Chapter C: R. Ashbee, of the Essex House Press, stated in The Private Press (3)

Meanwhile, one thousand pounds of bright new type and months of labor were tied up with strings and the Master Craftsman was getting worried. He went to specialists for advice. They said: "Try this new initial or this new picture," and the Master Craftsman went back to his shop and bowed his head.

Then his tired eyes lighted on a dusty case of type, designed by the artist Goudy but the critics had condemned it to the graveyard. Wearily the Craftsman dug it up and set a page of Whitman in it. Then he pulled a proof and Lo! He saw something that the machine had discarded; he saw strength: he saw the strong, vigorous lines of Whitman, born of the soil, without grass. He saw what he had heard whispered before. He saw strong, vigorous, simple printing--printing like mountains, rocks and trees, but not like pansies, lilacs and valentines; printing that came from the soil and was not refined in the class-room.

And the printer knew that the limited edition was not a racket as long as he had honesty and sincerity, and reverence for the best traditions of his craft.

HOLBROOK JACKSON

THE TYPOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM MORRIS

From _The Printing of Books_ by Holbrook Jackson. Copyright 1938 by
Cassell & Company, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
First read as a paper, at the William Morris Centenary Dinner of the
Double Crown Club, London, May 2, 1934.

William Morris is an ironic figure. His achievements not only missed their mark, but hit marks he was not aiming at. His printing is no exception. The masterpieces of the Kelmscott Press which he aimed at making "useful pieces of goods" were typographical curiosities from birth, and so far removed from the common way of readers that they have become models of what a book should not be.

He was a Bibliophile, or more exactly, a typophile whose affections became unruly in the presence of decorated incunabula, and, although he was outwardly correct towards pure printing, his heart was not there. According to Sir Sydney Cockerell he flirted with the idea of a folio edition of _The Earthly Paradise_, "profusely illustrated by Sir Edward Burne-Jones," a quarter of a century before the inception of the Kelmscott Press. His personal taste was much the same then as later, although he continued to pay homage to good as distinct from fine printing. It was the "essence of my undertaking," he said, "to produce books which it would be a pleasure to look upon as pieces of printing and arrangement of type." Thus inspired by the example of "the calligraphy of the Middle Ages, and the earlier printing which took its place," and in spite of his passion for decorated books he observed that the early printed books "were always beautiful by force of the mere typography, even without the added ornament with which many of them are so lavishly supplied."

Much has been made of the emphasis he laid upon the book as an organic assembly of paper, type, and binding. But although few printers or publishers in the nineteenth century had insisted upon the excellence of these ingredients, as he did, the architectonic principle had never been wholly ignored. But in the main it was unconsciously observed. Deliberation is evident in the construction of the Pickering books, in the Keepsakes and Table Books of the thirties and forties, in the illustrated books of the sixties, and the later productions of the Daniel Press; and, if we may leave England for a moment, in such convenient publications as those of Bernhard Tauchnitz, where there is rectitude to satisfy the demands of the most austere of functionalists.

It was not, then, the architectonics of the Kelmscott books which evoked a typographical revolution. Nor was it the pursuit of beauty which always haunted Morris's intentions. "I began printing books," he said, "in the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty." Many printers and publishers of the time would have claimed as much. Bad taste in the arts and crafts is invariably the result of beauty-mongering, and the more costly books of the nineteenth century are littered with beauty from cover to cover.

Neither was it originality. Morris never sought to be original. He was a revivalist, and all his work is derivative. There is nothing new even in that, for all the arts and crafts are derivative, and originality is apt to be a myth and often a nuisance. Morris was even less original than many other earnest innovators, and the Kelmscott books are derivatives twice removed. They are modern variations of the early printed books of northern Europe, as they in turn were but mechanical imitations of the manuscripts which preceded the invention of movable types.

Nor again was there anything peculiar even in that, for all mechanical evolution seems to proceed in the same manner. The earliest railway carriages followed the lines of the stage-coach; the earliest steamships were schooners and brigantines with funnels and paddle-boxes; and the earliest motor-car was a horseless-carriage complete with tail-board. It is not surprising to learn that the earliest printed books were imitations of manuscripts, but it is surprising to find a nineteenth-century printer of genius imitating the imitations.

There is, however, more than one difference between these mechanical devices and the Kelmscott books. The engineers copied because they could not think of anything better. Now and then they even made concessions to beauty, in the form of superadded decorations, much as Morris did. But there was a marked difference between them, for Morris knew better. Although to him beauty meant decoration or ornament, yet in the first edition of _The Roots of the Mountains_ he actually produced an undecorated book of great distinction. The book is not only admirable in itself, but it has had a better influence on recent typography than all the Kelmscott books together. Morris himself was delighted with the book. He declared it to be "the best-looking book issued since the seventeenth century," and added: "I am so pleased with my book, typography, binding, and must I say it, literary matter, that I am any day to be seen huggling it up, and am become a spectacle to Gods and men because of it." His enthusiasm rings true, but this was a passing fancy, for even then he was in hot pursuit of more opulent beauties.

