mingled, finally resulting during Colonial days in a style of typography
which represented the Italian modified by the German just enough to make
it interesting. But typography as an art was in a state of
deterioration. Even Franklin, called by the printers of America their
“Patron Saint,” as a typographer lacked the artistic perception of Aldus
and Plantin, altho he was a superior mechanic and a shrewd business man.
The beginning of the nineteenth century found the practice of typography
leaning more than ever toward utility and away from art. William
Nicholson, an Englishman, had planned a cylinder printing press, and Dr.
Kinsley, of Connecticut, had constructed a model of one. A roman
type-face on severe, mechanical lines had been designed, and picturesque
old romans such as the Caslon were going out of use. Ornaments and
borders were being discarded, and the style of typography was getting
uninteresting and losing the personal element.
[Illustration:
PLEASING BORDER ARRANGEMENT
Letterpress imitation of the decoration of double-column pages on
early books. From the “Book of Common Prayer,” London, 1814
]
To illustrate this transition there are reproduced four representative
title-page arrangements. The first is that of a book on printing
published in 1810, containing several lines of the then new roman
type-face. In arrangement this page is similar to the “Queen Elizabeth”
page inserted in the chapter on Colonial typography which is perhaps the
source from which came the “long-and-short-line” and “catch-word” style
of the average title-page of the nineteenth century. The second example
of the group shows a displayed page of 1847 similarly treated, and the
third is a reproduction of the title-page of a printer’s manual of 1872.
This last-mentioned example is the product of a prominent type foundry
of that time and very likely was arranged in the style then accepted as
good typography. A more uninteresting page could hardly be conceived,
especially in a book intended for printers.
[Illustration:
DESIGN MADE WITH BRASS RULE
Executed in 1879, it is one of the best specimens of the rule-curving
period
]
The fourth example is a reproduction of the title-page of
MacKellar’s well-known manual, “The American Printer” (now out of
print), and presents what to the head of the most prominent American
type foundry was probably an ideal arrangement. While revealing the
long-and-short-line characteristics of the previously mentioned
pages, as a whole the effect is more interesting to printers. In
this page may be noticed the trend toward delicate, characterless
typography.
A printer, Charles Whittingham, of the Chiswick Press, and a publisher,
William Pickering, of London, England, furnish an example of effort made
in the middle of the nineteenth century to raise the practice of
typography to a more artistic standard. These men, both lovers of books,
and artists in temperament, had become intimate friends, and together
endeavored to introduce into their publications simplicity,
appropriateness, and other artistic qualities.
Desiring to use an old-style face on one of their books, Whittingham
inquired of the Caslon type foundry if any of the punches cut by the
first William Caslon were in existence. The original punches being
recovered after years of disuse, fonts of type were cast and used on a
book, “The Diary of Lady Willoughby,” printed in 1844. The title-page of
this book is reproduced on a following page, and it will be seen that
Whittingham arranged the typography in the Colonial style to harmonize
with the literary motive of the book. So well was this done that one has
to look twice at the date to satisfy himself it is not 1644. Other
typography from these men is not quite so radically different from that
of their contemporaries, but is more refined, artistic and tasteful, as
may be seen by the “Friends in Council” page further on in this chapter.
An innovation by Whittingham was the omission of punctuation marks
excepting where needed to make clear the significance of the wording.
Whittingham and Pickering, in the field of artistic typography, were
fifty years ahead of their time, as printers in general were not ready
to accept the good things offered them. The modern renaissance came
later.
* * * * *
Job printing as a distinct department is of modern development.
Typographers of old were primarily book and pamphlet printers, and in
many cases interest was chiefly centered in publishing newspapers or
almanacs; job printing was incidental. This caused similarity in the
typography of newspaper, book and job work, a condition that today
exists only in a small degree. Now these three classes of work are
generally separated into departments, each with its own rules, styles
and practices, job composition being less restrained by customs and
rules than any of the other departments.
[Illustration:
TITLE-PAGE OF 1810
]
[Illustration:
TITLE-PAGE OF 1847
]
[Illustration:
TITLE-PAGE OF 1872
Showing the development during the nineteenth century of a severe and
uninteresting style
]
Attractiveness is as necessary to the typography of the general job of
printing as dignity and legibility are to a law brief, but, endeavoring
to get attractiveness into their work, job printers often go astray.
They wrongly labor under the impression that to have a job distinctive
it must be made freakish. Typography is not good unless based upon art
foundations.
Ideas in plenty could have been plucked by the printer of the nineteenth
century from old books, especially from those printed for religious
organizations, such as the “Book of Common Prayer.” A handsome edition
of a book of this kind was printed in London by John Murray in 1814.
