is displayed merely to call attention to the style of the advertisement and to the name of the advertiser. Example 389.—Few printers have seen a department-store advertisement just like this one. It does not contain the name of the advertiser, and there is practically no display. It looks more like a story in a general magazine. A few circular illustrations are so placed as to relieve the monotony of the columns of text, and a decorative piece is placed on both sides of the heading. The page is also made interesting by the use of space between paragraphs. EXAMPLE 391 EXAMPLE 392 Example 390 (Insert).—The most difficult copy to arrange well is probably that supplied country newspapers by their advertisers. There is seldom much to the copy, and it is almost always necessary to use display unsupported by the solid paragraphs of text that soften the contrast in advertisements that appear in city dailies. Here are four advertisements different in size and representative of small-town business. Some one has urged that fancy borders be not used in the small-town newspaper, and that the rules for borders be the same thruout. This advice is probably wrong, as it was tried in this instance and the effect was found to be monotonous and uninteresting. The same rule border is used around each advertisement, but to obtain contrast an additional rule has been added to the coal advertisement and a holiday border and another rule to the general-store advertisement. These slight variations in border treatment add a great deal of interest to the page. Each advertiser is entitled to an individual hearing, EXAMPLE 393 Example 391.—The style of treatment of this trade-journal advertisement is influenced to some extent by the article advertised, yet there is no reason why this treatment would not be suitable for many advertisements of another kind. The heavy-and-light-line rule border is of a darker tone than the type page and for this reason adds color and interest. There is sufficient blank space between the border and type matter to allow for the text being read without interference. The capitals in the headings are letterspaced, the letterspacing not only giving them character, but making them more legible. The text matter is introduced with an initial that extends upward from the first line instead of downward as most initials are placed. This advertisement is of the conversational style, arranged for easy reading. Example 392.—Some one has decreed that text types shall not be used in advertisements, but fortunately those responsible for the planning of this advertisement paid no attention to the decree. The advertisement was inserted in newspapers for the purpose of calling attention to the new building in the Gothic style of architecture erected for the Hampton Shops. Any one who has studied the details of a Gothic structure such as this or the Woolworth Building has felt the influence of the long, narrow lines found in Gothic architecture. The shape of this advertisement and the thin, pointed character of the text type used are in splendid harmony with the general idea. Example 393.—There was presented to the designer of this advertisement the problem of including in legible size a long list of cities and agents and yet reserving sufficient space in which to give due prominence to the text matter. The solution of the problem was the long, narrow panel at the left. While the entire advertisement is easily read, especially in its larger form, and probably has the approval of those who insist on legibility in advertising composition, there is yet something about it that will also interest those who maintain that typography should be built on art principles. The border, trademark and name of the article advertised blend in tone, while the remaining type matter shows a pleasing gray. Inserting the trademark in the space left by the shorter words of the heading makes the effect unusual. EXAMPLE 394 Example 394.—This is one of a series of newspaper advertisements prepared for the Locomobile Company by T. M. Cleland. Planned to sell automobiles costing five or six thousand dollars, it naturally is treated differently EXAMPLE 395 Example 395.—This advertisement has qualities similar to those of Example 392, the typography of which was suggested by the architecture of a building. Here we have an illustration of a building in Roman architecture, hence it is suitable that the type should be Forum, which is based on Roman carved lettering, and that the border should contain lines that suggest an architectural panel. Of course, this matter of harmonizing the plan of an advertisement with the architecture of a building can be overdone. An advertisement is not necessarily a good advertisement because of such harmony, yet if an advertisement is readably presented, harmonious type selection and arrangement should add effectiveness. Example 396.—This advertisement in a way suggests Example 385, and in contrast with that example furnishes a study in the use of blank space. In the Hart, Schaffner & Marx advertisement the margin is equal on both sides, and monotony is avoided by having the margin at the foot of the type group more than on the sides. In this Kodak page the text group is courageously pushed to the extreme upper right corner, and all of the blank space is assembled at the left and at the foot. The use of so much space is probably for the purpose of attracting attention, which it undoubtedly does. Nevertheless, it is possible that the advertisement would look better if the text group were treated as in Example 385. EXAMPLE 396 EXAMPLE 397 EXAMPLE 398 Example 398.—Altho this is a lettered advertisement, it is a good example of blank space used to attract attention not only to the advertisement, but to the illustration, which here is really of the most importance. It should be noticed how the blank space in the upper right portion clears the way for a view of the automobile. Many advertisers are using a strip of white space in their advertisements, at the right or at the left. Example 399.—The treatment of this advertisement proves that it is not absolutely necessary to have the typography of country-newspaper advertisements as formal as that presented in Example 390. For general newspaper use Bodoni modern might have preference over the more interesting Cloister Oldstyle, yet a newspaper treated entirely in old-style type-faces would be likable. If this advertisement were placed on the average newspaper advertising page, it would stand out strongly because of the blank space used around the type group, the restful and pleasing type-face and the dark-toned border. Example 400.—The manner in which this page of advertisements is treated should have suggestion for newspaper and periodical publishers who wish to make their classified-advertising sections more interesting. This page, from a trade publication (The American Printer), was set in eight-point type instead of the six-point that some publications usually use. It is a mistake to use type smaller than eight-point for matter that is supposed to be read. The expense and the time necessary to put in initials at the beginning of each advertisement are avoided by capitalizing the first word and setting it flush with the end of the line. Instead of using the stereotyped “Help Wanted” and “Situations Wanted” headings, human interest was introduced by phrasing each heading as a question, as would likely be done on a larger advertisement. EXAMPLE 399 EXAMPLE 400 EXAMPLE 403 NEWSPAPERSWe are all familiar with the modeling clay with which children amuse themselves. They take a portion of gray clay, mold it into some shape, and decorate it with small portions of red, yellow and blue clay. After they tire of their production they knead it with their fingers and lo! the bright colors disappear and there remains only the neutral gray. EXAMPLE 401 The only way the typographical appearance of the average newspaper can be improved is by first reducing the glaring headlines and heterogeneous assortment of type-faces to a neutral gray. Upon this drab background the details of suitable and harmonious typographic form can be built. However, it is easier to assert that the typography of newspapers can be improved than it is to improve it. In the early days of newspaper publishing the problem was a simple one, but today the newspapers of the large cities have hundreds of thousands of readers to serve, and much of the prevailing poor typography has resulted from efforts to present the news to these readers in a way that editors assume will please them best, without giving any thought to technical defects in the type work. EXAMPLE 402 EXAMPLE 404 EXAMPLE 405 The Title.—The name of the newspaper at the head of the front page should be distinctive in design, and it would probably add interest if the style of the letters composing the title bore some relation to that used at the time the publication was founded. Unfortunately, on most newspapers the headings are altered every time a new type dress is adopted. For titles, most publishers of city newspapers seem to have a liking for English or German text letters. Such letters are doubtless good for the purpose, as they are different from any that appear elsewhere in newspapers. The New York Sun, as an instance, uses a black German text letter, altho on its first issue in 1833 the title head appeared in modern roman capitals. It has become a practice to make use of the blank space on both ends of the title line, and in such spaces will now be found weather forecasts, slogans such as “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” and edition names. (See Example 405.) It was the custom at one time, and is today to some extent, to print under the title a quotation which defined the newspaper’s editorial policy. (See Example 403.) A type line under the title separated by rules on both sides contains the name of the city, the date, the volume number, and information regarding the price. (See Example 403.) Usually the rules have a double line, altho some newspapers use single rules for this purpose. The Text.—The main desire of newspaper publishers, besides preparing the news, seems to be to have the matter set in the smallest size of type that can possibly be read. The large city dailies habitually use a seven-point type-face, which is the smallest that should appear on any newspaper. (See Example 406.) During the recent prevailing high cost of print paper some publishers began to use six-point in order to save paper, but they found that this move was a mistake. Newspapers are published to be read, and everything possible should be done to make the reader’s task an easy one. Experiments by an educational body in England resulted in determining that ten-point should be the minimum size of type used for educational purposes. From this it will be seen that the seven-point type used on newspapers is too small and a cause of eyestrain. The narrow width of the columns of newspapers—twelve and a half or thirteen picas—makes reading of the small type fairly easy, however. The eye has been tested scientifically and the discovery made that a person actually sees at a glance less than an inch of a line of type. Hence long lines require extreme side movements of the eyeballs or of the head. It is a mistake, as will be seen, to set editorials in a measure that extends over two columns, as is done on some publications. Space between lines also helps the reader in locating the beginning of the next line, for which reason, and also to give them prominence, editorials are usually leaded. The beginning of an important article is sometimes leaded. Lengthy excerpts or quotations are usually set in the same size of type but indented one em at the right and left ends of the line. (See Example 405, third column.) The Headings.—The first newspaper continuously published in this country was a letter (see Example 402), and the items it contained were not set off with headings. As the quantity of news increased and newspapers became larger in size, headings were added. During the middle of the last century most of these were side headings joined to the first paragraph. When it became possible to print news promptly more attention was given to displaying the headings. As the Civil War developed, newspaper headlines grew, and with the Spanish War came front-page headings of poster proportions. Headlines not only advertise the contents of the text pages, but assist the reader quickly to absorb the news. As the reader cannot in these busy days read the entire paper, headings assist him in locating the items in which he is interested. The error of using thrilling scareheads for comparatively unimportant events was made evident when the European War started. Some of the publications had cried “Wolf!” so frequently that there was no emphasis left for a really big story. EXAMPLE 406 Head-letter type should not be intensely black, unless the reader is expected to read only the headlines. It is irritating to attempt to read the text matter in an article if strong black headlines continually glare at you. (See Example 404.) The head letter should be just a trifle darker in tone than the background of text type, or if liberal leading is possible a letter the same tone as the text is suitable. Because of the narrowness of newspaper columns it is necessary that type for headlines shall be slightly condensed, especially for the large lines. As few type-faces are legible in a condensed form, it is a problem to select a type-face for this purpose. Probably the most successful type-face of this kind has proved to be Latin Antique Condensed, a letter that has been in such use for a number of years. (See Example 406.) It is, of course, best to have all type-faces harmonious in design, but the requirements of the newspaper are so unusual that in order to secure contrast this rule must be EXAMPLE 407 It is well first to harmonize the newspaper page, as in Example 403, and then add needed contrast, as in most newspapers attempts at contrast are so frequent that the result is confusing. Paneled headings also add variety; specimens of such headings will be found in Examples 404, 407 and 408. Restraint in the use of display headings by the New York Times, as compared with the noisy scareheads of the New York American used in reporting the same news, will be seen by comparing Example 405 with Example 404. What is called a four-deck single-column heading, as used by the New York Times, is shown actual size in Example 406. Latin Antique Condensed is used for the first two lines and Newspaper Gothic for the other three decks. This heading as it stands is perhaps the most pleasing and legible of those used by metropolitan newspapers. A four-deck heading should present in the first deck the feature of the story; the first deck, and if possible every other deck in the heading, should contain a verb. The third deck is really the second in importance, and, like the first one, is usually set in capitals. The size of the lower-case used for the fourth deck is usually smaller than that used for the second. It would be a mistake to use capitals for the second and fourth decks, as the result would be monotonous and illegible. The small section of text matter accompanying the head also shows a seven-point face on an eight-point slug, as used by the Times. The Make-up.—In the make-up of a newspaper the sometimes derided “art tenets” should not be neglected. A good-looking newspaper has well-balanced headings, properly placed illustrations, and the various typographic details treated according to the requirements of good taste. Large display headings are usually alternated at the head of the page with small headings, which arrangement not only looks well, but enables the reader to peruse one heading without interference from another. It is the practice of most good newspapers not to have advertisements appear on the front page, which is given over to the important news of the day. As will be seen by Examples 404 and 405, the article of most importance, no matter how large the heading given to it, appears in the furthermost right column, whence it is usually continued to the second page. Example 403 also shows how an important article can be featured in the center of the page. Interest and variety are also obtained by the use of a one-point rule around a portion of the news, as will be seen on Examples 404 and 405. The type matter on the inside is set close to, but not against, the rule panel. The editorials on most newspapers are to be found on the sixth page, and on the same page letters to the editors are also placed. There is a movement, begun by the Hearst newspapers, to have the editorials appear on the last page so that they may be read without the necessity of locating them in the paper. The sporting page has also come to be an important feature of the newspaper. An attractively arranged sporting page is shown in Example 407. It is customary to build advertisements from the lower right corner of the page in a step or pyramid arrangement. (See Example 408.) This allows most of the text matter to appear at the left and in the upper portion of the page, and also makes it easy to give position next to reading matter as required by some advertisers. EXAMPLE 408 EXAMPLE 409 PERIODICALSThe typography and the make-up of periodicals in the century last past were sedate and uninteresting to most Americans. As a consequence there came a change, and publishers endeavored to make their publications more attractive to readers. The letterer and the decorator were permitted to let their fancies run free over the magazine pages, and assuming that their readers had poor taste and weak eyesight the publishers of trade journals splattered their pages with ugly black circus poster type. So long as there is poor printing (we read in the Good Book: “For ye have the poor always with you”) there will be periodicals typographically poor. Yet, thanks to those who have trained themselves as typographic advisors, many American periodicals are now good to look at and at the same time easy to read. EXAMPLE 410 We will consider the dimensions of the publication, the front cover, number of columns, the margins, type-faces for the text and for the headings, make-up of the illustrations, arrangement of headings, the captions, the editorial pages, features, and the advertisements. The Dimensions.