It was the magnificence of the Kelmscott adventure which impressed and influenced printers, professional and amateur, and resuscitated the curious vogue for so-called "Private Press" books artificially rarefied and deliberately beautified. But, in spite of many extravagances and some few absurdities, the Kelmscott influence has been beneficial. Morris reasserted sound principles, and the richness of his books helped to secure their acceptance. "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." The style of the books themselves, because of their massive individuality, must always provoke differences of opinion, but in the house of books there are many mansions, and room for all tastes, whims, and even fads.

I prefer my books pocketable, flexible, and legible. In the Kelmscott books these qualities are not sufficiently balanced. Each is there in some measure, but something is invariably added to weaken proportion. William Morris (or worse, Burne-Jones) is always getting between reader and author. I like my Chaucer neat. Morris produced Chaucer as Henry Irving and Beerbohm Tree produced Shakespeare. I suspect that enthusiasts for such productions are not readers. The idea is supported by the fact that the majority of Kelmscotts are still in mint state; it is not easy to meet a copy bearing the honourable and endearing scars of use.

Legibility is relative, as I am reminded by my own experience, for myself when young did eagerly frequent Pickering's _Diamond Classics_--a practice I should probably have defended with conviction based upon sight rather than insight. I take a different view today, not only of miniature types, but of rules and spacings generally. Morris granted the necessity of legibility. In this he differed from another poet and amateur of printing, Robert Bridges, who used Gothic characters for the Daniel Press edition of his poems to induce slow ingestion. Morris believed that solidity of type and setting made for easy reading. By solid type he meant "without needless excrescences" or "the thickening or thinning of the line," which, with reservations, can be defended. Density of type area is a different matter and, if I admit charm, I reserve the right to question even aesthetical propriety in favour of legibility. The solid page is impressive: solidity inspires confidence, but confidence, as we know, is often illusion and not always guiltless of trickery. The first edition of _The Roots of the Mountains_ would probably have been more readable with than without rules.

But although legibility must always be the first rule of printing, there are other important principles. Morris summed them up in the word "beauty" with impressive but dubious results, because of his predilection for ornamentation. Any plain space for him was an opportunity for decoration, or, in Ruskin's words, for "the expression of man's joy in his work." He would go out of his way to make books bigger than they need be so that he might have more space to fill with his and Burne-Jones's illustrations. His type-faces became picturesque, his margins inclined to pomposity, and his paper was pretentious. The Kelmscott books are overdressed. They ask you to look at them rather than to read them. You can't get away from their overwhelming typography, and, even if you could, you might still be cheated of your author by their high-minded purpose, for in addition to being the creations of an impressive genius the Kelmscott books were protests against the logical conclusions of mechanical book-production.

All these things are hindrances to reading, and I still believe that to be read is the destiny of a book, and that reading is best when you are least conscious of print or paper or binding. Since the Kelmscott books are not likely to induce that condition they must remain museum pieces, typographical monuments--beautiful and ineffectual angels beating in the void their luminous wings in vain.

COMPOSED IN EMERSON TYPES

_Stanley Morison_

FIRST PRINCIPLES OF TYPOGRAPHY

Published 1951 by the syndics of the Cambridge University Press.
Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

NOTE: This essay towards a rationale of book-typography was first attempted as an article, s.v. "Typography," in the twelfth edition of the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ (Chicago and London, 1929). It was reconsidered and entirely rewritten for No. 7 of _The Fleuron_ (Cambridge, 1930) when it also went out of print.... Although several reprints have been brought out and extracts have been made, demands continue for the whole text from printers as well as from those outside the trade for whom the article was originally written.... As the brevity of the essay seems to be one of its most approved qualities, no expansion, and only slight revision, was made.... The present reprint is that of the Amsterdam edition published in 1947, in which the first paragraph was interpolated.... It may be added that while the principles here set forth apply to the typography of books, the sections dealing with composition may be adapted to the design of newspapers and publicity....

S.M.

I

Letters of the alphabet that are cast or founded for the purpose of impressing upon paper are known as "types" and the impression thus made as a "print." But every impression, from any raised surface, is a "print." Hence the impression from the particular raised surfaces known as "types" is called a "typographical" impression; or, to use a more old-fashioned term, "letter-press." The precise form of the "types" and the exact position they need to occupy upon the selected paper involve skill in the art that is called "typography."

Typography may be defined as the art of rightly disposing printing material in accordance with specific purpose; of so arranging the letters, distributing the space and controlling the type as to aid to the maximum the reader's comprehension of the text. Typography is the efficient means to an essentially utilitarian and only accidentally aesthetic end, for enjoyment of patterns is rarely the reader's chief aim. Therefore, any disposition of printing material which, whatever the intention, has the effect of coming between author and reader is wrong. It follows that in the printing of books meant to be read there is little room for "bright" typography. Even dullness and monotony in the type-setting are far less vicious to a reader than typographical eccentricity or pleasantry. Cunning of this sort is desirable, even essential in the typography of propaganda, whether for commerce, politics, or religion, because in such printing only the freshest survives inattention. But the typography of books, apart from the category of narrowly limited editions, requires an obedience to convention which is almost absolute--and with reason.

