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.
[Illustration: Figure 4 shows the Capitals, Roman Lower-case and
Italics 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.
We have, then, the three alphabets, and these are the printer's main
outfit; all other sorts of letters are in the nature of fancy letters,
useful in inverse proportion to the importance and quantity of his
output. The more serious the class of book he prints, the wider the
public to whom he appeals, so much the more solemn and impersonal and
normal will be and should be his typography. But he will not call
that book serious which is merely widely bought, and he will not call
that a wide appeal which is made simply to a mob of forcibly educated
proletarians. A serious book is one which is good in itself according
to standards of goodness set by infallible authority, and a wide appeal
is one made to intelligent people of all times and nations.
The invention of printing and the breakdown of the medieval world
happened at the same time; and that breakdown, tho' hastened by
corruption in the Church, was chiefly caused by the recrudescence of a
commercialism which had not had a proper chance since the time of the
Romans. The invention of double-entry book-keeping also happened about
the same time, and though, as with modern mechanical invention, the
work was done by men of brains rather than men of business, it was the
latter who gained the chief advantage.
Printing, a cheaper method of reproducing books than hand-writing,
came therefore just at the right moment. Since its first fine careless
rapture, and in spite of the genuinely disinterested efforts of
ecclesiastical presses, University presses and the work of many notable
individual printers and type-founders, the history of printing has been
the history of its commercial exploitation. As is natural with men of
business, the worse appears the better reason. Financial success is,
rightly, their only aim, and technical perfection the only criterion
they know how to apply to their works.
TYPOGRAPHY (the reproduction of lettering by means of movable letter
types) was originally done by pressing the inked surface or "face" of a
letter made of wood or metal against a surface of paper or vellum. The
unevenness and hardness of paper, the irregularities of types (both in
respect of their printing faces and the dimensions of their "bodies")
and the mechanical imperfections of presses and printing methods made
the work of early printers notable for corresponding unevennesses,
irregularities and mechanical imperfections. To ensure that every
letter left its mark more or less completely and evenly, considerable
and noticeable impression was made in the paper. The printed letter was
a coloured letter at the bottom of a ditch.
The subsequent development of typography was chiefly die development
of technical improvements, more accurately cast types, smoother
paper, mechanically perfect presses. Apart from the history of its
commercial exploitation, the history of printing has been the history
of the abolition of the impression. A print is properly a dent made by
pressing; the history of letter-press printing has been the history of
the abolition of that dent.
But the very smooth paper and the mechanically very perfect presses
required for printing which shall show no "impression" can only be
produced in a world which cares for such things, and such a world is
of its nature inhuman. The industrial world of today is such, and it
has the printing it desires and deserves. In the industrial world
Typography, like house building and sanitary engineering, is one of the
necessary arts--a thing to be done in working hours, those during which
one is buoyed up by the knowledge that one is serving one's fellow men
and neither enjoying oneself like an artist nor praising God like a man
of prudence. In such a world the only excuse for anything is that it is
of service.
Printing which makes any claim on its own account, printers who give
themselves the status of poets or painters, are to be condemned;
they are not serving; they are shirking. Such is the tone of the
more romantic among men of commerce; and the consequence is a
pseudo-asceticism and a bastard aesthetics. The asceticism is only a
sham because the test of service is the profits shown in the accounts;
and the aesthetics is bastard because it is not founded upon the
reasonable pleasure of the mind of the workman and of his customer,
but upon the snobbery of museum students employed by men of commerce
to give a saleable appearance to articles too dull otherwise to please
even the readers of _The Daily Mail_.
Nevertheless, as we have already shown, commercial printing, machine
printing, industrial printing would have its own proper goodness if
it were studiously plain and starkly efficient. Our quarrel is not
with such a thing but only with the thing that is neither one nor the
other--neither really mechanically perfect and physically serviceable
nor really a work of art, i.e., a thing made by a man who, however
laughable it may seem to men of business, loves God and does what he
likes, who serves his fellow men because he is wrapped up in serving
God--to whom the service of God is so commonplace that it is as much
bad form to mention it as among men of business it is bad form to
mention profits.
There are, then, two typographies, as there are two worlds; and, apart
from God or profits, the test of one is mechanical perfection, and
of the other sanctity--the commercial article at its best is simply
physically serviceable and, per accidens, beautiful in its efficiency;
the work of art at its best is beautiful in its very substance and, per
accidens, as serviceable as an article of commerce.