—Whim has much to do with the selection of sizes for periodicals, and precedent, or what the other fellow is using, has some influence also. Assembled and stood on end, several dozen periodicals gathered at random present the appearance of a platoon of “rookie” soldiers before they have been ranged according to hight. Sixty-six business and technical publications were recently measured by the writer, and the dimensions of about half of them approximated 9 × 12 inches. The other half varied from 6 × 9 to 10 × 15 inches. EXAMPLE 411 Examination of about two score of magazines revealed three groups of dimensions: 7 × 10, 9 × 12 and 11 × 14 inches. These dimensions are approximate, few magazines measuring EXAMPLE 412 EXAMPLE 414 EXAMPLE 413 Scribner’s is a type of the magazine in the 7 × 10 class (the actual measurement being a trifle minus); the Independent, of the 9 × 12 class (actual measurement 8¾ × 12 inches); and the Saturday Evening Post, of the 11 × 14 class, measuring exactly that size. There has been a movement among magazines away from the smaller dimensions toward the larger, for the purpose of better displaying features and of enabling reading matter to be placed alongside of advertisements. To a similar extent the business and technical publications have experienced reductions from the very large sizes that originally were probably inspired by the bigness of newspapers. There are also a few small pocket magazines of the Philistine size that Elbert Hubbard made popular. The Front Cover.—Typography has little to do with the average cover of the general magazine in America. The foundation of the design is usually a painting, the subject being seasonable or otherwise appropriate. Lettering and decoration are added by an artist other than the one drawing the picture. In such cases the design is changed with every issue. Some magazines, the more conservative ones, use a design containing lettering and decoration only, and with each issue merely change such lettering as refers to editorial features. The European custom of printing a paid advertisement on the front cover of periodicals has extended to America, and, while such advertisements will not be found on the general magazines, some business and technical periodicals have succumbed to the temptation thus offered for increased revenue. When the front cover is sold, only an inch or so is retained for the title of the periodical. One publisher did stipulate that no color in the cover advertisement should come within two inches of the title; but even this rule is now disregarded on his periodicals. The time may yet come EXAMPLE 415 EXAMPLE 416 EXAMPLE 410-A A weekly technical periodical in every issue has some appropriate view made into halftone and uses it inside a large panel under the title, and a photographic journal prints a reproduction of an artistic photograph on the cover, changing the subject with each issue. Columns.—The number of columns to a page should be decided by the size of type used. Seven-point and eight-point type should be confined in columns twelve or thirteen picas wide. Ten-point, eleven-point and twelve-point type can be read even if the columns are sixteen or more picas wide. However, no column in a book or periodical should exceed twenty-four picas. Neither should a column be unreasonably narrow. Scientific tests show that the eye is strained in the reading of wide columns. The column should be of such width that reading of the matter can be accomplished with only slight movements of the eyes to the right, after they have been focused at the beginning of the line to fit the size of type. When the column is too wide the head must be moved to the right and left with the reading of every line or the eyes may be injured from the strain and repeated change of focus. A look over the examples of periodical pages in this chapter will show practically an acceptance of these requirements—three columns in the periodicals of large size and two columns in those of smaller size. For pocket magazines one column is naturally sufficient. In several instances (Examples 417 and 418) three columns instead of two would have been advisable. Gutenberg, when he planned the pages of his famous Bible, arranged for two columns each about twenty picas wide, altho his type was large—about twenty points in size. EXAMPLE 424-A It is a great mistake to set, as some business publications do, six-point type in lines twenty-five or thirty picas wide. To require the reader’s eyes, after being focused on such small type, to travel back and forth that distance is almost an invitation not to read the matter. The Margins.—Blank space surrounding the printed pages in periodicals should be apportioned as it is in good books—the smallest margin at the binding side and increasing in amount in this order: Head, outer side, foot. Even when the total amount of margin is small it should be apportioned in this manner. The rule can be stated in another way: the largest margin at the foot, with the type page inclining toward the bound side. Periodical binderies do not always give the publisher good margins, even after he has planned for them. Unevenly cut paper, careless folding and inaccurate trimming will prevent the securing of desired results. In measuring margins the running headings should be ignored if they are small, but in any event the printed page should have the appearance of being a trifle high on the leaf. Type-Faces for the Text.—Type-faces for the text matter of most periodicals must be chosen for reasons different from those governing the selection of type-faces for other purposes, because of the small size, usually eight-point or nine-point. EXAMPLE 422-A Type-faces that are legible and good-looking in twelve-point may prove illegible and ill-looking in eight-point. This is to some extent true of Caslon Oldstyle when printed on calendered surfaces. Such illegibility may be due to the hairlines, which almost disappear in the small sizes. Commendable letters for periodicals that require small type-faces are the dark-printing kind represented by Century Expanded. Examples 422 and 424 are set in letters of this kind. (See also Examples 422-A and 424-A for type matter as actually used.) As these types have short descenders the text matter is made more legible by separating lines with one-point leads or, in machine composition, by casting a face on a body a point larger (as in Example 424-A, which shows an eight-point face cast on a nine-point body, and in Example 422-A, which shows nine-point on ten-point body). French Oldstyle (especially Cadmus) is not only fairly legible in small sizes but good-looking. A representative of this style of type will be found in Examples 410 and 411, and is shown actual size in Example 410-A. Modern or old-style type-faces that are legible when printed on news paper or antique paper are sometimes not so when printed on calendered surfaces. A type-face such as Caslon Oldstyle was designed for printing on dampened paper of an unfinished surface, and it is no wonder that it does not appear at its best in small sizes on calendered paper. EXAMPLE 417 EXAMPLE 419 EXAMPLE 418 EXAMPLE 420 EXAMPLE 421 It is absolutely necessary that the text matter of a periodical be easily read, yet the type-face should not be selected for that reason alone. It should be well formed and pleasing to look at, and, if possible, be a face that makes feasible some harmony in design between text type and head letter. In publications that have text matter in eleven-point or twelve-point a letter such as Caslon Oldstyle would doubtless be satisfactory, and on small publications Old-Style Antique or Cushing Oldstyle render excellent service. Scotch Roman, notwithstanding the fact that it contains hairlines, gives fairly good results, provided the paper is not highly calendered. Letters with hairlines when printed on calendered paper lack the little legibility that they otherwise possess. Many letters could be made more legible, especially those composed on machines, by cutting the matrices so that the print of the thin lines is a trifle stronger. The chapter on “Type-Faces” should be read in this connection. Type-Faces for the Headings.—An ideal condition in periodical make-up is one which makes possible the use for headings of the identical design of type that has been selected for the text matter, as in Examples 410 and 411, where a French Oldstyle has been used, and in Example 415, where Scotch Roman is the type-face. It is not possible always to use the very same design of type-face for both headings and text matter. After a text letter has been chosen for legibility or other reason, the identical type in larger sizes may prove to be too plain for the sort of periodical on which it is to appear. And there are sometimes special reasons, regrettable but unavoidable, an instance of which is this volume, wherein the text matter is in Scotch Roman (a modern letter with some relation to old-style) and the headings and captions in a type-face of old-style form. This combination is not ideal, and the explanation follows. In order that “The Art and Practice of Typography” could be published at a price that would enable it to be widely circulated, the chapters, as soon as each was prepared, were first printed in The American Printer. The type-face used for the text matter and headings in that publication was Scotch Roman, hence it was felt necessary to use Scotch Roman for the text of this volume. However, it was believed that a darker type-face of old-style formation would be more pleasing for the headings, and a Goudy letter was selected. EXAMPLE 422 A modern type-face (Bodoni Bold) appears on the headings in Example 412, 413 and 414. Bodoni (not the bold) is also used for headings in Examples 416 and 427. Caslon Oldstyle is to be found used for both headings and text in Examples 426 and 430. Old-Style Antique appears in Example 431. The Saturday Evening Post for many years made use of an old-style letter for its headings that as a type-face was known as Post Oldstyle. The italic, outlined and filled in with gray-printing lines, is shown in Example 424. A Gothic decorative letter is not out of place on a Christmas number of Collier’s (Example 425), but is not recommended for general use on periodical pages. Large, bold, black type-faces for headings in periodicals should be avoided. Interest can be added, in the treatment of department EXAMPLE 423 Editorial and title headings in typographic treatment should blend with other parts of the text pages and not look, as some do, like quarter-page advertisements inserted in reading matter. Example 429 shows good treatment. Make-up of the Illustrations.—When planning to use illustrations on periodicals both facing pages should be before the person doing the planning. The text matter of the two pages forms a background of gray, and the problem is to place illustrations, headings and initials in positions that will not only be well balanced but so assembled that one will not interfere with another. Usually there should be some text matter between illustrations; they should be placed toward the outer side of the page (see Example 422). The center position is practicable when there are three columns and the illustration is but a single column in width, or when the expense of running around may be incurred (see Example 424). Illustrations frequently look better separated from the heading, as in Example 414, than when joined with the heading, as in Example 412. The same style of illustration should, if possible, be used on facing pages. Make-up that shows a line plate on one page and a halftone on the adjoining page is inharmonious and not so pleasing as when all illustrations on facing pages are of the same character. They should be, say, either line like that in Example 414 or halftone like that in Example 412. EXAMPLE 424 EXAMPLE 425 When an illustration appears on a text page, initial letters EXAMPLE 426 Pleasing use of a vignette style of illustration is to be seen in Example 430. It lends interest to the first text page and at the same time illustrates the leading article. The illustration in Example 429 is also effectively placed. Arrangement of Headings.—Headings, in a way, advertise or “sell” the contents of a periodical, and their arrangement depends on how far the editor or layout man wishes to go in advertising or “selling” the contents. The American people have so much reading matter available that it is probably necessary in most instances almost to force them to read the various articles in periodicals. Encyclopedias are read even if there are no display headings and the type is in six-point, and there are periodicals that are read without urging; but it may as well be conceded that articles are read more when they are well advertised. A well-advertised story will be found in Example 413. The title is brought out prominently in a large, bold type, as is the name of the author. The italic line above the title smacks of real advertising, as does the group of type inserted in the upper part of the text. The display in Example 412 is frankly advertising in its appearance. The Saturday Evening Post heading (Example 424) is large, but there is no descriptive advertising, and there is little of the nervous fear of going unread so evident in Examples 412 and 413. Calm, yet pleasing, treatment of headings is to be found in Examples 411 and 423. It is well to give attention to the presentation of article headings, but sometimes in the place where the heading should go there is so much noise and so much talking that, as a means of resting the nerves, the leaf is quickly turned or the periodical laid aside. EXAMPLE 427 Periodical titles, as they appear on the first text page of each issue, are variously treated. The small, neat effect of Example 423 is commendable. It is in Scotch Roman and harmonizes with the article heading and text type. Title headings on a larger scale will be found in Examples 410, 415 and 416. Special lettering is sometimes pleasing, as in Examples 421 and 430. The news department of trade and business periodicals requires numerous headings. Example 427 is suggestive. There the news articles are in narrow columns and have a newspaper style of heading. Caslon Oldstyle looks well on any class of publication. Roman capitals and lower-case and italic may be used in the same line, as on Example 429. The Captions.—It is customary to set captions centered under illustrations in a size smaller of the type-face used for the text matter and to arrange the caption in one or more lines no wider than the illustration. When the caption is in two parts the first part is usually set in capitals and the second part in lower-case, both centered. The lower-case is sometimes roman and sometimes italic. Seldom do captions receive the special decorative treatment that has been accorded them in Examples 412 and 414. Even two-line initial letters have been used with them. The plain double caption in roman capitals and lower-case is to be found in Examples 421 and 422. A single caption EXAMPLE 428 Arrangement of captions in lines of the same length, making a block of type (as in this book) is liked by many. However, the caption is to be read and its shape is not of more importance than its legibility. It is a mistake to arrange a caption in several lines of capitals and then letterspace some of the words to obtain the block effect. Such letterspacing advertises the effort as unsuccessful and also disfigures the page. The Editorial Pages.—In periodicals, editorial pages are treated variously. There is no standard style such as is found in most newspapers. All five editorial pages reproduced here, in make-up and typographic treatment, differ from one another. The Ladies’ Home Journal (Example 417) has the title of each editorial in a small rule panel along with the publication’s trademark, and the matter is set in two wide columns. The first clause beginning each editorial is composed in capitals and small capitals. The page is surrounded by a double-line border. Collier’s (Example 418) begins each editorial with an initial letter, followed by several words in capitals, and the title in a dark-faced italic is set at the left end of the line. A decorative symbolic heading is placed above all. System (Example 419) has a neat, readable editorial page, arranged in an interesting manner. The name of the magazine, of the editor, and the month and volume are neatly placed at the top, and the blank space that follows, occupied solely by the small black decorative mark, gives pleasure. Each editorial is introduced by a heading in small capitals and by an initial, which is larger in the first article. The editorial page of Advertising and Selling (Example 420), by Sherbow, is unlike any of the others. Rules are used between columns, on both sides of headings, and above and below the page heading. The result is pleasing, and invites reading of the page. EXAMPLE 429 The style of make-up of The American Printer editorial page (Example 428) was purposely patterned after that of the conventional newspaper editorial page. The editorials of conservative metropolitan newspapers are probably read more regularly than any other part of the publications, and such reading has possibly been invited by the restful style of the typography. There is reason to believe that this somewhat old-fashioned treatment and its lack of affectation have really accomplished what was intended. The editorial page should be unlike the other pages of a periodical, and these examples should assist printers and editors in determining suitable typographic treatment. Features.—Typography can have much to do with the playing up of features in periodical make-up. An instance is the page reproduced as Example 426, which consists of what would ordinarily be the notes of the convention. In this instance the notes were written in a style that suggests the quaint diction of Colonial days. Some of the words of the text were capitalized, as was done in those times. In the page heading a few of the letters were tilted to give an irregularity caused in old composition by defective typefounding. Even the brass rules were nicked (brass rule was seldom in good condition in the old days). A crude initial of ancient vintage and an illustration simulating an old woodcut added decorative interest. This page was a change from the routine style of the other pages. The page from Collier’s (Example 409, Insert) was EXAMPLE 430 Christmas feature treatment is also found in Example 425, also by Will Bradley. The text letter used in this example for initials and headings is hardly suitable for use generally in periodicals, but for occasional features it is not out of place. Verse when used will usually look more interesting set in italic, especially when the italic has a decorative quality. One of the important general magazines sets verse in Kennerley italic in a decorative panel broken into the text page at a suitable point. Important parts of an article reprinted in an attractive panel on the same page would call attention to the article and invite reading. A certain amount of restraint is necessary when planning typographic features for periodicals. Type-faces should be selected with knowledge and care, and seldom should large sizes be used. “Jobby” display effects are never in order on the text pages of periodicals. The Advertisements.