Since printing is essentially a means of multiplying, it must not only be good in itself--but be good for a common purpose. The wider that purpose, the stricter are the limitations imposed upon the printer. He may try an experiment in a tract printed in an edition of 50 copies, but he shows little common sense if he experiments to the same degree in the tract having a run of 50,000. Again, a novelty, fitly introduced into a 16-page pamphlet, will be highly undesirable in a 160-page book. It is of the essence of typography and of the nature of the printed book _qua_ book, that it perform a public service. For single or individual purpose there remains the manuscript, the codex; so there is something ridiculous in the unique copy of a printed book, though the number of copies printed may justifiably be limited when a book is the medium of typographical experiment. It is always desirable that experiments be made, and it is a pity that such "laboratory" pieces are so limited in number and in courage. Typography today does not so much need Inspiration or Revival as Investigation. It is proposed here to formulate some of the principles already known to book-printers, which investigation confirms and which non-printers may like to consider for themselves.

II

The laws governing the typography of books intended for general circulation are based first upon the essential nature of alphabetical writing, and secondly upon the traditions, explicit or implicit, prevailing in the society for which the printer is working. While a universal character or typography applicable to all books produced in a given national area is practicable, to impose a universal detailed formula upon all books printed in Roman types is not. National tradition expresses itself in the varying separation of the book into prelims, chapters, etc., no less than in the design of the type. But at least there are physical rules of linear composition which are obeyed by all printers who know their job.

The normal Roman type (in simple form without special sorts, etc.) consists of an upright design, and a sloping form of it:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

_ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&_

_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_

The printer needs to be very careful in choosing his type, realizing that the more often he is going to use it, the more closely its design must approximate to the general idea held in the mind's eye of readers perforce ruled by the familiar magazine, newspaper and book. It does no harm to print a Christmas card in =black-letter=, but who nowadays would read a book in that type? I may believe, as I do, that black-letter is in design more homogeneous, more lively and more economic a type than the grey round Roman we use, but I do not now expect people to read a book in it. Aldus' and Caslon's are both relatively feeble types, but they represent the forms accepted by the community; and the printer, as a servant of the community, must use them, or one of their variants. No printer should say, "I am an artist, therefore I am not to be dictated to. I will create my own letter forms," for, in this humble job, no printer is an artist in this sense. Nor is it possible today, as it just was in the infancy of the craft, to persuade society into the acceptance of strongly marked and highly individualistic types--because literate society is so much greater in mass and correspondingly slower in movement. Type design moves at the pace of the most conservative reader. The good type-designer therefore realizes that, for a new fount to be successful, it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty. If readers do not notice the consummate reticence and rare discipline of a new type, it is probably a good letter. But if my friends think that the tail of my lower-case r or the lip of my lower-case e is rather jolly, you may know that the fount would have been better had neither been made. A type which is to have anything like a present, let alone a future, will neither be very "different" nor very "jolly."

So much for Type. The printer possesses also Spaces and Leads as a normal part of his typographical material, straight lines of metal known as rules, braces, and finally a more or less indiscriminate collection of ornaments--head and tailpieces, flowers, decorated initial letters, vignettes and flourishes. Another decorative medium at his option lies in his command of colour; red is, with sound instinct, the most frequently used. For emphasis, heavy faces are used. White space is an important item of composing-room equipment--margins, blanks, etc., being filled in with what are known as "quotations." The selecting and arranging of these elements is known as Composition. Imposition is the placing of the composed matter upon the sheet. Printing includes impressing in due order, perfecting the sheet in due register (backing up), regulating the inking, and achieving a crisp type-page. Finally the tone, weight and texture of the paper are important factors entering into the completed result.

Typography, therefore, controls the composition, imposition, impression and paper. Of paper, it is at least necessary to demand that it be capable of expressing the value of the composition; of imposition, that the margins be proportionate to the area of the text, affording decent space for thumbs and fingers at the side and bottom of the page. The old-style margins are handsome in themselves and agreeable to the purpose of a certain kind of book, but are obviously not convenient in books where the page dimension is unavoidably small or narrow, or the purpose of the book is to be carried in the pocket. For these and other kinds of book, the type may be centred on the measure of the page, and slightly raised above ocular centre.

Imposition is the most important element in typography--for no page, however well composed in detail, can be admired if the _mise-en-page_ is careless or ill-considered. In practical printing today, these details of imposition are on the whole adequately cared for; so that it is possible to report that the mass of books presents a tolerable appearance. Even a badly composed work may give a good appearance if it is well imposed--good imposition redeeming bad composition, while a good composition would be effectively ruined by bad imposition.