Each pair of pages is different in decoration and typography, the
designs being by “Owen Jones, architect.” The decorative treatment of
the page of Psalms reproduced from this book is worthy of study and
adaptation.
[Illustration:
THE TREND TOWARD DAINTINESS
Title-page of MacKellar’s manual, “The American Printer,” 1882
]
About the time of the Civil War the job printer was less fettered than
ever by the customs of the book printer. While title-pages of books were
being composed without ornamentation in severe-looking modern romans,
the job printer, influenced by the typefounder, took a liking to fancy
typography, for the production of which there were shaded, outlined,
rimmed and ornamental letters, in imitation of the work of the
copperplate engraver. The business card on the next page, and the “bill
of fare” here shown, are specimens of such work.
[Illustration:
BANQUET PROGRAM
As arranged in Boston in 1865
]
The changing styles of typography as applied to commercial headings are
well set forth by the group on the fifth page of this chapter. The first
specimen is a “plain” billhead of 1870. The second is a billhead of
1893, when the compositor was taught to corral all excess wording in an
enclosure of rules at the left side of the heading proper. In this
specimen there is a touch of ornamentation and a showing of seven
different type-faces, one of which is the then conventional script for
the date line. The third specimen of the group, a letterhead which won
first prize in a contest held in 1897, reveals further development of
simple typography. Only one face of type is used (Tudor black) and there
is no ornamentation excepting a few periods on each side of the word
“The.”
During the nineteenth century no type foundry did more toward
influencing the typography of the general job printer than the one known
at the time of its absorption by the American Type Founders Company as
MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, of Philadelphia. The reproduction of a few
clippings from its specimen book of 1885 may recall memories to the
printer now of middle age.
The Free Press business card has peculiar interest to the author. It was
set and printed by him during dull hours about the year 1889, when his
thinking apparatus was controlled by influences from the underworld of
typographic practice.
There is another phase of late nineteenth-century typography which
should be mentioned. It seems that printers had developed a longing for
pictures, color and decoration. The process of photo-engraving not
having been perfected, job printers shaped brass rule into
representations of composing-sticks, printing presses, portraits and
architectural designs, and cut tint blocks from patent leather and other
material. The skill exhibited by many printers is remarkable; beautiful
combinations of tints were produced. It will be difficult for many
persons to believe that the “Boston Type Foundry” design (shown on a
preceding page) was originally constructed with pieces of brass rule,
but such is the fact. It was composed by C. W. L. Jungloew in 1879, and
is truly a wonderful example of the work of the printer-architect. The
perspective obtained by the designer is a feature. Black, gold, and
several tints were used in the printing.
[Illustration:
“IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS”
From a specimen book of 1885
]
Interesting as are these wonders of the curved-rule period, they are not
artistic in the true sense of the word; examples of skill indeed, but
not art as it is today understood.
* * * * *
We now come to one of the most interesting periods in the history of
printing, a period which may well be termed the “Modern Renaissance.” As
was intimated earlier in this chapter, the invention of printing
machinery served to lead typography away from art. The printers of that
time thought they were doing artistic work when they set their jobs in
fancy type-faces, twisted brass rule, or printed in many colors. They
did not know that art-printing was simplicity—and something else. The
apprentice was taught to set type as was his journeyman instructor
before him. Any inspiration he received came from the typefounders, and
even that was often interpreted wrongly.
Ten years before the close of the nineteenth century display typography
was in a chaotic state so far as art was concerned. Printers who before
had not doubted the appropriateness and quality of their own typography,
began to realize that it lacked something they were not able to supply,
and were ready to follow a Moses who could lead them to better things.
Then began to form a curious chain of events that was to have a
revolutionary influence upon commercial typography as well as upon
commercial art. The first link in this chain was the establishing of the
Kelmscott Press in England by William Morris.
William Morris was an artist, a poet, a designer and a craftsman.
Partiality for things medieval showed itself early in his life, and
before he took up printing he manufactured artistic house furnishings in
the ruins of an old abbey.
Years ago if the average American citizen were asked what great thing
Benjamin Franklin did, his answer might have been, “He invented the
Franklin stove.” The average person of today would connect the name of
Morris with the Morris chair. As the application of art principles to
typography has caused the compositor to turn from rule curving, to set
his lines straight, and to seek paper and ink without luster, so the
influence of Morris led to a distaste for gilt and polish and trimmings,
and created a demand for subdued colors and straight lines in home
furnishings. He who can influence others to think and act in manner
different and better than they have done before, is truly great.
Morris lived in a picturesque old manor-house in Kelmscott on the Thames
in England, and it was there at the age of fifty-seven years that he
began to print. He was not a printer by trade, but before a type was set
he studied the art from the beginning. He even learned to make a sheet
of paper himself. Kelmscott Press paper was made by hand of fine white
linen rags untouched by chemicals. Morris as a handicraftsman had an
abhorrence for machinery. It is doubtful if he would have used even a
hand-press if results equally good could have been obtained without it.