—The typographic details of the editorial section of a national periodical in the field of advertising were recently revised and made more pleasing, yet when made up and printed the work that had been done was so overshadowed and counteracted by the bold types on the advertising pages that the general result was disappointing. It is useless to attempt good typography on periodicals so long as advertisements are inserted in text pages or occupy facing positions; that is, it is useless unless the periodicals set or reset the advertisements neatly in good taste as is done by the Curtis publications. Advertisements should not be mingled with text matter. According to old-fashioned ideas, the reader buys a periodical for the text matter, and it is for him to determine whether or not he shall read the advertising pages. In some publications the text pages are yet to be found intact, altho preceded and followed by sold space; in others good resolves peter out as text meets advertisement toward the rear, and in others—a majority perhaps—advertisements dominate almost all of the text pages. Treatment of advertisements in periodicals need not necessarily be shy and timid; neither need it be blustering and noisy. Where advertisements are neatly treated and not unduly forced on the attention, readers are likely to give as much time to their perusal as to the text pages. A gentlemanly solicitor who talks clearly in low tones is more likely to sell goods than one who disturbs the entire office by his loud talk and boisterous demeanor. Apply this to the typography of the advertising pages. Editorially, it is to be regretted that advertising must go “alongside of reading,” but it is to be deplored that in so many periodicals, especially of the business and technical class, reading matter is seemingly written and placed for the purpose of accommodating the advertising. The successful publication of a periodical, as of a newspaper, depends on liberal patronage from advertisers; yet these advertisers are best served when the publication is planned with first consideration for the text features, and the advertisements are prepared to harmonize and not clash with the typography of the text matter. EXAMPLE 431 EXAMPLE 432.—A house-organ by Taylor, Nash & Taylor, San Francisco, that features typography HOUSE-ORGANSThe house-organ is the little brother of the periodical and newspaper. It is published most frequently as a means of communication between a business house and buyers of that house’s product. Sometimes the publication is circulated only among the house salesmen or other employees. Examination of more than one hundred house-organs revealed a condition that prevails in every department of publishing—lack of standardization in dimensions. The smallest house-organ measured about 3 × 5 inches and the largest 9 × 12 inches. The dimensions grew, from the smallest to the largest, by quarter inches and half inches. There are many small pocket house-organs, some of which fit commercial envelops and others fit baronial envelops. If there is a favorite size for house-organs, it is 6 × 9, which dimensions are those of Examples 432, 436, 437, 441, 447 and 448, illustrated in this chapter. Another favorite size is 7 × 10 inches, which are the dimensions of Examples 444 and 449. House-organs planned in the style of newspapers and containing four or eight pages are usually 8 × 11 or 9 × 12 inches in size. A different stock is frequently used for the covers of house-organs, but equally popular is the self-cover style—the first page of an eight- or sixteen-page form containing the cover design. The practices that govern the use of cover designs on periodicals apply to some extent to house-organs, although typographic covers are more often found on the last-mentioned kind of publication. Example 441 shows a typographic cover in which most of the page is given over to a table of contents—not a bad idea when the contents are abundant. Should a house-organ consist of only two or four leaves, it is unnecessary to give over the entire first page to a cover design, as the title could be treated as in Examples 436, 438, 439, 448 and 452. If the cover page is to be lettered, it is well to have it treated in a style that will harmonize with the typography of the inner pages. See Example 435. Seldom is there any reason for a house-organ to contain more than four or eight pages. Few of the more ambitious house-organs survive the first one or two issues, or are profitable if they do. A house-organ to be effective should be published regularly. Too many instead of being periodicals are “spasmodicals.” There is more likelihood of a house-organ being published regularly if it be modest in plan and brief in contents. Printers err when they suggest elaborate and bulky house-organs to their customers. The smaller kind, neat and stylish in typography, attractive in make-up, good to look at and easy to read, are more desirable under average conditions. EXAMPLE 433 EXAMPLE 434 EXAMPLE 435 EXAMPLE 436 EXAMPLE 437 EXAMPLE 438 EXAMPLE 439 The titles of house-organs are not usually as conventional EXAMPLE 440 EXAMPLE 442 The number of columns that should be used in house-organs depends, of course, on the size of the page. One column is sufficient for the small pocket publication (Examples 433, 434, 435, 445, 446, 453, 458 and 459). The page should be made up in two columns when the size is about 6 × 9 (Examples 438, 439, 440, 444, 448, 449, 450 and 451). The purpose of more than one column is to make reading easier and not just to provide a narrow column. On some house-organs the columns are made so narrow that it is as difficult to read them as when they are very wide. EXAMPLE 441 The margins on the house-organs should be of the same proportions as on periodicals and booklets—the most margin at the foot, with the type-page inclining toward the head and binding side. In fact, such margins should be found on all printing in which there are two facing pages. The type-faces used on house-organs should be legible and at the same time good-looking. Caslon Oldstyle is suitable for house-organs as well as most other purposes. The Caslon style of type is used on Examples 433, 434, 436, 440, 441, 448, 450, 451, 453, and 455. Other faces used on the house-organs here reproduced are Kennerley Oldstyle (Examples 432, 445, 446), Old-Style Antique (Examples 442 and 447), Cloister Oldstyle (Example 452), Bodoni Book (Examples EXAMPLE 443 EXAMPLE 445 EXAMPLE 446 EXAMPLE 444 What has been said in the chapter on “Periodicals” about the suitability of type for headings applies as well to house-organs. In most of the pages here reproduced it will be seen that the head letter is the same kind of type as the text letter or is harmoniously similar. The treatment of display announcements or house advertising should be such as to carry out the purpose for which the house-organ is issued. If, as an instance, the publication is issued for the purpose of presenting the attractive wares of a stationery house, it would be well to devote half of the pages to illustrations, descriptions and prices of stationery supplies. Sometimes when the display announcements are as numerous as the text pages, an announcement is placed on the left page facing a text page at the right. When this is done, the typography should be neat in appearance; the type sizes should not be large, and the type itself not any blacker than, say, Caslon Oldstyle. Especially is it a mistake to use dark faces when illustrations of merchandise are a part of the page. Dark type-faces subordinate and render ineffective such illustrations. A house-organ designed entirely—display announcements included—in the original Caslon Oldstyle by someone who knows how to get the best out of the type, would be ideal. The capitals, small capitals and lower-case of roman, and the capitals and EXAMPLE 447 While house-organs should be edited with the purpose of presenting useful technical and business information to customers, there should be sufficient light matter and features to maintain interest. Not unimportant is the typography of such features. In the make-up of all house-organs are spaces at the end of articles that are available for feature purposes. Example 432 shows how one bit of blank space was made attractive by well-arranged small capitals, and in Example 450 similar use has been made of italic. Articles of merchandise that are old-fashioned in their appeal furnish a motif for typographic treatment that can be made a feature. Examples 433 and 434 show Colonial typographic treatment, the use of italic and spaced small capitals, added to which is a feature page topped by an old-fashioned woodcut. There is a suggestion of ancient rubricated books in the typographic handling of Example 445, appropriate for a printer who does typography especially well. Borders around the text pages of house-organs can be made to act as features if they are designed with proper restraint, as was done in Examples 432 and 450. Rules and decorative borders, ornaments and initials are not out of place on house-organs when used as they are in Examples 440, 443, 444 and 445. When the house-organ is issued monthly an old-fashioned “almanack,” with appropriate matter interpolated, makes a good feature, as in Example 457. EXAMPLE 448 EXAMPLE 449 EXAMPLE 450 EXAMPLE 452 EXAMPLE 451 EXAMPLE 453 As a novelty, house-organs have been printed on blotter stock. The general treatment for blotter house-organs is EXAMPLE 454 EXAMPLE 456 House-organs are sometimes successful when laid out in newspaper style for four pages about 9 × 12 inches in size. The text matter is planned for three columns, the text type being eight- or nine-point, such as is customarily found on machines. Headings are graduated on the newspaper plan according to their importance. Illustrations are included at suitable points in such newspaper-like house-organs. EXAMPLE 455 There is suggestion for a novel house-organ treated in old-time newspaper style in the reproductions of the first two newspapers published in America. (See Examples 401 and 402 of the chapter on “Newspapers.”) A western printer, who has found the house-organ to be effective in his business, expressed himself in these words: Nowadays children are entertained as they are taught, and they learn unconsciously and much more readily than when study was made a task and a hardship. That is the principle we must embody in a house-organ—entertain and instruct simultaneously. Make your readers smile and enjoy themselves while they are learning the value of good printing, prompt service and square dealing. Create in them a desire to be as particular about their printing as they are about their company or the set of a collar, but keep them entertained and interested the while. Of course this can be overdone, so don’t make the mistake of having too much outside matter, but keep to your subject in a tactful way. The day is past when business secrets can be kept from the buying public. During the past ten years magazine and general advertising policies have educated consumers along entirely new lines, and now they insist on knowing why they pay special prices for specific articles. They not only want to know why, but what it is, where it comes from, who makes and sells it, and how. The sooner we tell them these things, just that much sooner will confidence be established and buyers of printing acquire a knowledge that will enable them to buy intelligently, to distinguish between the economy in good service and the extravagance in poor service. In a house-organ there is unlimited opportunity for preaching the gospel of good service and for educating the public to the fact that that kind of service is the cheapest. EXAMPLE 457 EXAMPLE 458 EXAMPLE 459 I consider the establishment of this confidence between the printer and customer one of the strongest pulling features of a house-organ. I do not mean by that that one should open his books to the public, but give enough information to let your readers know that you are in a business that requires capital for its conduct, that it is a dignified business, that you give efficient service, and that such efficiency costs you proportionately as much as it costs him. Having let your readers into this much of your business secrets, keep hammering away on your service and efficiency, but do it in a tactful way. Don’t bore him. Entertain him. Remember the old proverb, “He who tries to prove too much proves nothing.” So give it in homeopathic doses, but mighty regular ones. A feature of the house-organ as issued by a printer should be specimens of actual work. Small cover designs and pages from booklets and other specimens can be saved and collected from overruns and presented in the house-organ. It would be better to use but one or two specimens in each issue than to overload the publication. Only creditable work should be included in this manner. If, say, a bit of four-color process work is produced, it should not be used as an exhibit merely because there is color in it, but it should be tested by answering these questions: Is it a good drawing? Are the colors properly blended, or is there an unpleasant predominance of red and yellow? Are the plates in good condition? Have they been properly printed? Unless the answer is affirmative, it would be better to include neat, modest black-and-white specimens. Many house-organs are made ineffective by the anxiety of the business house issuing it to include everything possible. A number of issues should be planned and each should contain a limited amount of text matter and illustration. Many of those to whom the house-organ is sent also receive dozens of others, and examination and reading of the publication should not be discouraged. When there is too much of an abundance, the house-organ is either thrown in the waste basket or laid aside and never looked at again. Loose inclosures should not be numerous. Attention is frequently taken away from the house-organ itself by the variety of envelop slips, calendars and blotters that are included in the mailing. There should be nothing but a return post card, and this should be clipped to the inside of the rear cover and not tucked in on top of the title-page, as is too often done. Several return cards are reproduced (Examples 460, 461 and 462). When these post cards are planned the postal regulations governing their use should be investigated. It may be well to quote from the United States Postal Guide: Post cards manufactured by private persons, consisting of an unfolded piece of cardboard in quality and weight substantially like the Government postal card, not exceeding in size 39/16 by 59/16 inches, nor less than 2¾ by 4 inches, bearing either written or printed messages, are transmissible without cover in the domestic mails (including the possessions of the United States), and to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Republic of Panama, and city of Shanghai (China), at the postage rate of 1 cent each, and in the foreign mails at the rate of 2 cents each, to be paid by stamps affixed. Advertisements and illustrations may appear on the back of the card and on the left half of the face. The right half of the face must be reserved for the address, postage stamps, postmark, etc. EXAMPLE 460 EXAMPLE 461 EXAMPLE 462 EXAMPLE 463 TYPE-FACESTYPE-FACES, at first acquaintance, are no more easily remembered than the faces of people we meet. Many persons look alike and many type-faces look alike, until we get to know them intimately and are able to distinguish their characteristics. The average man or woman is unable to identify Caslon Oldstyle, Scotch Roman, Bodoni Modern, or any specific letter used in printing, altho there are those who have a vague idea of the existence of types known as “old-style” or “modern.” EXAMPLE 464-A The fact that there are thousands of type-faces on the market adds to the difficulty of recognizing and naming them, and the situation is further involved by the practice of composing-machine makers in using only numbers to designate type-faces and by various typefounders giving different names to the same design of type. The special type-faces of private presses are usually given the name of the work on which they are first used. Six Representative Standard Roman Type-FacesBelieving that such a service would be appreciated by printers and users of typography, the author made a study of the thousands of Roman type-faces on the market, with the purpose of selecting a half-dozen representative standard faces. It was felt that these type-faces should be legible and good-looking, and possess character; that their merits should be acknowledged by authorities, and that the types should be capable of wide serviceability on both book and job work. EXAMPLE 464-B EXAMPLE 465 The face first selected—and without hesitation—was Caslon Oldstyle as originally designed. Scotch Roman was the second selection, Cheltenham Oldstyle the third, Cloister Oldstyle the fourth, Bodoni Book the fifth, and French Oldstyle the sixth. (All shown in Example 467.) Type-faces designed and cut for private use were not considered in making these selections, as it was believed best to adhere to type-faces that are procurable from most foundries and that are available for machine composition. It may be well to inject here a warning that most so-called Caslon Oldstyles are not as good as the one selected (Example 467-B); that Jenson Oldstyle is inferior to Cloister Oldstyle (Example 467-A) as a representative of the original Jenson type. However, good representatives of Scotch Roman (Example 467-D) are obtainable under the name of Wayside, of National Roman, etc. EXAMPLE 466 EXAMPLE 467 Selection of these faces was also made just as a person makes a wise selection of records for a Victrola—for permanency and investment. As standard records can be selected which will “wear” for a long time, so standard type-faces can be selected which will look well for many years. Good type-faces are like good music. We will discuss these six faces. Cloister Oldstyle.