III

The designer of the book, therefore, first determines his imposition and then tackles the details of composition. The first principles of composition do not require much discussion since they necessarily follow from the conventions of alphabetical printing in the Roman letter accepted by those for whom we are printing. The matter is relatively simple. First, it is certain that the eye cannot read with ease any considerable number of words composed of letters embodying sharply contrasted thicks and thins; secondly, it is none the less certain that the eye cannot agreeably read a mass of words composed even in a rightly constructed letter, if the lines are beyond a certain length. The most expert reader's eye cannot seize more than a certain number of words in a given size except in a proportionate length of line. Thirdly, practice proves that the size of the letter must be related to the length of line. Respect for these principles will generally protect the reader from the risk of "doubling" (reading the same line twice). The average line of words which the reader's eye can conveniently seize is between ten and twelve. Nevertheless, the typographer, while exerting himself to the utmost to respect this ocular truth, is daily confronted with the fact that unavoidable conditions make it impossible for him to secure a type of the duly related size, and that he is driven to use a relatively small type. To obviate here the risk of "doubling," he consistently inserts proportionate leads through the matter, so opening the lines that the eye comfortably travels and returns from beginning to end and from end to beginning.

The practice of leading, denounced in certain quarters as essentially evil, is an inevitable necessity to a large proportion of printing; and the skilled typographer, making the best use of his material, makes in turn, wise use of leads. The orthodox high-brow view that leads produce in every instance an unhappy weak-looking effect will not survive a wide experience. On the contrary, it will be found that their absence may effectively ruin even a composition in large type, so that it is true to say that the intelligent use of leading distinguishes the expert from the inexpert printer. A slight differentiation of type-face may make the practice advisable. Clearly, while a letter of the size now under the reader's eye, with fairly long ascenders and descenders, would not require leading unless set to a measure of more than 3-1/2 in., there exist letters with short descenders designed rather to sustain leading by rule than by exception. Baskerville's is a type to which leading is invariably an advantage. The problem of determining the amount to be given is not to be settled by considering only the ascenders or the body of the type, because breadth of letter is also a factor to be reckoned with--some letters are narrow in respect to their height, while others are wide. A composition in a round, open, wide letter, chosen because it is rather loose (that is to say, the space between the letters is greater, or appears greater, by reason of the curves of the c, o, e, g), gains in consistency when there is a satisfactory lead between the lines. It is often argued that loose setting is not admirable in itself; to which it might be replied that the printer is generally bound to carry out the instructions of his customer; often to respect the wishes of an artist who may be illustrating the work; and, not seldom, committed by the publisher to a paper-size dictated by irrelevant considerations.

Further, it is obvious that the space between words composed in a condensed letter may be less than that between words in a round, wide form of letter. Where there is no leading between the lines, and the composition is, for extrinsic reasons, necessarily tight, it may be an advantage to set leads between the paragraphs, even though this result in pages with uneven tails. In paragraphing, it is important to realize that the opening sentence of a work should automatically manifest itself as such. This may be secured by the use of the large initial letter; the printing of the first word in CAPITALS, or SMALL CAPITALS ; CAPITALS _and_ SMALL CAPITALS ; or by setting the first word into the margin. On no account should the opening of a chapter be indented, since indention should mark (and always mark) the subsequent sections, i.e., the paragraphs, of the text. The abolition of paragraph-indentions is plainly an undesirable practice; nor is setting the first word in capitals or small capitals an agreeable substitute for the indention. The space of the indention should be sufficient to be noticeable.

As both measures must be related, displaying a proportion pleasing to the eye, the depth of the page follows from its width. It seems that the proportions of the oblong are more pleasing than those of the square; and as a horizontal oblong drives out the line to an impossible length, and a two-column arrangement is tedious, the vertical oblong has become the normal page.

Such are the elements of typography; and a volume built up of type-pages composed in accordance with them will be generally satisfactory. There remain only the page headings and the folio. By ranging the headings inside towards the gutter, to the left and right respectively, two pages are fixed as a unity; but they can also be ranged outside to the right and left, or they may be centered. The folio may be centered at the foot, or range either way at the top or bottom (preferably, for quicker reference, on the outside), but it cannot be centered at the top without cancelling the running page headline--only to be done by exception. The running headlines may be set in capitals of the text, in upper and lower-case of the text, or in a combination of capitals. Full-sized capitals overemphasize what is, after all, a repetitive page-feature inserted chiefly for the convenience of librarians and readers interested in the identification of leaves which have worked loose. If set in upper and lower-case, the headline loses in levelness, so that it seems well to employ S M A L L C A P I T A L S; these are best separated by hair spaces, since the unrelieved rectangular structure and perpendicularity of capitals tend to defeat instantaneous recognition. Full-sized capitals may well be used for chapter headings, with the number of the chapter in smalls; both indications being hair-spaced.

The reader, travelling from the generally invariable blank at the end of a chapter to the beginning of the next, finds a dropped chapter head an agreeably consistent feature, which saves him from feeling suffocated or overpowered by the text.

IV

The foregoing elementary directions affect the main part of the book, its body. There remains a section which goes before the text, known as the "preliminaries," often complicated both in respect to arrangement and draftsmanship. Before considering these, it may be well to summarize our present findings--to concentrate them into a formula. According to our doctrine, a well-built book is made up from vertical oblong pages arranged in paragraphs having an average line of ten to twelve consistently spaced words, set in a fount of comfortable size and familiar design; the lines sufficiently separated to prevent doubling and the composition being headed by a running title. This rectangle is so imposed upon the page as to provide centre, head, fore-edge and tail margins of dimensions suitably related not only to the length of line but to the disposition of space at those points where the text is cut into chapters, and where the body joins the prefatory and other pages known as "preliminaries."