The typography of Industrialism, when it is not deliberately
diabolical and designed to deceive, will be plain; and in spite of
the wealth of its resources--a thousand varieties of inks, papers,
presses and mechanical processes for the reproduction of the designs
of tame designers--it will be entirely free from exuberance and fancy.
Every sort of ornament will be omitted; for printers' flowers will not
spring in such a soil, and fancy lettering is nauseating when it is
not the fancy of type-founders and printers but simply of those who
desire to make something appear better than it is. Paradoxical though
it be, the greater the wealth of appliances, the less is the power of
using it. All the while that the technical and mechanical good quality
is increasing, the de-humanizing of the workmen is also increasing.
As we become more and more able to print finer and more elaborate
and delicate types of letter it becomes more and more intellectually
imperative to standardize all forms and obliterate all elaborations and
fancifulness. It becomes easier and easier to print any kind of thing,
but more and more imperative to print only one kind.
On the other hand, those who use humane methods can never achieve
mechanical perfection, because the slaveries and standardizations
of Industrialism are incompatible with the nature of men. Humane
Typography will often be comparatively rough and even uncouth; but
while a certain uncouthness does not seriously matter in humane works,
lack of uncouthness is the only possible excuse for the productions of
the machine. So while in an industrialist society it is technically
easy to print any kind of thing, in a humane society only one kind
of thing is easy to print, but there is every scope for variety and
experiment in the work itself. The more elaborate and fanciful the
industrial article becomes, the more nauseating it becomes--elaboration
and fancifulness in such things are inexcusable. But there is every
excuse for elaboration and fancy in the works of human beings, provided
that they work and live according to reason; and it is instructive to
note that in the early days of printing, when human exuberance had
full scope, printing was characterized by simplicity and decency; but
that now, when such exuberance no longer exists in the workman (except
when he is not at work), printing is characterized by every kind of
vulgarity of display and complicated indecency.
But, alas for humanity, there is the thing called compromise; and
the man of business who is also the man of taste, and he of taste
also who is also man of business will, in their blameless efforts
to earn a living (for using one's wits is blameless, and earning
a living is necessary), find many ways of giving a humane look to
machine-made things or of using machinery and the factory to turn out,
more quickly and cheaply, things whose proper nature is derived from
human labor. Thus we have imitation "period" furniture in Wardour
Street, and we have imitation "arts and crafts" in Tottenham Court
Road. The-man-of-business-who-is-also-man-of-taste will tend to the
"period" work, the-man-of-taste-who-is-also-man-of-business will tend
to the imitation handicrafts. And, in the printing world, there are
business houses whose reputation is founded on their resuscitations
of the eighteenth century, and private presses whose speed of output
is increased by machine-setting and gas engines. These things are
more deplorable than blameworthy. Their chief objectionableness lies
in the fact that they confuse the issue for the ordinary uncritical
person, and they turn out work which is neither very good nor very
bad. "Period" printing looks better than the usual vulgar products of
unrestrained commercialism, and there is no visible difference, except
to the expert, between machine-setting and hand-setting, or between
sheets worked on a hand-press and those turned out on a power-driven
Platen.
Nevertheless, even if these things be difficult to decide in
individual instances, there can be no sort of doubt but that as
industrialism requires a different sort of workman so it also turns out
a different kind of work--a workman sub-human in his irresponsibility,
and work inhuman in its mechanical perfection. The imitation of the
work of pre-industrial periods cannot make any important ultimate
difference; the introduction of industrial methods and appliances into
small workshops cannot make such workshops capable of competition with
"big business." But while false standards of good taste may be set up
by "period" work, this "good taste" is entirely that of the man of
business and his customers; it is not at all that of the hands--they
are in no way responsible for it or affected by it; on the other hand,
the introduction of mechanical methods into small workshops has an
immediate effect on the workmen. Inevitably they tend to take more
interest in the machine and less in the work, to become machine-minders
and to regard wages as the only reward. And good taste ceases to be the
result of the restraint put upon his conscience by the workman himself;
it becomes a thing imposed upon him by his employer. You cannot see the
difference between a machine-set page and one set by hand. No, but you
can see the difference between Cornwall before and after it became "the
English Riviera"; you can see the difference between riding in a hansom
and in a motor-cab--between a "cabby" and a "taxi-man"; you can see
the difference between the ordinary issue of _The Times_ today and its
ordinary issue a hundred years ago; you can see the difference between
an ordinary modern book and an ordinary book of the sixteenth century.