Morris’s idea seems to have been to take up good typography where the
early printers left off. When he wanted types for the new printshop he
had enlarged photographs made of the type pages of Jenson, Koburger and
other printers of the fifteenth century, and from these photographs
designed his type-faces, arranging the details of the letters to conform
to his own ideas.
His roman type-face he called “Golden,” probably because of its use on
the “Golden Legend.” This type-face was afterward reproduced by
foundries in America as Jenson, Kelmscott, and other type-names. Morris
was wont to say that he considered the glory of the Roman alphabet was
in its capitals, but the glory of the Gothic alphabet was in its
lower-case letters. He also designed a type-face characteristic of the
Gothic letters used by Koburger and other fifteenth-century printers,
and, probably because of its use on the “Historyes of Troye,” called it
Troy. This type also was reproduced by type foundries, and printers knew
it as Satanick and Tell Text.
The space ordinarily assigned to the page margins Morris covered with
foliage decoration in the manner of the early Italian printers, large
decorative initials blending with the borders. These initials and
borders, with few exceptions, were drawn by himself and engraved upon
wood by W. H. Hooper. Compare the right-hand page of the two pages here
reproduced with the Venetian specimen in the chapter on “The Spread of
Typography.”
[Illustration:
BUSINESS CARD
As displayed in 1865
]
One of Morris’s books, an edition of Chaucer, was additionally enriched
by upward of a hundred illustrations by Burne-Jones, a noted British
artist.
In both England and America Morris was the subject of much criticism.
Men who as art printers were not fit to touch the hem of his garment
were loud in condemnation of his work. Others, more fair, pointed out
the excellence of his printing, but claimed that neither his type-faces
nor his style of typography would be used many years. This last
prediction has proved partly true. The Jenson, or Kelmscott, type-face
was used so frequently and so generally that despite its virtues it
finally tired the public eye, and is now seldom seen. Satanick, the
“Troy” type-face, as made by the American Type Founders Company, is not
now displayed in that company’s specimen book.
[Illustration:
A BUSINESS CARD OF 1889
One of the author’s early attempts at artistic (?) printing
]
However, the work of William Morris, tho not accepted as the model for
general use, was the cause of a revolution in modern typography. Instead
of the delicate and inartistic type-faces and ornamentation of 1890, the
contents of type-foundry specimen books revealed strong, handsome,
artistic letters and common-sense art borders and ornaments. Morris’s
experience as a printer did not cover five years, yet his name will
always live because of the good he did typography in the nineteenth
century.
Decorative artists were wielding a big influence in the revival taking
place in the field of typography. Contemporary with Morris in England
was a young artist, Aubrey Beardsley, prominent in a new school of art
which saw merit in the flat masses of color as found in the seemingly
grotesque designs of the Japanese.
Here in America the work of Morris and Beardsley found favor in the eyes
of Will Bradley, who was destined to lead the forces in the typographic
revolution on American soil. Bradley had been a country printer; as
apprentice, journeyman and foreman he had tasted both the joys and
sorrows of practical work in the printshop. However, Bradley was more
than printer; he had artistic tendencies which finally influenced him to
go to Chicago to study art. There he frequented the art galleries and
public libraries, and developed into a poster artist of exceptional
merit. There were those who called him the “American Beardsley.”
The year 1896 found Bradley with a studio at Springfield, Mass., where
his love of printing influenced him to open a printshop which he called
the “Wayside Press.” In May of the same year he issued the first number
of “Bradley: His Book,” a unique publication for artists and printers.
The type-faces used were Jenson, Caslon and Bradley, and almost every
page contained decoration. There were many odd color combinations and
Bradley must have stood close to his presses when this first number was
printed. Purple-brown and orange, olive-green and orange-brown,
orange-yellow and chocolate-brown, purple-red and green-blue—these were
some of the color harmonies.
The Christmas number of “Bradley: His Book” was set entirely in
Satanick, the American copy of Morris’s “Troy” type, and bright
vermilion was nicely contrasted with dense black print.
While Morris was a medievalist, and received his inspiration from the
printed books of the fifteenth century, Bradley was inspired by both
past and present. Printers know him particularly because of his
adaptations of the styles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
He demonstrated how Colonial printers could have done their work better.
In presenting the Colonial specimens which are here reproduced from the
November, 1906, “Bradley: His Book,” Bradley wrote:
Antique and deckle-edge papers enter so largely into the making of
books today that printers cannot do better than to study the
styles of type-composition that were in vogue when all books were
printed upon hand-made papers. A knowledge thus gained should
prove of great value, especially in the setting of title-pages....