Now these first pages, being intended rather for reference than for reading and re-reading, are less strictly governed by convention than the text-pages. They consequently offer the maximum opportunity for typographic design. The history of printing is in large measure the history of the title-page. When fully developed, the title occupied a recto page, either partially or wholly; and the title-phrase, or the principal words of it, has generally been set in a conspicuous size of type. Sixteenth-century Italian printers generally used large capitals copied from inscriptions, or by exception, from medieval manuscripts; while English use emulated the French in employing a canon line of upper and lower-case, followed by a few lines of pica capitals. Next came the printer's device, and at the foot of the page, his name and address. These large sizes of upper and lower-case, an inheritance from printers who were accustomed to black-letter (which cannot be set in solid capitals), have gone. The device has also vanished (it has been revived by a few publishers), and thus the contemporary title page is generally a bleak affair, exhibiting in nine out of ten cases a space between the title and the imprint of the printer-publisher, so that this blank tends to be the strongest feature on the page. When the device was first abandoned, the author, printer or publisher took advantage of the leisure of the reader and the blank at their disposal, to draft a tediously long title, subtitle and list of the author's qualifications, designed to fill the entire page. The present-day publisher goes to the other extreme, reducing the title to as few short words as possible, followed with "by" and the author's name. A professional writer may insert, e.g., "Author of _The Deluge_" under his name or there may be incorporated a motto; but apart from such exceptions, three and sometimes four inches of space separate the author's name from the first line of the imprint.

The result is that unless the title is set in a size of type out of all relation to that of the remainder of the book, this space is more conspicuous than the chief line. It is more reasonable to lessen this space by shortening the depth of the whole piece from title to imprint. It is clear that a volume in 12-point does not require a 30-point title unless it be a folio in double-column; and it is of no consequence if the title page is a little shorter than the text pages. There is no reason, other than a desire to be "different," for a title page to bear any line of type larger than twice the size of the text letter. If the book be set in 12-point, the title need be no larger than 24-point--and may decently enough be smaller. As lower-case is a necessary evil, which we should do well to subordinate since we cannot suppress, it should be avoided when it is at its least rational and least attractive--in large sizes. The main line of a title should be set in capitals; and, like all titling capitals, they should be spaced. Whatever may happen to the rest of the composition, the author's name, like all displayed proper names, should be in capitals.

V

Here we may pause to counter an objection. It will be contended that whatever the value of our preceding conclusions, their adoption must mean an increase in standardization--all very well for those who have an economic objective but very monotonous and dull for those whose aim is that books shall possess more "life." This means that the objectors want more variety, more "differentness," more decoration. The craving to decorate is natural, and only if it is allowed the freedom of the text pages shall we look upon it as a passion to be resisted. The decoration of title pages is one thing--that of a fount to be employed in books is another. Our contention, in this respect, is that the necessities of a mass-production book and the limited edition differ neither in kind nor in degree, since all printing is essentially a means of the multiplication of a text set in an alphabetical code of conventional symbols. To disallow "variety" in the vital details of the composition is not to insist upon uniformity in display. As already pointed out, the preliminary pages offer scope for the utmost typographical ingenuity. Yet even here, a word of caution may be in place, so soon do we forget, in arranging any piece of display (above all, a title page), the supreme importance of sense. Every character, every word, every line should be seen with maximum clearness. Words should not be broken except unavoidably, and in title pages and other compositions of centred matter, lines should hardly begin with such feeble parts of speech as prepositions and conjunctions. It is more reasonable, as assisting the reader's immediacy of comprehension, to keep these to the ends of lines or to centre them in smaller type and so bring out the salient lines in a relatively conspicuous size.

No printer, in safeguarding himself from the charge of monotony in his composition, should admit, against his better judgment, any typographical distraction doing violence to logic and lucidity in the supposed interests of decoration. To twist his text into a triangle, squeeze it into a box, torture it into the shape of an hour-glass or a diamond is an offence requiring greater justification than the existence either of Italian and French precedents of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, or of an ambition to do something new in the twentieth. In truth, these are the easiest tricks of all, and we have seen so much of them during the late "revival of printing" that we now need rather a revival of restraint. In all permanent forms of typography, whether publicly or privately printed, the typographer's only purpose is to express, not himself, but his author. There are, admittedly, other purposes which enter into the composition of advertisement, publicity and sales matter; and there is, of course, a very great deal common to both book and advertisement composition. But it is not allowable to the printer to relax his zeal for the reader's comfort in order to satisfy an ambition to decorate or to illustrate. Rather than run this risk the printer should strive to express himself by the use of this or that small decorative unit, either of common design supplied by the type founders or drawn for his office by an artist. It is quite true that to an inventive printer decoration is not often necessary. In commercial printing, however, it seems to be a necessity, because the complexity of our civilization demands an infinite number of styles and characters. Publishers and other buyers of printing, by insisting upon a setting which shall express _their_ business, _their_ goods, _their_ books and nobody else's business or goods or books, demand an individuality which pure typography can never hope to supply. But book-printers, concerned with the permanently convenient rather than with the transiently sensational or the merely fashionable, should be on their guard against title-page borders, vignettes and devices invented to ease their difficulties. There is no easy way with most title pages; and the printer's task is rendered more difficult by the average publisher's and author's incompetence to draft a title or to organize the preliminaries in reasonable sequence.