—Use in American printing of a standard type-face based on the Roman letter cut by Nicholas Jenson about 1470 has been retarded by the fact that typefounders in this country some years ago used as a model Morris’s interpretation of the Jenson face instead of going direct to the original letter. Jenson’s face had been copied by Bruce Rogers, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, Frederic W. Goudy and others, and the fonts used privately, but for general use it was not until 1914 that a creditable copy of the face was made available by the good judgment displayed by the American Type Founders Company in bringing out Cloister Oldstyle. This is probably the best rendition of the spirit of an old Roman type-face that a modern type foundry has made. If there is a fault, it is that the lower-case letters set a trifle too close. EXAMPLE 468 EXAMPLE 469 EXAMPLE 470 EXAMPLE 471 Jenson’s face was not the first Roman type made, as is EXAMPLE 472 Sweinheim and Pannartz were German printers who, in 1465, began to print near Rome. Until this time the black Text letter such as Gutenberg had printed with ten years before was the only one used in typography, but book buyers in Italy wanted Italian lettering. The German printers attempted to cut an Italian face, but in appearance they did not advance far from Gothic lettering (Example 468). EXAMPLE 473 EXAMPLE 474 EXAMPLE 475 John and Wendelin of Spires, Germans, began to print at Venice in 1469 with a type-face that was more Italian in character, yet it had Gothic characteristics. Nicholas Jenson, a Frenchman, who began to print in 1470 at Venice, was more successful, and he gave to the world the fine Roman type-face that he used on his first book, shown, together with a sample of contemporary lettering of similar design, as Example 470. More facts about Jenson will be found on page 14. EXAMPLE 476 EXAMPLE 477 EXAMPLE 478 EXAMPLE 479 EXAMPLE 481 As time went on, printers and typefounders made changes in the Jenson design, but these alterations were not numerous (the cross stroke in the lower-case e was one, Example 495), and fairly close resemblance to the Jenson types is found in the Roman types of Paul Manutius, 1566 (Example 472), Daniel Elzevir, 1675 (Example 477), and Fournier, 1766 (Example 478). EXAMPLE 480 In selecting a page from Jenson’s book, “Eusebius,” to be photographed, the writer had great difficulty in finding one of sufficient evenness and clearness of print. It may be that Jenson, in his endeavor to enhance the “White Letter” effect of his types, used a minimum of ink, and, under these circumstances it was perhaps more difficult for him to maintain consistent page color than it was for Gutenberg to do so with his “Black Letter” pages. Bruce Rogers’s printing of his Jenson-like pages of typography would be a revelation to the old-time Venetian printer. Jenson made his Roman letter in only one size, and that fairly large (about sixteen-point), so that the open design of the characters would admit white light from the paper background. When, some years later, he was required to print cheap devotional books, he cut and used a compact Black Letter Text type for the purpose. There is now a movement away from the mechanical style of type-face, restricted in design by arbitrary craft rules, in the direction of the graceful, interesting yet legible faces represented by Cloister Oldstyle. This type will be found in use in Examples 171, 240, 256, 266, 286, 316, 337, 340, 341, 345, 357, 359, 372, 383, 399 and 452. The Italic that accompanies Cloister Oldstyle is based on the Italic of Aldus Manutius. Caslon Oldstyle.—This is a historic American type-face. It was used by that renowned American printer, Benjamin Franklin; it appears on eighteenth-century school books, and even our paper money was printed with it. It was the type-face used by John Dunlap, the Philadelphia printer, in setting up and printing the first published EXAMPLES 479-A and 480-A Today, nearly two hundred years after the first font was cut, Caslon Oldstyle has the approval of the good printers of America, who regard it, in its original form, as the best and most useful Roman type-face available, as it is one of the few old faces the punches and matrices of which have been preserved and placed at the disposal of all printers. The Caslon foundry in England now casts the original letter as “Caslon Old-face.” In this country, all typefounders make some sort of Caslon, and it may be procured practically in its original form, with long descenders, kerned f and j, old special characters, decorated Italic capitals and all, from the American Type Founders Company, which has named it “Caslon Oldstyle 471” (Example 517). Other foundries are preparing to furnish the letter more in its original form, and composing-machine makers are doing likewise. The monotype company, after cutting several faces in imitation of imitations of Caslon’s type, finally copied the original fairly successfully, and this, as now obtainable, is known as Caslon Oldstyle No. 337. The linotype company is recutting its Caslons and is making a sincere effort to reproduce the original letter as closely as possible. Mechanical difficulties prevent an exact duplication in every detail of the Caslon type in machine composition, yet the companies that are attempting it show a spirit that augurs well for the future quality of printing in America. Caslon Oldstyle is not at its best printed on a smooth, highly-calendered surface. When properly composed and printed, it presents as a page a dark-gray tone, formed of a pleasant mixture of black ink and white paper; its letters show more of a contrast in thick and thin strokes than do the Roman types of Nicholas Jenson, and have more color and interest than the modernized old-styles of the nineteenth century. In the sizes above ten-point it measures up in legibility and beauty to the requirements of the best printers and other students of typography. Caslon did not create an entirely new Roman letter, but with the elements that had already been provided by Jenson and the type designers of Holland he did, with good taste and skill, build a type-face that is distinctive, legible and beautiful. The illustration of the evolution of Roman lower-case in Example 465 furnishes opportunity for study of this point. The story of the designing of Caslon Oldstyle has been often told, yet a few brief facts may be of interest here. EXAMPLE 482 Typefounding and printing had deteriorated in England, and the product of the printing press was pathetically poor (the author was surprised, in examining important volumes printed in England about 1700, at the consistently poor work of typefounder, compositor and pressman), when, in 1720, William Caslon, an engraver on metal, was called upon to cut a font of Arabic characters, to be used in printing a New Testament for the poor Christians in Palestine and Arabia. At the same time, for use at the foot of the proofs of his Arabic types, he cut his own name in Roman, pica size. (This was at the time when Benjamin Franklin was working as a journeyman at Watt’s printing office.) The pica size, however, was not cast immediately. So far as is known, the size of Roman first to be cast by Caslon was that called “English” (about fourteen-point), which he cut in 1722. Additional sizes followed, and at about the period of his death, in 1766, there were at least thirty fonts of Roman (pearl to five-line pica), nineteen fonts of Italic, ten fonts of Black Text, and various fonts of Greek, Hebrew and other alphabets, together with more than a half-hundred fonts of flowers and bands. The fonts that have been preserved to us, and that are purchasable, do not include all. There were Nos. 1 and 2 faces in nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long-primer, small-pica, pica, english and double-pica (two-line small-pica). The No. 1 face in each case was a trifle larger than that of No. 2, and a third face, still larger, was made in bourgeois and long-primer. It is probably the smaller and lighter No. 2 faces that have been preserved to us in the ten-point (long-primer) sizes and under. The lighter, more open eighteen-point (great-primer) Italic (Example 517), so different from the Italic of the other sizes, is as Caslon made it. In some respects it is better than the Italic of other sizes. While the general appearance of all sizes of the Roman is the same (and of the Italic also, with the exception noted), there are slight differences in details of design in the various sizes. For this reason, when Caslon Oldstyle is compared with the original letters, the comparison should be with the same size in each instance. De Vinne, perhaps influenced by the prejudices and practices of nineteenth-century typefounders, in one of his books points out as defects in the original Caslon types features that typefounders and composing-machine makers are today restoring to the face as used in America. The “defects” were supposed to be: “Too long a beak to the f and j; unnecessary narrowness in the s and a, and in some capitals; too great width of the c, o and v.” Typefounders and composing-machine makers have filled the type cases of the printers of this country with Caslons that have been improved (!), recut, modified, adjusted to “lining” systems, made bold, disfigured, sawed-off and ill-treated generally; and as they bring out good copies of the original letter, it is to be hoped that, so far as possible, sale of the defective and offending type-faces and matrices will be discontinued. William Caslon died in 1766, and the business was continued by William Caslon the second, and then by William Caslon the third. Mrs. Henry Caslon conducted the business in 1796, when was brought out the modernized Caslon (Example 484-B) that was probably the model for the type we know as Scotch Roman. This modernization was a concession to the demand for types in the new style that had been designed by Giambattista Bodoni, an Italian typefounder. The influence of Bodoni’s ideas in type design was such that Caslon Oldstyle was not included in the 1805 specimen book of the Caslon foundry, and did not again appear therein until 1860, a year after the face had been reintroduced to America by a Philadelphia foundry. The story of the revival of Caslon Oldstyle in England has been told in these words: In the year 1843, Mr. Whittingham, of the Chiswick Press, waited on Mr. Caslon to ask his aid in carrying out the then new idea of printing, in appropriate type, “The Diary of Lady Willoughby,” a work of fiction, the period and diction of which were supposed to be of the reign of Charles I. The original matrices of the first William Caslon having been fortunately preserved, Mr. Caslon undertook to supply a small font of great-primer. So well was Mr. Whittingham satisfied with the result of his experiment that he determined on printing other volumes in the same style, and eventually he was supplied with a complete series of all the old fonts. America took part early in the revival of Caslon’s old-style types, for in 1858 matrices were brought to the United States by the Johnson Type Foundry, afterward MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, now the Philadelphia branch of the American Type Founders Company. The first size made in this country was brevier, which was announced in the “Typographic Advertiser,” the company’s house-organ, of January, 1859. Six months later thirteen sizes were shown, and in 1865 Caslon Oldstyle was made in sizes from pearl to six-line pica. The decorative Italic types, known as Swash letters, were not until 1916 included in the American fonts, but these, redrawn by T. M. Cleland, are now procurable. Selection of Caslon Oldstyle, in 1892, for the text and advertisements of Vogue, the use of the letter by Will Bradley at the Wayside Press, in 1896, and the general old-style revival, influenced by the work of William Morris, of the Kelmscott Press, in England, were causes that led to the present popularity of Caslon Oldstyle. This Caslon style of type-face is one of the few standard letters that has practically unlimited usefulness. Properly treated, it looks well on any class of printing, from a business card to the text and advertising pages of periodicals. It may be seen in action in this book by referring to Examples 18, 34, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 81, 82, 86, 96, 119, 121, 126, 127, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 150, 151, 167, 168, 169, 172, 178, 180, 188, 190, 191, 195, 203, 215, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 228, 230, 231, 232, 236, 239, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 260, 262, 268, 274, 282, 284, 287, 289, 290, 292, 294, 296, 297, 300, 374, 375, 382, 384, 385, 393, 394, 396, 426, 429, 430, 433, 434, 436, 438, 439, 440, 441, 448, 450, 451, 453, 455, 459, 460 and 461; the frontispiece; upper specimen, page 21; reproductions, page 23; insert opposite page 32; upper specimen, page 33. EXAMPLE 483 EXAMPLE 484 Bodoni Book.—When a representative of the Bodoni type family was selected for a place in the group of standard faces, Bodoni Book was chosen for its refinement and legibility. In its lower-case, especially when printed on other than gloss-surfaced paper, it seems to have more of the qualities of the best types of the Parma printer than does Bodoni, the first series brought out by the American Type Founders Company. Scientific tests have demonstrated that in the small sizes usually used for text purposes, type-faces with considerable contrast of hairlines and heavy strokes strain the eyes. The contrast found in Bodoni Book is moderate. John Baptist Bodoni was born in Italy twenty years after William Caslon cut his first font of Roman letter. Bodoni’s subsequent career as a printer and typefounder doubtless resulted from his entrance, when eighteen years old, to the printing house of the Propaganda, in Rome. He began his important work in Parma in 1768. The print of his books is remarkable for clearness, and in both type-cutting and printing he was skilful to a high degree. His types are not quite so regular in design as the recent Bodonis, and were given additional character by being impressed firmly in paper that did not have the enameled surface so much in use in our day. His type-faces were a change from those previously used—different from the type-faces of Jenson, the Elzevirs and Caslon. The change was principally in the serifs, which were straight, thin strokes; and the general character of the letters was also distinctive. He used a few fonts in which the straight serifs were rounded by being filled in slightly at the corners, and these fonts probably suggested to Scotch, English and American founders the style known as “modern,” as compared with the “old-style” faces in use before Bodoni’s time. The reader can compare for himself the resemblance of Bodoni Book to one of the text types of Bodoni as used in 1789. In order that the comparison could be fairly made, the Bodoni Book (Example 486) was printed on antique paper and etched on zinc, as the original Bodoni page had been (see page 26). This type is not only lighter, but other details are different from a 1790 type of Bodoni (Example 487-A), which may have served as a model for the present-day type-face called Bodoni. Compare the capital Rs, and notice that the cross stroke on the lower-case t in the 1783 alphabet is low and distinct, while on the 1789 page it is high and joined with the upper end of the vertical stroke. The latter treatment prevails on many of Bodoni’s types, as it does on practically all type-faces. Excepting for the straight serifs, many of Bodoni’s types have some general resemblance to other Roman types of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In designing the present-day Bodoni, the typefounders gave it much of the “finish” in design that was given type-faces by Scotch and American founders during the nineteenth century. Typefounders seldom succeed in faithfully reproducing old type-faces, for the reason that they “correct the faults” of the old faces, and in doing so lose much of the humanistic spirit of the original. Were it not that the punches of some of William Caslon’s types were preserved, we would not have the true rendering of this old-style that we now possess. Modernized Oldstyle represents the Caslon face corrected and improved as the typefounders of the nineteenth century thought it should be. Some American founders, however, are making excellent progress in reproducing the spirit of old type-faces, and it is possible that we may yet have a satisfactory copy of the famous “silver” types of the Elzevirs. Bodoni types are shown in use on page 26, and in Examples 26, 36, 48, 175, 176, 194, 278, 310, 322, 330, 352, 355, 365, 387, 390, 412, 413, 414, 416, 428, 437 and 458. Scotch Roman.—During the nineteenth century English, Scotch and American typefounders took Bodoni’s type-faces, redesigned them more along mechanical lines, filled in the corners of his straight serifs so as slightly to round them, and gave to the English-speaking world what are best known to printers as the modern Romans. Looking over the specimen books of the type foundries of the last century—those of Bruce, MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, and others—one marvels at the wonderful skill in the cutting of the hairlines and the general mechanical excellence of the modern Romans. Because of their continued use on newspapers and in books of reference, these letters are in wide use today, altho there is a movement away from them. The most generally used type-face on small city newspapers in America is the linotype company’s Modern Roman No. 2 (Example 489). In the hand-set days this broad, open-faced letter was so made for the reason that it would stereotype easier than would the narrower letters. It was adopted by the ready-print and plate houses, and when the newspapers installed linotypes they naturally However, instead of the selection of a severe letter, such as the so-called Scotch-cut Modern Roman as a representative type-face in the group of six standard Roman letters, the more interesting Scotch Roman won the place. This type-face was first made in America by A. D. Farmer & Son, and the eight-point and ten-point sizes were used as body type by The American Printer first in April, 1902. In September of that year there appeared in that publication showings of the eight-point, ten-point, eleven-point, twelve-point and fourteen-point sizes, with the statement that other sizes were in preparation. The name, “Scotch Roman,” probably comes from the fact that Miller & Richard, the Edinburgh typefounders, made a similar letter in sizes from eight-point to twelve-point. However, they call it “Old Roman.” Scotch Roman is the link that connects the graceful old-style and the severe modern Roman. Compare it with the letter (Example 484-B) made at the foundry owned by Mrs. Henry Caslon in 1796, and notice the resemblance. (As a further study, there is added an alphabet of Baskerville Roman, recently introduced to America.) Scotch Roman is also procurable under the names of Wayside Roman and National Roman. Scotch Roman has been used in Examples 38, 39, 77, 78, 85, 143, 152, 153, 154, 185, 186, 238, 271, 317, 400, 420, 423, 427, 428 and 444. French Oldstyle.