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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 448
A typographic house-organ
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 449
An editorial page of typographic neatness
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 450
Attractive use of rules and italic
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 452
A page in Cloister type
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 451
An elaborate house-organ title-page
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 453
Use of paragraph marks. From Cottrell’s Magazine
]
As a novelty, house-organs have been printed on blotter stock. The
general treatment for blotter house-organs is not different from that of
other kinds. The appearance of a publication is maintained and the
matter is merely adapted to the dimensions of the blotter.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 454
A good specimen of house-organ cover
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 456
Cover of “The Philistine” issued about two months before Elbert
Hubbard went down with the “Lusitania”
]
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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 455
Blank space used to good advantage. Text page from “The Ambassador”
]
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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 457
An “almanack” feature
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 458
Bodoni typography
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 459
Cover of a small house-organ
]
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 3–9/16 by
5–9/16 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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 460
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 461
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 462
Suggestions for treatment of the return post cards that usually
accompany house-organs
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 463
Comparison of the same type forms printed on a hard-finished paper,
and also on a soft-finished paper. The good qualities of these
type-faces (Caslon Oldstyle, Baskerville Roman, Kennerley Oldstyle
and Bodoni Book) are more evident and the print of the types more
legible on the soft-finished paper
]
[Illustration]
TYPE-FACES
TYPE-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.”
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 464-A
Roman alphabet from the inscription on the base of the Trajan column,
Rome, about A. D. 114. From Johnston
]
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-FACES
Believing 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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 464-B
Proportions of Roman capitals as found in the Trajan alphabet, and a
few additional letters
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 465
Evolution of Roman lower-case type-faces. (A) Pen-made Roman capitals.
(B) Development into Minuscules or lower-case thru rapid lettering.
(C) Black Letter or German Text developed from Roman Uncials. (D)
White Letter, the open, legible Caroline Minuscules, on which Jenson
based his Roman type-face of 1470. (E) A recent type-face closely
modeled on Jenson’s Roman types. (F) Joseph Moxon’s letters of 1676.
(G) Caslon’s type-face of 1722
]
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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 466
Two standard type-faces that rate high in legibility, but that are
colorless in the mass and lacking in the pleasing irregularities of
form that characterized Roman type-faces before the nineteenth
century. The various qualities of legibility found in Modernized
Oldstyle have been converted to narrower letter shapes and more
“modern” form in Century Expanded
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 467
Six standard representative Roman type-faces, approved by authorities
for both beauty and legibility, and selected by the author from the
thousands of type-faces available for hand and machine composition
]
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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 468
Type-face used in Italy by Sweinheim and Pannartz in 1465. From De
Vinne
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 469
The Roman types of John and Wendelin of Spires, Venice, 1469. Greek
letters were to be written in the line now half blank. From the
original in Typographic Library and Museum, Jersey City, N. J.
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 470
The beautiful “White Letter” Roman type-face of Nicholas Jenson, 1470,
from “Eusebius,” the first book printed by him at Venice. The dot
over the “i,” small and slightly to the right, is found, also, in
the manuscript specimen here inserted. From the original in the
Typographic Library and Museum, Jersey City, N. J.
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 471
Section of manuscript of the fifteenth century, in the Charlemagne
“White Letter” on which Jenson may have modeled his Roman type-face.
From Humphrey
]
Jenson’s face was not the first Roman type made, as is sometimes
supposed; others had previously been used (Example 469), but it was the
first Roman type to meet the approval of those who preferred the Italian
White Letter to the Gothic Black Letter.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 472
Type-face used by Paul Manutius at Venice in 1566
]
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).
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 473
Cloister Oldstyle set in imitation of the Jenson title on page 14.
Printed and zinc-etched, as was the original
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 474
Type-face cut in 1693, now used by the National Printing Office,
Paris. Notice slight projection on lower-case “l,” a decorative
feature used by Gutenberg in his types
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 475
The first line is set in Cloister Oldstyle; second reproduced from
Elzevir page opposite; third set in Cadmus; fourth in Caslon
Oldstyle. These lines are zinc-etched
]
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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 476
Cheltenham Oldstyle, with the capitals a size smaller, set in
imitation of the Plantin typography on page 16
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 477
Type-faces used by Daniel Elzevir at Amsterdam in 1675. From “The
American Printer” library
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 478
The Roman types of Fournier, the French founder, taken from his type
book of 1766
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 479
A capital alphabet drawn by Joseph Moxon (1676) to a scale of
forty-two small squares
]
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 481
Earliest known specimen sheet of printing types, issued by William
Caslon in 1734
]
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).
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 480
Moxon’s lower-case alphabet, which he says was patterned after the
letters of a Dutch punch cutter
]
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 copies of the
Declaration of Independence, a few hours after it had been passed by
Congress, July 4, 1776. (See facsimile that appears as a frontispiece to
this book). It was one of these copies that was read to the Continental
Army.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLES 479-A and 480-A
The Moxon alphabets inked in and reproduced in a smaller size
]
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.
[Illustration:
EXAMPLE 482
There were two slightly different faces to many of the Caslon fonts.
From the specimen pages in Luckombe’s “History of Printing,”
published in 1770
]
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.
These faces were all shown, in honor of the memory of William Caslon and
as a tribute to the merit of the type, in Luckombe’s “History of
Printing,” published by Adlard & Browne, London, in 1770 (Example 482).
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.