VI

Those who would like to lessen or vary the tendency towards standardization in day-today book production have a field for their activity in the last-mentioned pages. The position on the page of the half-title, title, dedication, etc., and their relation to each other, are not essentially invariable. Nevertheless, as it is well for printers and publishers to have rules, and the same rules, it may be suggested that the headings to Preface, Table of Contents, Introduction, etc., should be in the same size and fount as the chapter heads; and should be dropped if they are dropped. The order of the preliminaries remains to be settled. With the exception of the copyright notice, which may be set on the verso of the title page, all should begin on a recto. The logical order of the preliminary pages is Half-title or Dedication (I see no reason for including both), Title, Contents, Preface, Introduction. The certificate of "limitation," in the case of books of that class, may face the title where there is no frontispiece, be incorporated with the half-title, or be taken to the end of the volume. This order is applicable to most categories of books. Novels need neither Table of Contents nor List of Chapters, though one or the other is too often printed. If it is decided to retain either, it would be reasonable to print it on the back of the half-title and facing the title page, so that the structure, scope and nature of the book will be almost completely indicated to the reader at a single opening. Where the volume is made up of a few short stories, their titles can be listed in the otherwise blank centre of the title page.

VII

Fiction, Belles-Lettres and Educational books are habitually first published in portable, but not pocketable formats; crown octavo (5 by 7-1/2 in.) being the invariable rule for novels published as such. The novel in the form of Biography will be published as a Biography, demy octavo (5-5/8 by 8-3/4 in.), the size also for History, Political Study, Archaeology, Science, Art and almost everything but Fiction. Novels are only promoted to this format when they have become famous and "standard"; when they are popular rather than famous they are composed in pocket (4-1/2 by 6-3/4 in.) editions. _Size_, therefore, is the most manifest difference between the categories of books.

Another obvious difference is _bulk_, calculated in accordance with the publisher's notion, first, of the general sense of trade expectation and, secondly, of the purchasing psychology of a public habituated to certain selling prices vaguely related to number of pages and thickness of volume (inconsistently enough, weight does not enter into these expectations). These habits of mind have consequences in the typography; they affect the choice of fount and size of type, and may necessitate the adoption of devices for "driving out," i.e., making the setting take up as much room as possible. By putting the running headline between rules or rows of ornaments; introducing unnecessary blanks between chapters; contracting the measure; exaggerating the spaces between the words and the lines; excessively indenting paragraphs; isolating quoted matter with areas of white space: inserting wholly unnecessary sectional titles in the text and surrounding them with space; contriving to drive a chapter ending to the top of a recto page so that the rest of it and its verso may be blank; using thick paper; increasing the depth of chapter beginnings and inserting very large versals thereto; and so on, the volume can be inflated to an extra sixteen pages and sometimes more--which is a feat the able typographer is expected to accomplish without showing his hand.

Limited editions of standard authors, or of authors whose publishers desire them to rank as such, are commonly given a rubricated title or some other feature not strictly necessary. A dreadful example of overdone rubrication is to be found in an edition of Thomas Hardy's verse, in which the running heads throughout the book are in red--the production of a firm which desired to make an impression on the purchaser in view of the price asked for the edition. This could have been better done by reserving colour for the initial letters. Handmade paper is generally used for _éditions de luxe_, and none but the brave among publishers will disregard the superstitious love of the book-buying classes for its untrimmed, ugly and dirt-gathering edges. That most of the public prefer to have it so is because a trimmed book looks "ordinary" to them. Any book which is "different" from the "ordinary" in one superficial way or another is apt to impress those lacking trade experience. And there has been a notable increase during recent years in the category of books, generally illustrated, known to the trade as _fine printing_, _éditions de luxe_, _press-books_, _limited editions_, _collectors' books_, etc. Hence, it is hoped that the above setting out of the first principles of typography may give the discriminating reader some sort of yardstick which he can apply not only to the entries catalogued by the book-sellers as limited editions, but to the output of publishers responsible for printing the literary and scientific books which are more necessary to society, and are often designed with greater intelligence.

COMPOSED IN NEW TIMES ROMAN TYPES

CARL PURINGTON ROLLINS

_American Type Designers and Their Work_

Published by The Lakeside Press 1947-1948. Reprinted by permission of
the publisher.

A piece of paper about two inches square, originally pinned to the manuscript of the Rev. Ezra Stiles's diary in the Yale University Library is all that remains of the first original American type design. It is a proof of letters made by Abel Buell, a Connecticut Yankee, in 1769.[35] Buell was his own designer, punch cutter, and caster, since in his day, as for many years after, the making of type was entirely a hand operation. Not the least exacting part of the work was the cutting of the punch on the end of a short bar of softened steel. It was not until the invention of the Benton pantograph punch-cutting machine in 1885 that any other method was known. All type made before 1885 was therefore dependent on hand punch cutting, and the designer of the type was almost always the same man who cut the punches.