—This is the title by which is known among printers a style of type-face made, under the name of “Elzevier,” by the Gustave Mayeur foundry of Paris in 1878. Its design, M. Mayeur tells us, was suggested by types used in a book printed in Leyden by the Elzevirs in 1634. In 1889, Farmer, Little & Co. of New York procured drives of five sizes from France and began making the letter in America, naming it “Cadmus.” The type foundry of Phelps, Dalton & Co. of Boston had as early as 1884 made a similar and rather pleasing letter in capitals only, which it called French Oldstyle. Theodore L. De Vinne was the first to use the Mayeur French Oldstyle in America. It was a favorite with Walter Gilliss, who adopted it in remodeling the catalogs and other printed matter used by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. EXAMPLE 485 The capitals of French Oldstyle are especially pleasing, and when this letter is employed they should be used in display with frequency. The Mayeur letter would be even more attractive if the proportions of its capitals were nearer those of early Roman lettering (Example 464-B), as are some other French Oldstyles. French Oldstyle is tall and formed with liberal space between the strokes of the lower-case letters. It should always be leaded, as its open character and large lower-case demand that it shall not be crowded. Like Cheltenham, it is best suited for pages that are narrow and long, such as the 12mos issued in the seventeenth century by the Elzevirs. The Mayeur French Oldstyle has a slight resemblance to the type-faces found in the Elzevir seventeenth-century books (Example 475), but is a rather free rendering of those types. The capitals of the Elzevirs are more in the proportions of Jenson’s (see Cloister Oldstyle, Example 467-A), and the small letters (o) of the lower-case are not so large in comparison with the tall letters (l) as they are in French Oldstyle. The Mayeur letter also contains the shortened descenders and short-kerned f of the nineteenth-century typefounders. In fact, both ascending and descending strokes have been shortened. Examples 45, 183, 184, 217, 410, 411, and the Jacobi specimen on page 33 show French Oldstyle in use. Cheltenham Oldstyle.—This extremely popular type-face was designed in America and here developed into the most numerous family known to typefounding—at least thirty series. A pamphlet issued in 1905 by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company tells the story of its origin. Ingalls Kimball, director of the Cheltenham Press, New York, was commissioned to suggest and supervise the making of a letter that would have both beauty and legibility. Cheltenham Oldstyle resulted, the drawings of which were made by Bertram G. Goodhue. It was realized by the designers of this type-face that space between lines increases legibility, and experiments seem to show that the upper half of lower-case letters are easier to read than the lower half. For this reason the lower-case was then designed with long ascending strokes and short descending strokes. While the theory regarding the superior legibility of the upper half was announced as a new one, it had been put forth about 1882 by Dr. Émile Javal, a Parisian oculist. (See the demonstration in Example 508-G.) The first announcement by the American Type Founders Company of Cheltenham Oldstyle in The American Printer, January, 1903, showed eleven sizes—eight-point to forty-eight-point. Claim was made that it was a “compact and legible book type,” and that it would become the most popular job type. Because of its lean formation and close set it has been frequently used for narrow booklets. A Roman type-face entirely new in design would be a freak and unreadable in the mass. As a completed design, Cheltenham Oldstyle was different from others in use in 1903, yet it is made up of features of Roman type design in vogue between the designing of Jenson’s letter and Caslon’s types. Study Examples 470, 472, 476, 477 and 478. Compare with the Portuguese capitals, especially G, P, W, in Example 485. Cheltenham Oldstyle has strength, readability, and a certain amount of beauty. Its capitals are awkwardly large in comparison with its lower-case. It is shown in use with smaller capitals in Example 476. Because of the smallness of most of the lower-case and the close set of the letters, very little space is needed between words; yet, as used by printers generally, much of the legibility the type-face possesses is lost by wide spacing between words, especially on machines. Because the eye, as a rule, gives less attention to the lower part of a line of reading matter, the descenders The serif, which is supposed to distinguish modern types from old-style, is very small in Cheltenham Oldstyle, and is more like the serif found in modern types. The general character of Cheltenham, however, is extremely old-style. This letter has been used in the composition of Examples 35, 40, 47, 106, 122, 125, 209, 267, 273 and 350. Development of the Roman Type-FaceIn the beginning, Roman letters were in capitals only (Example 464-A), and, carved on stone, were at their best about the beginning of the Christian era. The present so-called Roman, Italic and Text types are descended from them. EXAMPLE 486 Use of the pen and brush in lettering and the tendency to letter rapidly finally gave us the lower-case type of today. The evolution is pictured in Example 465. “A” shows the Roman capital alphabet as made with the pen (compare with the chiseled letters of Example 464-A). In “B” we have the result (known as uncials) of hurried writing of the Roman capitals, and one can see how the lower-case letters were forming. At about this point in the development, the minuscules, or lower-case letters, took two separate growths—one in the direction of the “Black Letter” or German Text types of today, and the other toward the “White Letter” of the Caroline Minuscules, which, as Roman lower-case, are now used almost exclusively in America, England, France and other countries in North and South America and Europe, the notable exception being Germany. EXAMPLE 487 When Gutenberg began to print he used a black Text type designed after the bold lettering of the German manuscript books, and when Germans went to Italy to print they had difficulty in rendering into types the character of Italian lettering. Example 468 shows the efforts in this direction by Sweinheim and Pannartz in 1465, and in Example 469, types by John and Wendelin of Spires, an improvement is noticed. It remained, however, for the Frenchman, Jenson, to design and cut a letter that is the alpha of Roman type-faces (Example 470). Jenson was fortunate in the selection of a model, and it is interesting to include in the corner for comparison a section of an Italian manuscript of the same century. Development of the Roman letter into the beautiful and legible form known as “Caroline Minuscules” was due to the encouragement of Charlemagne. Why it is called “White Letter” in contradistinction to “Black Letter” may be seen by comparing the light-gray tone of the Jenson page (Example 470) with the missal specimen opposite page 14. It may be well to explain that the seeming disfigurement of the capitals in the Jenson page is due to the custom that book decorators had of placing a stroke of vermilion over the capitals. In the reproduction these strokes came out black. Both the Spires and the Jenson specimens were reproduced from the original volumes in the Typographic Library and Museum at Jersey City. Example 465 also shows, for comparison with the style of lettering known as the Caroline Minuscules, a type-face based on Jenson’s letter of 1470, following which are Moxon’s and Caslon’s lower-case alphabets. The faithfulness with which Jenson’s type-face was followed in the designing of Cloister Oldstyle may be seen by comparing the Cloister alphabet (Example 467-A) with the Jenson letters as they are found in Example 470. A very interesting comparison can also be made of Jenson’s capitals, on page 14, and Cloister Oldstyle, in Example 473. If a comparison of present-day type-faces with very old faces is to have any value, the present-day type-faces should be printed on antique-finished paper dampened if possible. And if the old face is reproduced by zinc etching from an old book the other type-face should also be zinc-etched. Printing and zinc etching were resorted to in the case of this example and in other instances in this chapter. In some works reproductions of type-faces are valueless and misleading, for the reason that they have been retouched by an artist, redrawn, or cut in wood. EXAMPLE 488 The influence of the Jenson style of Roman was seen for some years, but in 1566 (Example 472) we find a change of form. The type is more condensed, and instead of a diagonal stroke on the lower-case e there is a horizontal stroke close to the top of the letter. This style, as used by Paul Manutius in 1566, seems to have been maintained with little alteration in the work of Daniel Elzevir a hundred years later (Example 477) and two hundred years later in the types of Fournier, the French founder (Example 478). This style of letter was also used by Plantin, the Antwerp printer, in 1569, and for the interest there may be in it the reproduction of a bit of his work (see page 16) should be compared with Example 476. This last-mentioned example has been set in Cheltenham Oldstyle. However, ten-point capitals have been used with twelve-point lower-case. It may be that the appearance of most reading matter would be improved if the capitals were a trifle lower in hight than the ascending strokes of the lower-case letters b, d, f, h, k, l. EXAMPLE 489 The National Printing Office at Paris is using on some of its productions a type-face designed in 1693 by Grandjean. While it is greatly like other letters of that period, it has peculiarities, one of which is a slight dot on the left center of the lower-case l, a feature also present in the Black Letter of Gutenberg, and in the types of Fust and Schoeffer (see inserts opposite pages 7 and 12). We have a key to the formation of the Roman types of the seventeenth century in the alphabets drawn by Joseph Moxon, an English typefounder, and published in 1676 (Examples 479 and 480). These are here reproduced from Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises,” as reprinted, under the supervision of Theodore Low De Vinne, by the New York TypothetÆ in 1896. Moxon says these letters are copied from the letters of Christopher van Dijk, a punch cutter of Holland. As will be seen by the scale in the upper left corner of Example 479, he attempted to show how the shapes of letters were “compounded of geometric figures, and mostly made by rule and compass.” Each letter was to be plotted on a framework of small squares, forty-two squares in hight and of a proportionate width. Passing up this idea as impractical, De Vinne said: It is admitted that the characters are rudely drawn, and many have faults of disproportion; but it must not be forgotten that they were designed to meet the most important requirement of a reader—to be read, and read easily. Here are the broad hair line, the stubby serif on the lower-case and the bracketed serif on the capitals, the thick stem, the strong and low crown on letters like m and n, with other peculiarities now commended in old-style faces and often erroneously regarded as the original devices of the first Caslon. The writer was curious to see how these letters of Moxon’s made up into type, and for this purpose had the outlined alphabets inked in and reproduced in smaller size (Examples 479-A and 480-A). When William Caslon, in 1720, cut his first Roman letter he may have had Moxon’s Roman alphabet before him. There are some resemblances, but that he did not slavishly follow the Moxon letters may be seen by comparing both type-faces (Examples 465-F and 465-G). We could be more familiar with the types of Baskerville than we are, but now that the typefounders are reproducing them (Example 483) we shall come to a realization that they rival the letters of Caslon in beauty and readability. John Baskerville, the English typefounder and printer, spent six years and thirty thousand dollars in designing and cutting his first font of type. In 1758 he had cut eight fonts of Roman, but other printers would not buy his types, preferring those of Caslon. Two years later he attempted to sell his types and retire from the printing business. After his death, in 1775, his widow sold all his type and type-making material and they were removed to Kehl, near Strassburg. There is a legend that the types finally reached France and were melted into bullets for the French Revolution. It is a pity that Baskerville’s original punches are not available, like those of Caslon, so that printers of today could make use of the splendid type-faces that were unappreciated in his lifetime. However, Baskerville Roman is a satisfactory reproduction of the types of John Baskerville. Like Caslon Oldstyle, however, it should be printed on other than gloss-surfaced paper (Example 463), as then, especially in the smaller sizes, the good qualities of the letter are brought out and it is made more legible. When Mrs. Henry Caslon, in 1796, “Bodoni-ized” the types of William Caslon the first, she was probably influenced as much by the types of Baskerville as by those of Bodoni. This is borne out by the comparisons in Example 484. In “A” is shown an alphabet of Baskerville Roman as now made in America, and in “B” Mrs. Caslon’s Modern Roman. The third type-face (C) is Scotch Roman, one of the six selected representative type-faces (Example 467-D). John Baptist Bodoni made some very good type-faces, but it is not difficult to lay at his door the responsibility for throwing typography out of gear for almost a century. Thru his influence and the desire of Scotch typefounders to improve on his work, the nineteenth century was inflicted with those stiff “Modern Romans” (Example 488) that in all their inhuman “perfection” yet abide with us and are still liked by Victorian persons of staid tastes. Many of our school children are being brought up on them, and in lighter form (Example 489) they are being fed to millions of Americans thru the homely typography of most newspapers. This double influence works for a lowering of typographic taste among printers and buyers of printing that for many years will keep the general standard of printing below what it should be. To return to Bodoni. This Italian typefounder’s types, as a rule, were not so faultlessly finished as are the EXAMPLE 491 EXAMPLE 495 The Scotch typefounders also attempted to improve the types of William Caslon, and the result of their labors is known as Modernized Oldstyle (Example 466-A). This kind of type was first made about 1852 for Miller & Richard of Edinburgh, Scotland. With Caslon Oldstyle unknown, Modernized Oldstyle would be a rather satisfactory letter, but with Caslon Oldstyle procurable there seems to be no need of the Scotch letter. There was brought out in 1884 by the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan Company a decorative Modernized Oldstyle under the name of Ronaldson Oldstyle. Characteristics of Roman Type-FacesThe Serif.—The serif is that portion of a type-face indicated by the small black sections in Example 492. It has a powerful influence in determining the character and style of a face of type. As an experiment, we will make three vertical lines exactly the same length (Example 491-A), leaving one as it was first drawn, but on the other two adding V-shaped marks, because of which the character of the line is changed and the length seemingly affected. However, the serif, when properly used, has a decorative quality and is to type what the capital is to the column and the cornice to the building in architecture. EXAMPLE 493 After further experimenting with three vertical lines that we will now identify as capital Is (Example 491-b), there can be no doubt that the serif is necessary as a finishing stroke. The serifless I suggests a man in the public streets without hat or shoes. The crudest manner of adding a serif is to place a small horizontal stroke at the head and foot of the long vertical line, but the sharp angles thus formed can be softened and one stroke joined to another by a curve, with the corner filled in, as is shown. These two illustrations of the serif are merely for the purpose of introducing the novice to the subject. The fact that there are so many different faces of type is due somewhat to the manipulation of the serif—changes of length, thickness, direction and curve. EXAMPLE 492 It is by the serif that in most cases old-style types are distinguished from the so-called modern Romans. An interesting demonstration of this was made by Henry L. Bullen with Century Expanded, a modern Roman (Example 494). The first line shows the letter unchanged. As the serifs in most old-style faces project diagonally, he, in the second line, altered the modern serifs to conform to this idea. The third line shows Century Oldstyle as it actually appears in type. There is, of course, more to a true old-style face than mere change of serifs, and in the actual cutting of the types other minor alterations were made, as will be seen by study of the third line. EXAMPLE 494 EXAMPLE 496 This process was reversed by Mr. Bullen, and in Example 493 certain serifs of Caslon Oldstyle are in the letters i, n, k, p, h made horizontal, and in the letters E, L, s made vertical. Modernized in this manner, Caslon Oldstyle resembles Scotch Roman (Example 484-C). Thick and Thin Strokes.