And it is not a question of better or worse; it is a question of
difference simply. Our argument here is not that Industrialism has made
things worse, but that it has inevitably made them different; and that
whereas before Industrialism there was one world, now there are two.
The nineteenth century attempt to combine Industrialism with the Humane
was necessarily doomed, and the failure is now evident. To get the best
out of the situation we must admit the impossibility of compromise; we
must, in as much as we are industrialists, glory in Industrialism and
its powers of mass-production, seeing that good taste in its products
depends upon their absolute plainness and serviceableness; and in so
much as we remain outside Industrialism, as doctors, lawyers, priests
and poets of all kinds must necessarily be, we may glory in the fact
that we are responsible workmen and can produce only one thing at a
time.
That if you look after goodness and truth beauty will take care of
itself, is true in both worlds. The beauty that Industrialism properly
produces is the beauty of bones; the beauty that radiates from the work
of men is the beauty of the living face.
COMPOSED IN PERPETUA TYPES
[Illustration]
FREDERIC W. GOUDY
[Illustration]TYPES AND TYPE DESIGN[Illustration]
The Syracuse University School of Journalism awarded its first
medal of honor to F. W. G. in 1936, "for distinctive achievement in
typographic design." His address then, reflecting the typographic
philosophy and practice of two-score years, is reprinted as published
by the University in 1936.
It would be mere affectation on my part were I to pretend not to be
touched by the signal honor you extend to me this evening, and I would
be ungrateful indeed if I neglected to voice my very great appreciation
of your kindness. I wish that I might express that appreciation in
words that would leave no shadow of doubt in your minds as to the depth
and sincerity of my feeling.
I am not conscious of any outstanding reasons for the kind words spoken
here tonight of my work. At the same time I am under no illusions as to
the ultimate value of the work I have _attempted_ to do, although it
is, after all, merely the every-day work of an earnest craftsman who
endeavors to perform each task well and the next one, if possible, even
better; and withal no thought or expectation of acclaim.
My craft is a simple one. For nearly two score years it has been my
constant aim and endeavor to create a greater and more general esteem
for printing and type design; to give to printers and readers of print
more legible and more beautiful types than those in current use. This
has involved some little sacrifice; the missionary seldom acquires much
more than the satisfaction of work well done, and yet, on the whole, I
haven't done badly, since my work has brought me a wealth of friendship
beyond measure.
And now to the subject which has been assigned to me for this
occasion--something about types of the past, type revivals, and a bit
about type design, as I see it. I trust you will not find that my brief
postprandial attempt bears out Gay's lines too literally:
_So comes the reckoning when the banquet's o'er,
A dreadful reckoning, when men smile no more._
One hundred and twelve years ago type design was generally imagined to
be a matter that concerned only the letter cutter. J. Johnson, author
of _Typographia_ (published in 1824), wrote of a type face that the
printer needed only to "observe that its shape be perfectly true, and
that it lines or ranges with accuracy, and that by noting certain
mathematical rules the letter cutter may produce Roman characters of
such harmony, grace and symmetry as will please the eye in reading;
and by having their fine strokes and swells blended together in due
proportion, will excite admiration." He says further that "if the
letter stands even and in line, which _is the chief good quality in
letter_, it makes the face thereof sometimes to pass, though otherwise
ill-shaped." Type design as a profession evidently did not exist in
1824. And even today many printers are uninformed as to the various
steps that must be taken between the inception of a type face in the
designer's mind and its eventual appearance on the printed page.
Today the designing of type is practiced by few artists as a separate
craft; it is an humble art at best--and a minor one. Yet every user of
types demands in them certain artistic qualities, i.e., invention,
novelty, style, beauty, distinction (a few insist on legibility); most
of those users forget or do not realize that these are qualities an
artist only may secure, and even the artist cannot always insure that
his design will present all of them.
First: Invention requires that we soar above mere caprices of fashion
or the demands of passing fancy. Our letter forms have become fixed in
their essentials by long use and tradition, yet a study of all that has
gone before will enable the designer seeking new expressions to infuse
new life and character into traditional shapes and inspire him to
create new designs based on the broad impressions stored in the granary
of his mind.