Who these type designers were after Buell is a matter of uncertainty and obscurity. The first type specimen book in America was that of Binny & Ronaldson of Philadelphia, issued in 1812; and from then almost to our own day the type foundries have taken the credit for the type designs which they have offered for sale. Type designers, like architects, got no credit; possibly Modesty, with a backward glance at old specimen books, raised a warning finger, and the designers were willing to let the foundries have whatever glory there was.

Abel Buell and his contemporaries and successors followed the general trends in design in the arts as a whole. The Greek Revival and the Victorian Age, marked by the two great expositions at London and Philadelphia with their crudities and extravagancies in design, found echoes in our imitative craft of printing. So it is not surprising that type design began to improve, along with the other arts, with the advent of the '90's. We have always followed European and especially English models, and it is natural that the upheaval in type design in England under Morris's influence had immediate repercussions here. But while imitations of Kelmscott types were soon on the market, two surprisingly original American designs appeared at the same time as the imitations. About 1894 or 1895 the Central Type Foundry of St. Louis introduced a face which became widely used, called (for no better reason than attends the christening of most type faces) "De Vinne." It is of unknown parentage, though there is some reason to suppose that it descended from the Elzevirs; but it was a face of character and distinction. At the same time the same foundry brought out another design which had an acknowledged father--Will Bradley. Of this face it has been said that it has "remarkably bold letters, with peculiarities of form never before attempted." Thus we have in the De Vinne and the Bradley faces two fresh and distinctively American types, destined to be the forerunners of many others. And in one case the name of the designer was definitely attached.

With the invention of the pantograph punch cutter, type design became an "art" rather than a craft, and as might be expected the personality of the designer became for various reasons more important. It is not without interest that the chief designer of the American Type Founders Company--a man responsible for almost the whole type output of that foundry for many years--Morris Fuller Benton, was the son of the man whose machines were responsible for this revolution in type design. For it was the two basic machines invented and developed by Linn Boyd Benton which made it possible for those unskilled in the intricacies of type making to provide the basic designs for type. The machines were very ingenious, and the designs partook of the "faultily faultless, icily regular" perfection of the mechanical device. This method of making type faces involved the drawing of the design and the making of two or three patterns in thin brass of the outline of the letter--each pattern good for several sizes of type, and slightly modified for another group of sizes. This is the way in which modern type is designed. It is the reason why such a type series as "Cheltenham," designed by the architect Bertram G. Goodhue in 1900 for the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, while very expertly handled in the details, seems monotonous in mass; whereas the Caslon type of the original cutting shows all the inevitable variations of hand work.

A survey of the types of the first quarter of the present century, made by the Editor of the _Inland Printer_ in 1927, displays 161 type faces brought out by seven or eight of the leading foundries between 1900 and 1925. Of these, it was possible to name the designers of 72, almost all from the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler foundry of Chicago, whose records seem to have been in better shape, or whose generosity was more spontaneous. Oswald Cooper, Sydney Gaunt, Will Ransom, Robert Wiebking, and George Trenholm were the chief names. It is unfortunate that the names of the designers of the types put out by the American Type Founders Company have not been preserved except in rare instances. Of course, Benton was responsible for the greater portion, and on the aesthetic side they occasionally scored a triumph as in the case of the "Cloister" face.

The list included in the _Inland Printer's_ survey fails to include some of the outstanding designs of the period. Goodhue's "Merrymount" was done in 1894, but after 1900 we have Mr. Rogers's "Centaur," Mr. Hunter's odd but forceful types (properly cut on punches by the designer), the output of the rapidly growing composing-machine industry, and Frederic W. Goudy's fifty designs completed in that quarter century. Goudy's output of six score type designs in fifty years is an amazing record, one probably never equalled. Such designs as those for "Goudy Modern," "Goudy Text," and "Hadrian" would establish his reputation. He had his limitations as a designer--most of his designs lack a certain crispness--but his versatility was extraordinary.

In the years since 1925 new designers have come to the fore: Blumenthal with his "Emerson," Dwiggins with his "Electra" and "Caledonia," Ruzicka with his "Fairfield," and Chappell with his "Lydian." This brief survey cannot hope to mention all types or designs which American designers have contributed, but it is well to see if any tendencies can be detected.

The type which Buell made in 1759, as well as the type of his immediate successors into the first decades of the nineteenth century, were mainly variations on the so-called "modern romans" of Didot, Bodoni, Austen, and Thorowgood. As the artistic styles in design in general, not alone in type, gradually lost the evolutionary force which has developed letter forms through the centuries, eccentricity and anarchy came into play. The nineteenth-century types as shown in the specimen books of Bruce, Connor, Farmer, etc., and exhibited in all their grotesque horror in Fred Phillips' "Old-fashioned Type Book," had no legitimate parentage, and they are as well relegated to the bizarre and pseudo-nostalgic advertisement. The result of the Kelmscott "revival" was to turn attention to type forms of the past which could be revived for modern use, and the type designers after 1900 did a remarkable piece of work in introducing good type faces. The advertisers have been eager to use new and novel faces, and have greatly stimulated this activity, even in many cases over-exciting it. The most interesting result has been the renewed interest in calligraphy. First directed toward new forms of script, the truer form of broad pen lettering is now beginning to influence type design, to free it from too slavish a devotion on the one hand to the serif, and on the other to a too-free rejection of the serif altogether. Such a face as Mr. Chappell's "Lydian" is an example of real advance in design, and if one could adduce European examples, more could be cited.