—The inbred good taste and instinct for beauty possessed by the Roman calligrapher which directed him to add the serif to his lettering also impelled him to vary the width of the strokes (Example 464-A). EXAMPLE 497 EXAMPLE 498 EXAMPLE 499 The most uninteresting kind of lettering is that which is not only serifless but without contrast in the width of its strokes—lettering that is known to the printer as Block, or Gothic (Example 497-A). Dignity and something of good looks are given to it by adding serifs (Example 497-b), yet it is not eligible for admission to the select society of pure Roman type-faces until the various strokes show, properly proportioned, a difference in thickness (Example 497-C). The difference should be at least as two to one. It is about that in Cloister Oldstyle, but in Baskerville Roman (Example 496) it is as six to one. When the difference in thick and thin lines is exaggerated, as was done in the nineteenth century, the result is a caricature and type that is almost impossible to read, even in large sizes. EXAMPLE 500 EXAMPLE 501 Generally the distribution of thick and thin lines in Roman letters, as shown in Example 496, is as follows: All vertical strokes are thick (excepting in M, N, U). Horizontal strokes are thin. Diagonal strokes running down from left to right are thick, and from right to left are thin (excepting Z, z). When this rule is reversed, as was actually done by a nineteenth-century typefounder in a weird attempt at novelty, there is begotten a monstrosity. Good typography requires that basic principles be adhered to. In the recent recutting of the Roman type-face of Nicholas Jenson, the founders went all the way back to his type for their models, and did not content themselves, as they did near the end of the last century, with copying Morris’s type or the faces of other foundries. As Jenson based the design of his types closely on Italian manuscripts, we have in such a face as Cloister Oldstyle many of the characteristics of the pen-made letters, one of which is the position of the thick strokes on round letters. The thick strokes on the O, as an instance, instead of being vertical, are diagonal. This is due to the manner of holding the pen when lettering. When held to write vertically and horizontally, the pen makes lines as in Example 498; when held at a slant, the pen makes thick lines diagonally as in Example 499. The Caroline Minuscules, upon which the lower-case types of Jenson were based, were written with a slanted pen. In Example 500 are to be seen two well-known type-faces on which the slanted-pen thick strokes are used. In Example 501 are two faces that could be made by writing vertically. It was Mr. Goudy who reintroduced into type forms a characteristic of Jenson’s Roman—that of having the lower serifs extend more to the right than to the left, as shown by Example 495-B. Ascenders and Descenders.—Not a little of the beauty of Roman type-faces lies in the ascending and descending strokes, and one reason why our types are becoming more beautiful is that we are going thru a period of restoration—the long-missing ascenders and descenders are being given back to us, after an absence of many years. What should be the length of these strokes? Edward Johnston, in “Writing and Illuminating and Lettering,” illustrates this point (Example 503), and says: “The lines in massed writing are kept as close together as is compatible with legibility. The usual distance apart of the writing lines is about three times the hight of the letter o. The descending strokes of the upper line must clear the ascending strokes of the lower line.” Bodoni, the Italian typefounder, had a system of measurement for the proportions of his lower-case letters: “Divide the body of the type into seven parts and let two at the top and two at the bottom be for the ascenders and descenders and the three in the middle for the other letters.” The ascenders and descenders, as found in Cloister Oldstyle and in the original Caslon Oldstyle, approximate the proportions given by Bodoni. Half the letters of the lower-case alphabet—thirteen—are The printer and user of typography have been using false logic in favoring type-faces that have descenders cut off. They think they are getting more for their money when they obtain a normal twelve-point type-face on an eleven-point body, but as the one-point linear space must be restored by leading, there is nothing gained. Scientists, in the study of eye hygiene, have ascertained that a certain amount of space between lines is necessary to save eyestrain, and the descenders are essential in furnishing some of this needed space. EXAMPLE 502 The descending curves of the lower-case g are a thing of beauty when allowed freedom (Example 504-A), but on the shortened plan they resemble a man cramped with rheumatism, in need of crutches. Proportion of Letters.—One of the elements in the beauty of the ancient Roman stone-carved alphabet is the proportion of its letters. Goudy, drawing lettering and designing type-faces modeled after the inscription capitals of the Romans, has had a large influence in reviving good proportion in type. Cloister Oldstyle (Example 467-A), designed by L. M. Benton after Jenson’s letter, is an excellent study of the old proportions introduced in present-day type-faces. However, there is no type that has the beauty of proportion to be found in the Roman capitals (Example 464-A) reproduced from an inscription on the Trajan column at Rome. The author has endeavored, in plain lines, to trace these capitals and show their proportions on a background of squares. It will be seen that the width of the letters B, E, F, L, P, S is less than half their hight, and about half the width of O, M, Q, C, G and D. It is this contrast in width as well as in shape that makes the alphabet as a whole so pleasing. Comparison of the capitals of the six standard faces in Example 467 will show that “old-style” faces tend toward the old Roman proportions and that “modern” types, such as Bodoni Book and Century Expanded (Example 466-B), reveal an effort to make the capitals as uniform in size as possible. Typewriter types are an example of what happens when this idea of uniformity is carried to its logical end. It is really not necessary to throw Beauty out of the back door as Utility is admitted at the front. Both can live happily under the same roof. As will be seen by Example 507, the lower-case letters are made up of a variety of curved lines, and vertical, horizontal and diagonal strokes, the purpose being the same as that of having capitals of different widths, to make them when joined together in words readable and pleasant to look at. The word “minimum” is an example of unpleasant monotony in the repetition of similar forms. EXAMPLE 503 EXAMPLE 504 Legibility of Type-FacesType matter should be easy to read, and this end is attained not only in the designing of type-faces but in the manner of their use. Many tests for legibility have been made in this country and in Europe, but none of them, so far as the writer knows, has considered the manner of printing the types and the character of the paper surface as factors in legibility, altho glossy paper has been condemned because of its reflection of light, and cream-white paper preferred to blue-white. There is shown as Example 463 a test made in the printing of the same type-faces on a hard-finished paper and on a soft-finished paper. The Caslon and Bodoni types are not only more legible on the soft-finished stock, but the character of the designs is brought out. The results of this demonstration should not be wondered at, as the original Caslon and Bodoni types were intended to be printed on soft-finished stock, and not on highly calendered coated paper. Studies in legibility are presented in Example 508. As there are many details that count in the production of good-looking typography, so there are seeming trifles which go to make typography easily read. In “A” there are groups set in Cheltenham Oldstyle and Cloister Oldstyle. As Cheltenham is narrower in form and closely set, it is more suitable for long, narrow pages or columns. Cloister, on the other hand, conforms better to wider pages and columns. In lighter types (B) Bodoni Book and Caslon Oldstyle are similarly compared. For further illustrations of this point see Examples 509 and 510. One of the tests previously referred to proved Gothic (C) the most legible type-face. This unshaded, serifless type, which has long been popular on sales bills and for advertisements in some newspapers and trade publications, is not approved by those who believe there should also be character in type-faces, as it lacks the two essentials of typographic beauty—serifs and contrasting thickness of strokes. Then, again, it is not as legible in the mass as in single lines. EXAMPLE 505 While bold-face types, especially those with decided It is generally conceded by authorities that lower-case types in the same size of letter are more legible than capitals (E) and should be used for headings and for display lines in advertising matter, where easy reading is essential. Assuming that the largest possible face on the smallest possible type body results in legibility and allows more matter on a page, both users and makers of type have in many fonts caused the descending and ascending strokes to be shortened. The lower-case letters g, j, p, q and y have been the principal sufferers, as they are the only ones with descending strokes. The ascending strokes of letters b, d, f, h, k and l have been treated with more respect, and their principal ancestor, the Caroline Minuscule, would not have so much difficulty in recognizing them. The left portion of section F of Example 508 shows what this practice has done to Caslon Oldstyle. It has also affected legibility by lessening the space between lines (see also Example 509), and reading, already difficult, is made still more so by the excess space that careless hand compositors and “speedy” machine operators place between words. EXAMPLE 506 EXAMPLE 507 Space Between Words.—The eyes can, in the same space of time, read many more words if the words are narrowly spaced than if they are widely spaced. The early printers knew this and set type accordingly. When lower-case letters are widely spaced one letter must be read at a time (508-I). When words are widely spaced one word must be read at a time. A person accustomed to reading reads by thoughts—groups of words or sentences. Even in the schools they are discarding the long-used method of teaching the A-B-Cs, and instead of at first learning each letter separately, the child learns to know words by their formation and to read by word groups. The present prevalence of wide spacing in the composition of books, catalogs, pamphlets, periodicals and newspapers is a legacy from the ante-machine period. In hand-set days, job and book compositors, when they were called on to set so-called straight matter, were required to use great care in spacing. In the spacing out of a line the conscientious compositor would remove thick spaces and insert thin spaces rather than add much extra space between the words. The newspaper compositor, on the other hand—he usually being a piece worker—seldom thin-spaced, but liberally added space between words, especially on occasions when his “take” was to “meet” that of another compositor. When machine composition was introduced the spacing practices of the news-room hand compositor were passed along to the machine, with the result that today a page of machine matter set in the average careless way shows open spaces running irregularly down the page, resembling a trench map of a modern battlefield. Close spacing and the resultant neat and readable appearance of the page are possible in machine composition, as many users of these machines are obtaining such results; but the general standard, due not a little to the demand for rapidity and somewhat to ignorance of the fundamentals of good typography, is humiliatingly low. The design and form of the type-face, of course, determine the amount of space between words. Johnston tells letterers that “the average space between two words is less than the width of the letter o.” Example 506 is illustrative. A newspaper editor some years ago asked the hand compositors to thin-space, as there was a great deal of copy that day, whereupon the printers all laughed in ridicule of the lay notion that such a procedure would be of much use. That the request was not such an impractical one was recently borne out by an experience of a periodical publisher, who, on the machines in his own shop, produced close-spaced matter. In an emergency an outside machine-composition house was called on to set a part of the copy. When the work of making up was completed, it was found that there were several galleys of matter that could not be used, altho there was no more copy than usual. By again referring to Example 508-F it will be seen that in the left group spacing between words is lavish, while in the right group there is no waste of such spacing. Altho there is more space between the lines of the right group, it contains three more words than the left group. In the lower part of Example 508 is the word “Typography” set in small six-point, and near the word is the lone letter a, same size. It is difficult for a person without excellent eyesight to identify the small six-point “a,” but he can more easily and as quickly read the word made in the same size from ten letters. When the letters of the word “Typography” are widely spaced (even in larger size, as shown) they must be read one letter at a time, but when closely assembled they can be seen at a glance and read ten times as rapidly. An experienced proofreader does not read a galley letter by letter, but recognizes a wrong type because the natural formation of the word has been broken. Carrying the experiment further, place in “open formation” the words “Art and Practice of Typography,” and they must be read slowly one word at a time, but group the words closely, as has been done in the lower left of the same Example 508, and the entire group of words can be read practically at a glance. Just as an illiterate person laboriously reads letter by letter, a young child beginning to read will see only one word at a time. While on rudimentary primers the words should be isolated, there is no necessity for wide spacing between words in text matter intended for adults. EXAMPLE 508 Length of Lines.—This leads to consideration of the effect length of lines has on reading. The Board of Education of the city of New York disqualifies textbooks in which the length of line is more than 100 millimeters (about twenty-four picas, or four inches). The maximum length of line recommended by the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1912 is about the same. Professor Huey, in “The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading” (1907), says: “There is a general consensus in favor of the shorter as against the longer lines, with a tendency to favor 90 millimeters as a maximum, some placing the maximum at 100 millimeters.” Dr. Javal, the French oculist, who thirty-five years ago made tests in typography, believes the maximum should be considerably below 90 millimeters (about 21 picas). It would be well, in order to arrive somewhere in determining The author asks consideration of Examples 509 and 510. The length of line is limited by authorities because the eye finds it difficult to read a long line of comparatively small type. Isn’t it true that healthy eyes can read a line of type twelve inches long set in fifty-four-point Caslon Oldstyle, say, with the same ease as a line four inches long set in eighteen-point Caslon Oldstyle? By the same reasoning, the line of twelve-point Caslon Oldstyle set three inches wide (Example 509) is as easily read, after the eyes are focused on it, as the line of eighteen-point Caslon set four inches wide. The author suggests, then, that the proper length of type lines be ascertained by measuring one-and-a-half alphabets of the lower-case of the desired type, as is demonstrated in Example 510. Let us try out the top group—Caslon Oldstyle. (This type-face seems smaller, according to body sizes, than Scotch Roman, for the reason that its descending strokes have not been cut off, while those of the Scotch Roman group have been shortened; but of this more later.) A lower-case alphabet-and-a-half of twelve-point Caslon Oldstyle (with long descenders) measures 17½ picas in length, as will be seen in Example 510. How it appears set in words in two lines of the same measure is to be seen in the upper part of Example 509. According to the working out of the plan, 17½ picas is the ideal length of line for books using this twelve-point type. By referring back to Example 127 in the chapter on “Books,” the theory will be found borne out in practical use on a model book page. Testing the length of lines by reading (Example 509), it will be found, if the distance between the eyes and book is lengthened as the sizes grow larger, that the line is short enough not to necessitate a hunt for the beginning of the second line after the first is read. The optical disadvantage of using in one piece of printing type-faces of any great contrast in sizes may be proved by focusing the eyes so as easily to read the eighteen-point size and then changing quickly to the eight-point size, attempting to read the latter without again focusing the eyes to fit the smaller type. There is a technical as well as an optical reason for determining the length of line by measurement of the types themselves. It will be seen by Example 509 that the copy adjusts itself to the various lengths of lines, or, in the vernacular of the printer, “works out line for line.” If fourteen-point type, instead of twelve-point type, were set in lines measuring fifteen picas in length, the compositor would have more difficulty in adjusting the spaces between words, as these spacing points would number two less. This difficulty is usually solved by regrettable wide spacing between words or more regrettable spacing between letters. Testing types used on newspapers, selecting for the purpose the most used newspaper linotype face (see lower part of Example 510), we find that the length of line for six-point should be thirteen picas and for seven-point fourteen picas. As actually used in newspapers, the length of line is usually twelve and a half or thirteen picas. Approved Type Sizes and Space Between Lines.