Second: Novelty gives us some new impression suited to and brought
about by new conditions of life and environment--by the changes that
time has wrought. By novelty I do not mean, however, the imitation
novelty so frequently met with and presented as something new; too
often it means simply some older thing newly described. Achieving the
fantastic quality reminiscent of the "slimy trail" of _Art Nouveau_,
which you older ones will recall as rampant in the 1890's, produces
freaks of fashion in an attempt to be novel, but may not, necessarily,
always secure the novelty desired. Traditions of the past need not
be disregarded nor overlooked in order to meet the prejudices of the
present.
Just now a seemingly insatiable demand for novelty is giving us a
senseless and ridiculous riot of "beautiful atrocities." The inundation
of freak types is largely due to a revival of some former products of
ignorance bringing in their train new designs even more bizarre in the
attempt to secure "novelty"--a detestable word used frequently, I fear,
like charity, to cover a multitude of sins. It has no place in artistic
considerations, as a thing that really is good should be good for all
time. Sporadic outbreaks in the name of novelty inevitably occur from
time to time and fortunately have usually only their little day in the
sun before vanishing forever into the limbo of the forgotten.
I do not wish to imply that novelty itself is undesirable--by no
means; striving for newness keeps things fresh and alive. It is the
re-presentation of the extraordinarily ugly and bizarre types of
the middle of the last century with no exceptional artistic warrant
for their revival, in an attempt to do something different, that I
deprecate. Newness for its own sake only may not always be worth while.
I find it difficult to speak dispassionately of some of the types
advertisers are using nowadays, because I am too deeply steeped in
the traditions of the past to accept them. I cannot be accused of
intolerance, however. The best art of the designer, the highest skill
of the printer, and the clear, lucid argument of the advertisement
writer must be requisitioned. Yet in much of the typography of today
many of the new types display a marked avoidance of everything that
is plain, simple and legible. Why are simplicity and easy readability
no longer esteemed as desirable qualities in print? Why are these
outlandish characters selected? For four hundred years the Roman types
of the early Italian printers have furnished models to suit all tastes
and serve every purpose.
For several years past advertisers and even our magazine and book
printers have somewhat strayed from a definite standard of dignity
and beauty in the quest for novelty. Foreign types, imported to add a
touch of novelty to our advertising (types which, no doubt, are good
enough for the conditions in the bailiwicks that gave them birth), too
frequently impart to print a fantastic or a too fanciful effect when
used under the entirely different conditions found here. These types
are likely to impart to our printing an air of incongruity displeasing
to the trained taste. _En passant_, I am reminded of a suggestion
offered by Reinhardt, the scenic designer: "Do not try to inspire from
foreign ideas. Be interested in them, of course, and they will help to
fertilize your own."
Third: Style is a subtle quality that comes from an intelligent use
of a good tradition renewed and advanced into our own times; it is
a quality inseparable from the tools and materials employed, and is
not to be acquired simply by taking thought or by a determination to
attain it. Style is the living expression controlling both the form and
the vital structure of the vehicle which presents thought in tangible
form--an intimate and inseparable something in the work of a craftsman
wholly unconscious of style or of any definite aim towards beauty for
itself.
Fourth: Distinction is more difficult to secure, yet, when a type
presents an unassuming simplicity; when it expresses thought in every
detail; when it is clear, elegant, strong; nothing in it that is loose
and vague, no finesse of design, but showing clearly in every line the
spirit the designer has put into the body of his work, that type can
hardly fail of real distinction. To meet the demands of utility and to
preserve also an esthetic standard is the problem the type designer
must attempt to solve. Obviously a large order for a mere amateur (or
even for a professional designer).
As to legibility, I shall not here comment. Everyone knows (or thinks
he knows) just what constitutes it; I fear I do not, or I would never
permit myself consciously to make a type that was not the quintessence
of legibility.
* * * * *
I am frequently asked how I design a type face. There are so many
things that lead up to one that it is difficult to give a specific
reply. I once told a student that "I think of a letter and then mark
around the thought." That is hardly real designing. It may be easy to
think of one letter, but to think also of its twenty-five relations
which with it form the alphabet and so to mark around them that they
will combine in complete harmony and rhythm with each other and with
all--that is the difficult thing, the successful doing of which
constitutes design. What is the inspiration for a new face? That also
is difficult to answer. In the first place, it is hardly possible to
create an absolutely new type or one that will not be reminiscent of
the past.