American designers have not developed many new or good book faces; such types as Oxford, Centaur, Emerson, Fairfield, Electra, are the exception. Their efforts have been given to the drawing of display and advertising types--too often not to the enrichment of the printer's repertory. It is quite as true now as in the past that distortions of the normal Roman letter form in the direction of extra condensed or extra heavy or very light mono-line letters result in eccentricities which have no permanent value. On the other hand such novel type designs as Garamond Bold Italic, Hadriano, the newspaper Ionics, and Lydian are meritorious additions to the printer's fonts. When it is realized that eccentricity and originality are not the same thing, we may expect from our increasingly intelligent designers indigenous types of usefulness and charm.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Reprinted in Lawrence C. Wroth's "The First Work with American Types," page 65.

TYPOGRAPHY--ERIC GILL

From _Printing & Piety_, An Essay on Typography by Eric Gill.
Copyright 1931 by J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., London. Reprinted by
permission of the publisher.

One of the most alluring enthusiasms that can occupy the mind of the letterer is that of inventing a really logical and consistent alphabet having a distinct sign for every distinct sound. This is especially the case for English speaking people: for the letters we use only inadequately symbolize the sounds of our language. We need many new letters and a revaluation of existing ones. But this enthusiasm has no practical value for the typographer; we must take the alphabets we have got, and we must take these alphabets in all essentials as we have inherited them.

First of all, then, we have the ROMAN ALPHABET of CAPITAL letters (Upper-case), and second the alphabet which printers call ROMAN LOWER-CASE. The latter, tho' derived from the Capitals, is a distinct alphabet. Third we have the alphabet called _ITALIC_, also derived from the Capitals but through different channels. These are the three alphabets in common use for English people.

Are there no others? It might be held that there are several; there are, for example, the alphabet called Black Letter, and that called Lombardic. But these are only partial survivals, and very few people could, without reference to ancient books, write down even a complete alphabet of either. As far as we are concerned in modern England, Roman Capitals, Lower-case and Italics are three different alphabets, and all are current "coin." But however familiar we are with them, their essential differences are not always easily discovered. It is not a matter of slope or of serifs or of thickness or thinness. These qualities, though one or other of them may be commonly associated with one alphabet more than another, are not essential marks of difference. A Roman Capital A does not cease to be a Roman Capital A because it is sloped backwards or forwards, because it is made thicker or thinner, or because serifs are added or omitted; and the same applies to Lower-case and Italics (see Fig. 1).

The essential differences are obviously between the forms of the letters. The following letters, abdefghklmnqrtu and y, are not Roman Capitals, and that is all about it. The letters shown in the lower line of Fig. 2 are neither Capitals nor Lower-case. The conclusion is obvious: there is a complete alphabet of Capital letters, but the Lower-case takes ten letters from the Capital alphabet, and the Italic takes ten from the Capitals and twelve from the Lower-case. Figure 3 shows the three alphabets completed, and it will be seen that CIJOPSVWX and Z are common to all three, that bdhklmnqrtu and y are common to Lower-case and Italics; that ABDEFGHKLMNQRTU and Y are always Capitals; and that aef and g are always Lower-case.

But tho' this is a true account of the essential differences between the three alphabets, there are customary differences which seem almost as important. It is customary to make Roman Capitals upright. It is customary to make Lower-case smaller than Capitals when the two are used together; and it is customary to make Italics narrower than Lower-case, sloping towards the right and with certain details reminiscent of the cursive hand-writing from which they are derived. Fig. 4 shows the three alphabets with their customary as well as their essential differences.

Properly speaking there is no such thing as an alphabet of Italic Capitals, and where upright or nearly upright Italics are used ordinary upright Roman Capitals go perfectly well with them. But as Italics are commonly made with a considerable slope and cursive freedom, various sorts of sloping and quasi-cursive Roman Capitals have been designed to match. This practice has, however, been carried to excess; the slope of Italics and their cursiveness have been much overdone. In the absence of punch cutters with any personal sensibility as letter designers, with punch cutting almost entirely done by machine, the obvious remedy is a much more nearly upright and non-cursive Italic, and for Capitals the ordinary upright Roman. Even with a nearly upright Italic, the mere presence of the Italic aef and g alters the whole character of a page, and with a slight narrowness as well as a slight slope, the effect is quite different from that of a page of Lower-case.

The common practice of using Italics to emphasize single words should be abandoned in favour of the use of the ordinary Lower-case with spaces between the letters (l e t t e r - s p a c e d). The proper use of Italics is for quotations and footnotes, and for books in which it is or seems desirable to use a lighter and less formal style of letter. In a book printed in Italics upright Capitals may well be used, but if sloping Capitals be used they should only be used as initials--they go well enough with Italic Lower-case, but they do not go with one another.