—The type in the upper part of Example 509 also illustrates the sizes of type and the amount of space between type lines that investigators have determined are minimum for use on schoolbooks. Dr. Cohn, whose findings in these matters have been practically indorsed by educational boards and writers on school hygiene, stipulates that for first-year school children the vertical measurement of the lower-case o should be at least 2.6 millimeters, with space between lines (measuring vertically between a lower-case o in one line and a lower-case o in the line above or below) of 4.5 millimeters. Twenty-two-point Caslon Oldstyle, with long descenders (not shown here), conforms to these measurements. For the second and third years, the measurement of the o should be at least 2 millimeters, with space between lines of 4 millimeters. Eighteen-point Caslon Oldstyle, with long descenders (as shown in Example 509), conforms to these measurements. The fourteen-point size meets the requirements for the fourth school year—at least 1.8 millimeters, with space between lines of 3.6 millimeters. After the fourth school year the type should measure not less than 1.6 millimeters, with space between lines of 3 millimeters, to which twelve-point Caslon Oldstyle, with long descenders, conforms. The descending strokes are sufficiently long in the eighteen-point size to maintain between the lines of type the amount of spacing stipulated by Dr. Cohn, but in the fourteen-point size it was necessary to add a two-point lead and in the twelve-point size a one-point lead. In comparing one font of type with another, it is not accurate to compare, say, eleven-point with eleven-point. Not infrequently one type-face has been pronounced more readable than another, when the preferred type-face was really a twelve-point face on an eleven-point body, with the descending strokes mutilated to allow for such an arrangement. The faces should be compared by the Cohn method given above. The panel inserted in Example 509 is illustrative. The three letters (Hdp) at the left are twenty-four-point “lining” Caslon; the three letters (Hdp) at the right are thirty-point Caslon Oldstyle No. 471. The economical printer too often prefers the “lining” fonts, as he does not need to buy waste (?) metal. It is the same sort of reasoning that sees in the park spaces of the cities real-estate waste. The laws of compensation in good typography require, where one point or two points or more are unwisely removed by shortening descenders, that these points shall be restored by leading. So where is the gain by mutilation? Italic TypesItalic, the graceful, inclined, feminine type that is now mated with most Roman types, was not known by Jenson or his contemporaries. It made its appearance for the first time in 1501 on a book printed and published at Venice, Italy, by Aldus Manutius. In that volume, an edition of Virgil, Aldus gave credit for the cutting of the face to “Francia of Bologna,” who has since been identified as the great painter and contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci. The legend has been passed along for many years that Italic was fashioned after the handwriting of the Italian poet Petrarch, but specimens of his handwriting do not bear the proper resemblance, and there are now those who scoff at the story. However, the Aldus Italic is not, as one writer declares, merely an inclined Roman. As it has been recut by the American Type Founders Company and mated with Cloister, the recut Roman letter of Jenson, there is opportunity to compare Italic and Roman lower-case, which is done in Example 515. It will be seen that, while there is a family resemblance, there are many differences other than that of mere inclination. Italic capitals, however, are inclined Roman letters, but it should be remembered that Aldus and Francia did not make or use Italic capitals, but that with the slanting lower-case letters Aldus used small Roman capitals. Example 513 shows how this was done, and this example, by the way, is a resetting in EXAMPLE 509 EXAMPLE 511 Examples 511, 512 and 514 are reproductions of Moxon’s drawings (1676) of the Italic types of a Dutch punch cutter. They show the character of Italic used in the seventeenth century. The long s of that time is included in Example 512, and Example 514 shows the decorated Italic capitals that we know as “Swash letters.” EXAMPLE 513 Swash Italic capitals and the old-style long s are to be had with Caslon Oldstyle. See Example 517. The Italic mates of a few of the present-day Romans are shown in Example 516. EXAMPLE 512 EXAMPLE 514 EXAMPLE 515 Italic types, besides the instances previously mentioned, may be seen in use on pages 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 32, and in Examples 45, 98, 100, 128, 138, 139, 144, 152, 158, 168, 169, 170, 171, 180, 185, 191, 215, 222, 223, 224, 232, 240, 245, 246, 250, 262, 282, 292, 294, 297, 299, 310, 311, 313, 314, 315, 316, 325, 326, 329, 331, 332, 336, 342, 343, 345, 346, 349, 363, 372, 374, 375, 384, 387, 390, 394, 396, 398, 399, 401, 402, 404, 405, 406, 412, 413, 414, 418, 420, 423, 424, 426, 428, 429, 472, 477, 481 and 483. EXAMPLE 516 Text TypesGutenberg and other German printers who followed him fashioned their type-faces after Black Letter, the formal writing of the German scribes, as Jenson fashioned his type-face after White Letter, the formal writing of the Italian scribes. The White Letter of Jenson grew into the Roman types that today are used almost exclusively in France, England and Italy and in our own country, while Black Letter developed into the German types that are almost exclusively used in the German Empire. As this is being written, the Great War is being fought. America has just entered it, and it is a coincidence that the countries favoring White Letter are on one side in the struggle and the countries favoring Black Letter on the other side. The years that follow the war may see, so far as general reading purposes are concerned, the gradual elimination of the letter we know as Text and the largely increased use of Roman characters in the books and newspapers of all races. The Germans are already favoring a Roman half Text in character (Example 521). EXAMPLE 517 Text type, besides being known as Black Letter, is also called Gothic and Old English; Gothic because of its preference by Gothic or German peoples, and Old English because of its use by Wynkyn de Worde and other early printers of England. Moxon, in 1676, drew an alphabet of Text letter in both capitals and lower-case (Examples 518 and 519), and Caslon, in the eighteenth century, cut a Text letter similar but somewhat thinner in form. Alteration in capitals works great changes in Text type. Text letter in a variety of designs is used in America for special purposes—sometimes as headings of newspapers or for a line on stationery, but because it is generally considered illegible it seldom is given place, except in German-language newspapers, on body portions of printed work. The story of the evolution of Text type from Roman capitals has already been told on pages 5 and 6 of the chapter, “When Books Were Written,” and under the EXAMPLE 518 EXAMPLE 519 EXAMPLE 520 EXAMPLE 521 Text type may be seen in use, even to a small extent, on pages 5, 7 (insert), 8, 9, 12, 13 (insert), 14 (insert), 16, 17, 18, 27 (insert), 31, and in Examples 19, 27, 32, 37, 75, 76, 107, 115, 117, 118, 137, 143, 145, 146, 147, 157, 158, 159, 200, 201, 202, 204, 206, 216, 219, 220, 221, 227, 228, 232, 233, 237, 241, 243, 244, 257, 277, 285, 287, 301, 307, 319, 333, 336, 347, 353, 354, 358, 361, 392, 404, 405, 421 and 425. EXAMPLE 522 Block TypesThe style of letter known as “Block,” because of its plain, square appearance, is more in use than it should be It is an unfinished Roman letter, as shown by Example 497. It is really not admissible to the company of the educated and informed until serifs have been added and a difference in thickness of strokes is visible. Some American typefounder many years ago called this style of face “Gothic,” and under that name this rather questionable type is widely known, probably better known than many worthier faces. It is possible, also regrettable, that it is the “best seller” of the type foundries’ product. Over in Scotland and England the type is called “Sans-Serif” and “Grotesque”; in Germany it is known as “Block”; in France and Spain as “Antique.” Examples showing use of “Block” type or “Gothic”: 263, 276, 291, 305, 318, 320, 321, 373, 404, 405, 406. Poster artists of Germany and Austria have developed the “Block” type into a very strong letter of wide strokes, which, when printed in color, show forth color values attractively (Example 235, chapter on “Announcements”). This style of letter has been brought out in type form in Germany and in America. Alphabets of the American type (Publicity Gothic and Advertisers’ Gothic) are shown in Example 524. As indicated by the titles, these types serve a special purpose. Bold TypesThere is a legitimate use for bold type-faces, especially in small sizes, on books of reference, schoolbooks, catalogs, and similar printed work, but it is safe to wager that half the bold types in use, and almost all of the large sizes, could well be dispensed with. When used to a great extent, the printed work on which it appears is unattractive. Bold type is to typography what the bass drum is to music: it fits in nicely for purposes of accentuation and emphasis; but who likes a bass drum solo? However, a slight strengthening of lines sometimes serves special purposes well. Daniel Elzevir used a letter with slightly deepened strokes for the main line in Example 477. Old-Style Antique has long been popular with good printers for typography requiring a darker tone than is given by Caslon Oldstyle; the so-called Caslon Bold will never really take its place. Most of the standard type-faces referred to in this chapter are procurable in bold form. Cloister Bold, Caslon Bold, Bodoni Bold and Cheltenham Bold are included with a few other faces in Example 526. Ornamental TypesTypography has its periods of abstention and fasting, which usually follow periods of revelry in decorative types in which good taste and dignity are not infrequently sinned against. After the typefounders of the nineteenth century had twisted, distorted, decorated, shaded and otherwise disguised the Roman alphabet until Jenson, Aldus, the Elzevirs, Caslon and Franklin would no longer recognize it, the users of printing, the printers and the typefounders became sobered and realized what they had done. A period of fasting set in, but, recollections of the old typographic carousal wearing off, ornamental letters again began to appear. They were on different models, however—some of them very good—and were acceptable for informal typography (Example 527-C). Some ornamental types of historic origin are based on the eighteenth-century letters of Fournier, the French typefounder, and on those of English founders (Examples 527-A and 527-B). EXAMPLE 523 EXAMPLE 524 EXAMPLE 525 EXAMPLE 526 Types for Special PurposesThere are numerous other faces, many of them admirable, which for lack of space cannot be shown or described EXAMPLE 527-A EXAMPLE 527-B A dozen pages, were they available, could well be given over to exhibits of the privately designed types of the Riverside Press, Merrymount Press, University Press, Village Press and other notable printing offices. The Influence of GoudyA liberal showing would be worth while of the various fonts designed by Frederic W. Goudy, who has done much in influencing type design during recent years, but it will be necessary to be content with the exhibit of Kennerley, in Example 463, and other faces by Mr. Goudy in use in preceding chapters. Kennerley, the best known and most characteristic of the Goudy letters (1911), is shown in Examples 187, 313, 329, 364, 395, 432, 445 and 446. Forum, made in capitals only, is to be found in Examples 20, 229, 334, 360, 366 and 395. Goudy Oldstyle is used in Examples 324 and 391. Camelot, which was Mr. Goudy’s first effort at type designing (1896), appears in Examples 44 and 124. Pabst, another early effort of Mr. Goudy, but not so good in design as his later types, will be found in Examples 30, 100 and 214, and also used in this book for headlines, captions, title-page and cover labels. EXAMPLE 527-C Frederic W. Goudy is wielding a large influence over art work and typography in America. His style of lettering, decoration and type designing is now to be found on much of the good printing produced in our country. His type-faces are original; in their completed form they are not just like any one type-face previously used, but they revive details in letter forms that for many years had been considered obsolete by typefounders. Mr. Goudy is a humanist; he believes that type-faces should be more expressive of the art of the letterer than the skill of the typefounder. He is speaking: Type must be finely and boldly designed to be beautiful. In the majority of cases where these points are claimed for a type, it will be found that the claims rest on their perfect finish, exact lining or ranging, perfection of curve, precise angles, straightness of stem, or sharpness of serif and hair line. None of these points give beauty or legibility, altho they may be present in a type both beautiful and legible. Finish in the design of a letter is a merit only when it improves, but if made at the expense of design it constitutes a defect. Ruskin’s universal law, that “neither architecture nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect,” applies no less to our type designs. Types are made to use, and when spontaneous in design, the natural irregularities and deficiencies are signs of life and sources of beauty, giving credit to the designer for careful craftsmanship according to his ability. The demand for perfection is evidence of a misunderstanding of the true ends of art. EXAMPLE 528-A EXAMPLE 528-B IMPRINTSThe printer’s name or device should, with all regard to good taste, be placed on every well-executed piece of work produced by him. That this is not more often done is due to neglect of advertising opportunities and to fear of the customer’s objection. Why should not the printer mark his product as other craftsmen and manufacturers do? Each piece of clothing he wears, from hat to shoes, probably carries the name or trademark of its maker, as do automobiles, pianos, watches, silverware and many other articles he owns. The maker’s name and trademark are a guarantee of a certain quality of product; in fact, they are absent only on cheap or imitative articles. If the printer is doing careless work and giving no thought to quality, he had better hide his identity, but if he is really producing good printing, as a duty to the craft of which he is a member he should “let his light shine before men.” EXAMPLE 529 EXAMPLE 530 If a commercial printer has not been in the habit of placing an imprint on his product, and he decides to do so, customers should tactfully be made acquainted with the innovation. They probably stand ready to be convinced of its reasonableness. It may be an excellent plan for the printer to mail his customers an announcement to this effect: “The standard of quality attained by the Smith Printshop is such that it is due our customers and ourselves so to mark each piece of printing produced by us as to identify it as a product of the Smith Printshop. This we will do hereafter.” As a further precaution, all proofs receiving the O. K. of the customer should contain the imprint just as it is to be used, and on important large orders, where there is any doubt, permission should be obtained. There are instances where customers have refused to accept printed work for the reason that an imprint was placed on it. It is only necessary to have printing-office patrons become accustomed to the new order of things. John Dunlap, who printed the Declaration of Independence for Congress, placed his imprint on it (see frontispiece of this volume). If some friend had suggested to John Gutenberg that he imprint his name on his work, the discussion that has since arisen as to whether or not he printed the “Bible of Forty-two Lines” would not have taken place. The commercial printer’s imprint should be unassuming and placed inconspicuously. Decorative imprints could be used on booklet and catalog work, and in addition the decorative device should find place on every piece of the printer’s own stationery and advertising matter, even on the office door. The use by printers of decorative devices dates back to one of the first printed books, the famous Psalter of 1457. For a great many hundred years previous, pictures and devices in various forms had been relied upon to convey information and to act as distinguishing marks for various purposes. Figures such as the white horse and the red lion, hung as signs in front of taverns and public houses during the last two centuries, were outgrowths of the coats-of-arms of titled folk who in ancient times hung the family device in front of their estates as emblems of hospitality to the weary traveler. EXAMPLE 531 Emblems and devices seem always to have had place in human history. The sign of the Cross in the eleventh century led the Crusaders against the followers of the Crescent. The cross of St. George (+) furnished inspiration for the English in their warfare with the Scots, who rallied around the cross of St. Andrew (?), and the combined crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick now inspire the patriotic Britisher. It would seem that printers could do better work if they were to select some device which would represent an ideal, and then attempt to live up to it. While the Gutenberg Bible of Forty-two Lines, generally accepted as the first book printed with separate metal types, contained neither device nor printer’s name, the Book of Psalms, or Psalter, of 1457, not only has the names of Fust and Schoeffer and the date, but an imprint device which has the distinction of being the first ever used on a book typographically printed. This famous Psalter was the product of Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, who succeeded to Gutenberg’s printing office. At the end of the book, printed in red ink, is the colophon of the printers (Example 528-A), a translation of which follows: “This book of Psalms, decorated with antique initials, and sufficiently emphasized with rubricated letters, has been thus made by the masterly invention of printing and also of type-making, without the writing of a pen, and is consummated to the service of God, thru the industry of Johann Fust, citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schoeffer of Gernszheim, in the year of our Lord 1457, on the eve of the Assumption.” The colophon contains a typographic error, perhaps the first to be made by a typesetter, the second word showing “spalm-” for “psalm-.” On several of the Psalters still in existence (one is without it) the colophon is accompanied by the decorative device shown in Example 529, consisting of a pair of shields suspended from the limb of a tree. The significance of the characters on the shields is not definitely known. Humphreys, in his “History,” asserts that the shields contain the arms of Fust and those of Schoeffer. It is conceded that the shield on the left is Fust’s and the shield