On a Saturday afternoon in 1907, believing myself alone, for the
offices and plant had closed at twelve, I was standing at a drafting
table making up the Thanksgiving issue of _Collier’s_ when Mr. Collier
entered. He became intrigued with proofs of decorative units being
combined for initial-letter and page borders, as had earlier been done
with similar material in designing a cover, and asked for some to take
home and play with on the morrow. Robert Collier was that kind of a
boss--a joy!
Of the Thanksgiving issue Royal Cortissoz wrote: “This week’s number
has has just turned up and I cannot refrain from sending you my
congratulations. The cover is bully; it’s good decoration, it’s
appropriate, it’s everything that is first rate. The decorations all
through are charming. More power to your elbow. It does my heart good
to see _Collier’s_ turning up in such splendid shape.” There were other
favorable comments--but no noticeable jump in newsstand sales.
My joining Collier’s staff has been under circumstances quite
exceptional, even for that somewhat pioneer period in which the
streamlined editorial and publishing efficiency of today was only a
vague dream. I had been asked to give the weekly a new typographic
lay-out. When this was ready Mr. Collier suggested that I take the
art editorship. He said I would be given his office in the editorial
department and he would occupy one in the book department, where he
could devote more time to that branch of the business, an arrangement
he knew would please his father. I was to carry the title of art editor
but in reality would be responsible for make-up and other details that
had been demanding too much of his own time.
At the age of twelve I had begun to learn that type display is
primarily for the purpose of selling something. In 1889, as a
free-lance artist in Chicago, I had discovered that to sell something
was also the prime purpose of designs for book and magazine covers
and for posters. Later I was to realize that salesmanship possessed
the same importance in editorial headings and blurbs. These
never-to-be-forgotten lessons, taught by experience and emphasized by
the sales results of the publicity campaign I had lately conducted for
the American Typefounders Company, would classify that Thanksgiving
number as a newsstand disappointment. However, it pleased Robert
Collier who, even to hold a guaranteed circulation--when a loss would
mean rebates to advertisers--would not permit the use of stories by
such popular writers as Robert Chambers and Zane Gray nor the popular
illustrations of such artists as Howard Chandler Christy!
My tenure at _Collier’s_ gave me a new experience. There I always
worked under conditions inviting and stimulating imagination, and there
I probably unknowingly shattered many a precious editorial precedent.
_Collier’s_ had one of the early color presses akin to those used on
newspapers. We decided to use this to print illustrations for a monthly
“Household Number” carrying extra stories. The editorial back-list
showed no fiction suitable for color; the awarding of one thousand
dollars a month for the best story, judgment based upon literary
merit, had resulted in the purchase of nothing but literary fog. Mr.
Collier told Charles Belmont Davis, fiction editor, to order what was
necessary. Charley asked me who could write the type of story needed. I
said, “Gouverneur Morris.” Mr. Morris, then in California, sent a list
of titles accompanied by the request: “Ask Will Bradley to take his
pick.” We chose _The Wife’s Coffin_, a pirate tale. During an editorial
dinner at his home Robert Collier read a letter from his father, then
out of the city, in which P. F. (his father) wrote: “If you continue
printing issues like this last our subscription-book salesmen report
the weekly will sell itself.” Robert said: “Mr. Bradley can make this
kind of a number because he knows the people from whom the salesmen
obtain subscriptions. I don’t, and any similar undertaking by me would
be false and a failure.”
During this period of art editorship, and following the lay-out of a
booklet, _Seven Steps and a Landing_, for Condé Nast, advertising
manager of _Collier’s_, a color-spread for Cluett-Peabody, lay-outs
for the subscription-book department, and pieces of printing for Mr.
Collier’s social activities (also a request from Medill McCormick that
I go to Chicago and supply a new typographic make-up for the _Tribune_;
a suggestion from Mr. Chichester, president of the Century Company,
that if I were ever free he would like to talk with me about taking
the art editorship of _Century_; and from Mr. Schweindler, printer of
_Cosmopolitan_ and other magazines, an expression of the hope that I
could be obtained for laying-out a new publication), Robert Collier
proposed the building of a pent-house studio on the roof near his
father’s office where, relieved of much detail, I could give additional
thought to all branches of the business. This promised too little
excitement, and instead I rented a studio-office on the forty-fifth
floor of the then nearly-finished Metropolitan Tower. At this time
Condé Nast had just purchased _Vogue_, then a small publication showing
few changes from when I had contributed to it in the early Nineties.
In this new environment I handled the art editorship and make-up of
_Metropolitan_, _Century_, _Success_, _Pearson’s_ and the new _National
Weekly_, which was given a format like that of present-day weeklies and
a make-up that included rules. Caslon was used for all headings except
for _Pearson’s_ which, using a specially-drawn character, were lettered
by hand.
Among some discarded _Metropolitan_ covers I found one by
Stanislaus--the head of a girl wearing a white-and-red-striped toboggan
cap against a pea-green background. By substituting the toboggan-cap
red for the pea-green background, with the artist’s approval, we
obtained a poster effect that dominated the newsstands and achieved an
immediate sellout.
[Illustration]