The only face of Roman type which seems appropriate to antique
paper is that which is known as Caslon. When types were fewer, and
the craft of printing less abused than it is now, this was the
only type used in bookwork; and some of the title-pages in our
earlier books are extremely interesting and suggest motifs which
may well be carried out today. Taking suggestions from these books
we have set a few pages, using as subjects the titles of some
modern works. There seems to be an unwritten law which we are
supposed to follow in this class of composition; and yet one
should be a little brave and daring, purely for the joy of getting
out of the old beaten track.
[Illustration:
Stationery composition of 1870
]
[Illustration:
The panel as used in 1893
]
[Illustration:
A neat letterhead of 1897
THE CHANGING STYLES OF COMMERCIAL HEADINGS
]
The type foundries helped the spread of the new typography by supplying
a series of Bradley’s decorations, known as “Wayside Ornaments.”
Bradley discontinued the Wayside Press in 1898 and combined his
printshop with that of the University Press at Cambridge, Mass. There a
battery of presses was kept busy during the continuance of the
extraordinary interest in Bradley booklets.
In 1905 Bradley impaired the strength of his following by attempting for
the American Type Founders Company the introduction of a new style of
typography, the prominent feature of which was profuse ornamentation.
While this effort supplied job printers with many valuable ideas in type
arrangement and color treatment, happily the style as a whole was not
adopted by printers generally or typographic conditions might have
become as unfortunate as they were previous to 1890.
Frank B. Berry, associated with Bradley during his engagement with the
American Type Founders Company, tells in these words of the construction
of a thirty-two-page pamphlet of specimens entitled “The Green Book of
Spring”: “Starting in on this about half-past ten one morning Bradley
made up a dummy, prepared the copy and laid out the work—specifying the
size and style of type to be used, the form of display and designating
the exact position of each ornament with the required spacing. This was
in effect practically furnishing reprint copy for the compositors. Then,
to ‘give good measure,’ as he expressed it, copy was prepared for the
cover, and the work was ready for the printers before half-past one.”
[Illustration:
AN INTERESTING TITLE-PAGE
By Charles Whittingham, London, 1849
]
In the few years succeeding the establishment of the Wayside Press,
Bradley’s style of typography was closely followed by many printers, and
all the printshops of America were more or less influenced by it, but at
this date his ideas and Morris’s ideas are merged more or less with
those of De Vinne, Jacobi, Updike, Rogers, Cleland, Benton, Kimball,
Goudy, Goodhue, Winchell and others. From Germany, too, have lately come
suggestions in decoration that are visibly influencing general
typography.
[Illustration:
TITLE-PAGE IN THE COLONIAL STYLE
By Charles Whittingham, London, 1844. The first use in the nineteenth
century of the Caslon type-face
]
In recent years Bradley devoted his talents to the make-up of magazine
pages. His characteristic decoration has added interest to the text
sections of several leading magazines. He dictated the make-up and drew
the cover design and department headings for the twenty-fifth
anniversary number of _The American Printer_ issued July, 1910.
This versatile artist-printer also accomplished the unique task of
applying business and industrial methods to the making and selling of
art work. He had a staff of working artists, one of whom acted as
foreman. Bradley had a book in which he pasted his sketches of
decorative borders, ornaments and illustrations. These were classified
and numbered, and when a design was to be drawn he gave instructions to
the working artist indicating which sketches were to be worked up. In
this manner he eliminated the manual labor so far as he was concerned
and was able to accomplish much more than if he had attempted to do
everything himself. He also planned a series of decorative units and
illustrations and offered a quick art-service to advertisers and
printers.
Fred W. Goudy, who designed such type-faces as Pabst, Powell, Forum,
Kennerley and Goudy Old Style, has influenced printing styles in the
direction of classic effects. Goudy as a student of Roman architecture
and letter-carving has dignified the printing industry and enriched
typographic art.
This lesson would not be complete without a tribute to the work of
Theodore L. De Vinne, who had the distinction of being the only printer
but one in America to receive a college degree for accomplishments as a
printer.
[Illustration:
Bradley’s adaptation of the Colonial style as produced by him at the
Wayside Press in 1896
]
De Vinne’s introduction to typography was as an apprentice in a country
printshop. He went to New York in 1847 and worked at the case and press
in several offices before accepting a position as job compositor with
Francis Hart. Upon the death of Mr. Hart in 1877, Mr. De Vinne took
charge of the business, which is now known as the De Vinne Press.
As a writer on printing subjects, perhaps his greatest work is “The
Invention of Printing,” published in 1876. I have examined and read most
of the books on the subject of the invention, and De Vinne’s book is the
most reasonable, fair and understandable of all.