on the right Schoeffer’s. In Rietstap it is found that one branch of the old German family of Faust bore a coat-of-arms containing on a shield two crampons in saltire (crossed). Bullen claims the character in the Fust shield is the Greek letter Chi (?) and that in Schoeffer’s shield the Greek letter Lambda (?), and that they had some connection with secret societies to which Fust and his son-in-law Schoeffer belonged. EXAMPLE 532 Schoeffer’s device was used for many years by his descendants, Example 529 showing its use as late as 1747 by Peter Schoeffer, of Bois-le-Duc, in the Netherlands. EXAMPLE 533 EXAMPLE 534 What is considered to be the most classic of all imprint-devices (Example 530) is that used by Aldus Manutius, the great Venetian printer, who introduced the italic face of type. The device, an anchor, around which is twisted a dolphin, is said to be symbolic of the proverb “Hasten slowly.” The anchor represents stability and the dolphin swiftness. The mark was taken by him from a book he had printed, “Reveries of Polyphilus,” and was used as the Aldus device for the first time in an edition of Dante of 1502. In a spirit of affection and regard for the famous Venetian, the device of Aldus has been adopted or adapted by several well-known printers. There is a nice sentiment connected with the use of this mark by William Pickering, the noted English publisher. In place of the “AL-DVS” of the original, Pickering’s adaptation contained a motto in which he announced himself as the English disciple of Aldus. The reproduction of the Pickering device shown is from a book published by Pickering and printed by Whittingham in 1840. By 1892 we find a lion added to this device, as used by the Chiswick Press. The McClure Publications of New York have a conventionalized interpretation which shows the dolphin and anchor in white upon a black circular background (Example 530). Bruce Rogers, at the Riverside Press, has most interestingly adapted the Aldus device. It seems that he always had a fondness for the thistle, the national flower of Scotland, and when seeking a motif for his mark, naturally turned to it. When the time came for putting it into use, the first requirement happened to be for an Aldine page, so it was cast in a form that would distinctly suggest the Aldus anchor and dolphin. (Compare the two designs in Example 530.) While on the subject of Bruce Rogers’s device it may be interesting to relate that later, when he desired to use it on a book modeled on French sixteenth-century work, he reshaped it as shown in Example 540, which carries a suggestion of one of Robert Estienne’s marks shown with it. Rogers redrew his personal device, or that of the Riverside Press, to blend with the motif of the book on which it was to be used, a practice that embodies the highest use of the printer’s mark. EXAMPLE 535 One of the most famous imprint-devices is that adopted by the Society of Printers of Venice in 1481 (Example 531), about the time of the death of Nicholas Jenson, who is supposed to have originated the design. Various explanations have been given of the significance of this device, the most reasonable being that the globe and cross refers to the millennium, when, according to prophecy, God shall reign upon earth. The globe-and-cross symbol was frequently embellished with supplementary characters having other religious significance. The mark of Androw Myllar (Example 535) contains a figure 4, which denoted the Supreme Being. People of antiquity frequently composed the name of the Deity in four letters. The globe in the Venetian device probably represented the earth, altho the fact that the earth was round was not common knowledge in the early days. The theory, however, was accepted by the educated priest and layman long before Columbus sailed, as he thought, for India. The double-cross in the Roman church today is associated with the authority of an archbishop, and as a decorative form of the cross, extends back many centuries. The ornamental double-cross pictured in this connection was once the property of St. Waudru of Belgium, who died EXAMPLE 536 EXAMPLE 537 EXAMPLE 538 EXAMPLE 539-A EXAMPLE 539-B In further consideration of the cross-and-globe device it may be well to mention that an astronomical sign consisting of a circle with a cross above it (?) was used by the Egyptians many years before the Christian era. Such a sign is yet used astronomically and also to indicate the male in botany. Another astronomical sign bearing on the subject is that of a cross within a circle (?), by which the earth is indicated. EXAMPLE 540 EXAMPLE 541 The cross-and-globe device of the Venetian Society of Printers has proved the most popular of any of the old imprints. When Elbert Hubbard established the Roycroft Shop at East Aurora, N. Y., in 1896, he adopted it as a work-mark, placing an “R” in the lower half of the circle in place of the dot. Fra Elbertus’s interpretation of the device established the circle as “the emblem of the perfect (the complete), and the lines puncturing the circle the attempt to make a perfect article, to do perfect work.” When the advertising manager of the National Biscuit Company was looking about for a trademark this old device of the Lorraine cross and circle must have appealed to him strongly, and such is the power of advertising that printers may some day be accused of copying the design from this biscuit house. The remarkable adaptability of the device is also demonstrated by the Griffith-Stillings imprint, in which it forms a part of a clever modern decorative design (Example 547). Frederic W. Goudy incorporated the Venetian printers’ device most interestingly in the decorative mark of the Village Press (Example 531). The imprint-device of the Gould Press (Example 543) may have originated with the Venetian printers’ design. It is an interesting variant. These numerous uses by printers and others of the old circle-and-cross design suggest a paraphrase of an ancient proverb: “A good device lives forever.” William Caxton, England’s first printer, used an imprint-device (Example 533) that in appearance resembles a rug, which it may have been intended to represent, as Caxton is supposed to have used this mark when he was a merchant at Bruges in Belgium. The characters contained in the design have caused much discussion. The “W” on the left and the “C” on the right are generally accepted as the initials of Caxton. The center characters have been claimed by some to be the figures “74,” but the most reasonable explanation is that they form a trade device used by the merchants of Bruges. This explanation is seemingly confirmed by the discovery of a memorial plate to one John Felde, containing his trademark as a merchant, which trademark is very similar to the characters in the center of Caxton’s imprint-device. The reproduction of the Felde design shows that if the top stroke were taken away and a loop added the result would be Caxton’s characters. William Morris, in planning an imprint-device for the Kelmscott Press, evidently made a study of de Worde’s design, for there is resemblance in shape and in the placing of the name at the foot. T. C. Hansard, on the title-page of his “Typographia” (1825), uses a device which tradition tells us was granted by Emperor Frederick III of Germany to a corporation of master printers known as the TypothetÆ. (See Example 532.) References by writers to the origin of this design are generally contradictory. The United TypothetÆ and Franklin Clubs of America, an association of employing printers, has adopted the device and uses it in the conventionalized form shown. The design in its original form tends to heraldic elaborateness. There is represented an eagle holding a copy guide in one claw and a composing stick in the other. Surmounting the design is a griffin (eagle-lion) grasping two ink balls. The Winthrop Press mark (Example 543) and other printers’ devices have been inspired by this emblem, as the griffin copyholder and ink balls are familiar decorative forms. In Great Britain the printer whose name would allow a pun has always been considered fortunate. John Daye, a London printer of 1560, had an elaborate device, paneled, in the center of which is a picture of a reclining man being aroused by a figure which, pointing to the sun, says, “Arise, for it is day.” (Example 535.) Androw Myllar, who printed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1510, used a device which portrayed a miller climbing to his mill (Example 535). The arrangement of his name in the lower part of the design suggests de Worde’s, and the characters in the shields have meanings that may be determined by a study of the religious symbolism of the Middle Ages. EXAMPLE 536-A The imprints of some of the notable printers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are interesting. The first mark in Example 536 shows one of the devices of Geofroy Tory of Paris from his “Champ Fleury” of 1529. It consists of a broken pot filled with instruments and the Latin phrase Non plus (nothing more). The Lorraine cross in the lower left corner is interesting in connection with the use made of it by the Venetian Society of Printers (Example 531). Tory, an accomplished scholar and noted wood engraver and printer, was, according to an epitaph written by a compatriot, “the first man to discuss seriously the art of printing,” and “taught Garamond, chief of engravers.” His work on the derivation and formation of Latin characters had considerable renown. He claimed, according to Fournier, that all the letters are EXAMPLE 542 EXAMPLE 543 The troublous times of the Reformation, during which John Bebel was imprisoned, may have had some influence on his selection of a device. It consisted of a tree, in the branches of which was a prostrate man, and over him was a large flat thing representing the platen of a printing press (Example 536). On the platen were words meaning “Do not press poor me to death.” Christopher Plantin, printer and publisher of Antwerp, Belgium, whose famous printing office, preserved as a museum, was one of the shrines of worshiping printer-pilgrims up to the beginning of the European war, employed a device which is emblematic of the saying of Jesus, “I am the vine.” A device used by the Elzevirs at Leyden, Holland, in 1620, shows a tree with spreading branches. On one side of the trunk is the figure of a man and on the other a scroll with the words Non solus (not alone). Robert Estienne had a similar device in 1544 (Example 536-A). This device as shown is slightly reduced from the original, while those previously mentioned are greatly reduced in size. John Froben of Basel, Switzerland, who was a close friend of Erasmus, the philosopher and patron of learning, in 1520 used a device containing a staff surmounted by a dove and entwined by two serpents. (Example 542.) The legend, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” occasionally accompanied the design. Sometimes these printers’ marks were so large as to leave little room for the title-page proper, in contrast to which is the extreme modesty of Ulrich Zell of Cologne, Prussia, whose works are numerous and who is credited with starting the story of the invention of printing by Coster. Zell scarcely ever placed even his name on a book, yet his work may easily be identified. The Heintzemann Press device in Example 534 has an antique appearance and its designer evidently received inspiration for his anchor, foliage and scroll from such devices as those of Aldus and Plantin. The Rogers-Riverside Press mark, too, has ancient motifs. The anchor-shaped thistle, as already stated, is based upon Aldus’s device, and the frame suggests old designs in metal. EXAMPLE 545 There is a suggestion of the pot device of Tory in the decorative portion of the Merrymount Press imprint shown as Example 537. This appeared at the end of the book as a colophon, the style in which the imprint is written fitting it for that position. It will be remembered that the printers of Italy usually had the beginning and ending set in capitals to differentiate them from the body of the book. Elbert Hubbard used the idea commercially on his advertising booklets, as in Example 550. Perhaps the device shown as Example 541 is a bit too suggestive for practical use by printers of the present day. Stephen Dolet’s name, in its literal meaning, has something to do with an ax, hewing and cutting. Dolet was a scholarly printer of the sixteenth century who suffered martyrdom at the stake in 1546. The oval shape for imprint designs is not unpleasant, as will be seen by Example 542. The Fezandat device was designed by Tory. The pheasant is a pun on the printer’s name. The device as a whole is pleasing. The Riverside Press device is classically Greek in motif. Pan and his pipes appear on many of the marks of this press in various designs. The one shown is from “Pan’s Pipes,” a Riverside Press publication. EXAMPLE 544 The winged ball, torch and other symbolic decorative devices are blended pleasingly on the mark (Example 542), which appeared on the title-pages of the famous Eliot six-foot shelf of books, “The Harvard Classics,” 1909. EXAMPLE 546 EXAMPLE 547 An interesting feature of some early Venetian books is the use by printers of decorative devices designed upon the winged Lion of St. Mark. Recent adaptations of this device are the Oswald Press imprints (Examples 539-A and 539-B) and the ornament on a title by Bruce Rogers (Example 538). The Lion of St. Mark is interesting in its significance. Tradition has it that long ago, when John Mark, the missionary companion of Paul, was traveling by way of Aquileia (Roman Secunda) for the purpose of The four-winged beasts mentioned in the fourth chapter of Revelations are accepted as symbolic of the four evangelists, the winged lion typifying St. Mark. Example 543 shows four designs with motifs taken from ancient sources. The Matthews-Northrup device of the mythical phoenix rising from the fire is emblematic of immortality; the torch probably signifies the intellectual light resulting from the invention of printing. The Winthrop Press imprint has already been mentioned as having relation to the ancient TypothetÆ arms. The Binner-Wells design suggests that of Froben, by the shape and lettering between lines. The possible derivation of the Gould Press device from the Venetian master printers’ emblem has been suggested. The unique mark of the De Vinne Press (Example 545) probably pictures a page from a manuscript book. The legend connected with the Greek lettering is mythical and has to do with one Prometheus, who, while chained to a rock, tells of the benefits he conferred on mankind. A literal translation of the Greek at this point reveals the appropriateness of the quotation as used: “And further, I discovered for them numeration, most striking of inventions; and composition, nurse of the arts, producer of the record of all things.” Three imprint-devices, based upon architectural motifs, are shown in Example 544. In the Rogers design the architectural panel is surmounted by a silhouetted heraldic figure that adds much to the attractiveness of the device. A Colonial architectural panel frames the title of the Bartlett-Orr Press. The Egyptian winged ball, asps and open book are well blended with the monogram circle that fits the Roman arch in the Trow imprint. EXAMPLE 548 Initials in monogram form are frequently adopted by printers, and three such devices are shown in Example 546. Reversing one of the initials is a favorite method when the nature of the letter allows it, as in the Patteson Press device. Fitting the initials to a general shape calls EXAMPLE 549 Of the large variety of devices in use by other publishers and printers, those shown in Example 547 are representative. The Griffith-Stillings device, as has already been mentioned, includes elements of the mark of the Society of Printers of Venice. The American Printer mark shows an American eagle standing on books, and the initials A. P. used decoratively in the upper right corner. The dimensions of this oblong and the background are borrowed from the Venetian mark. Unusual in shape and in wording is the Stillson device, which develops attractiveness when printed in several colors and embossed. EXAMPLE 550 Notwithstanding the cumbersome size of the acorn, the Sparrell Print device is not unattractive. With a decorative quality that suggests the sixteenth century, the Ginn device is appropriate in its use of the horn book, an old-time teaching help. Rather clever is the manner in which Goudy has hung the ampersand decoratively on the double-T monogram that is part of the Taylor & Taylor mark. The diamond-shaped Wright & Joys device, with its conventionalized tree, is also interesting. It is possible to construct really creditable decorative imprints with typefounders’ ornaments and suitable type-faces. Example 548 presents several such designs as demonstrations of what can be done in this respect. In building these imprints the author has kept in mind the rules that govern combinations of type and ornament, as explained in the chapters relating to harmony, appropriateness, tone, contrast and ornamentation. In the Church Press design the border is made in outline to reflect the ornament. The types used in the Smith-Brown, Willis Works and Gothic Shop imprints harmonize with the ornamentation in both tone and shape. Italic type and the fleur-de-lis are French in motif. The Caslon type-face and the old-style parentheses go well together. The block, or gothic, type-face in its plainness of stroke suggests early Greek letters, and blends with the plain illustration. The money-bag ornament is an attempt at a pun, in the Stuff imprint. The pleasing gray tone of the Horner & Wilburn device is due to harmony of ornament and type-face. The printer will more often be called on to use a small, inconspicuous type-imprint than the prominent decorative device, and it is just as desirable to have distinction in these small type lines as in the elaborate devices. There are grouped in Example 549, a variety of effects suggested for this purpose. The type used in an imprint should harmonize and blend with the typography of the work on which it is used. An imprint in old-style type would not blend with a page set in modern type. It was the custom at one time to electrotype imprint lines so that they could be easily handled, but now the linotype furnishes a convenient method of casting them. It is well, tho, to strengthen the face by having the slugs copper-faced, which work is done by electrotypers. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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