W^UIBRARV.;. aMUBRA oCii LA- ^OFCAllFOff^ ^OFl. o ^^ ^ !!]? '^)i mm ^/yaiAINH, •''^A'jvas , \WtUNIVr >10SAN( 5- -c, CO -n «-j O u_ %ojiiv3jo^ %o\\mi^^ <rii33NYsoi^'^ '^•/mmi •UIFOMi^ i;niver5/a v^lOSANC o -n O •re: <rjl30NV ^10SANC[I^ ^iLlBRARY(2^ -^ILIBRA mo ?Hii!M ir.'v'.Aurci r,- , r TAii I nn. ^ H\ m\ym/A C3 Cc DN^SOl^"^ - r\rrA'iFn'?j.. f^ *- J 30 O II1V3W^ Mm<^ ''<imm{\\'^' f^. "^^ '^imhrn'm' INfl3WV THE PRACTICE OF TYPOGRAPHY THE PRACTICE OF TYPOGRAPHY A TEEATISE ON THE PEOCESSES OF TYPE-MAKING, THE POINT SYSTEM, THE NAMES, SIZES STYLES AND PEICES OF PLAIN PRINTING TYPES BY THEODORE LOW DE VINNE, AM. SECOND EDITION fi f^.ni'Ai-'^. NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1902 Copyright, 1899, by Theodork Low DeVinne. The DeVinne Press. 1 9 OS. PREFACE THIS treatise is a summary of detached notes collected by the writer since 1860. A desire to make it complete and exact has prevented its earlier publication. As an aid to this result each chapter has been revised recently by experts in different branches of printing. In its present cor- rected form it is believed that it will be found of use to all who seek for information about types which cannot be compressed within the ordinary manual of printing, or be gleaned quickly from the specimen books of many type-founders. The scope of the book has to be limited to plain types. Re- marks concerning newspaper types, typographic decorations, and recent fashions in book-work, have to be postponed. The composition of title- pages may be the subject of another treatise. In making the numerous corrections demanded by changes of fashion and new methods of manu- faotui'e,! have not considered it judicious to change the earlier and best -known name of any type- 454602 6 Preface foundry wliich lias introduced a new face of type. Many of tlieni are now l)ranclies of the American Type Founders Company. To accredit each face of type to a great eoini)any wliich has branches in many widely separated cities would not properly specify the maker or the place of manufacture. Acknowledgments for valuable information in the preparation of this matter are due, and are here gratefully made, to the late David Bruce, Jr., the late James Lindsay, and their successor Mr. V. B. Munson, of the New York Type Foundry ; to Mr. J. W. Phinney of Boston, Mr. L. S. Benton of New York, and Mr. Henry Barth of Cincinnati, of the American T^-jje Founders Company ; to Mr. Charles T. Jaeobi of the Chiswick Press,' and Mr. T. W. Smith of H. W, Caslon & Compau}-, London ; to the late William Morris of London, and Messrs. Claude Motteroz of Paris, Theodor Goebel of Stuttgart, Venaneio Deslandes of the Imprensa Naeional of Lisbon, and William E. Loy of San Francisco. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Processes of Type-making 9 II The Names of the Leading Sizes of Types 53 III The Point System 123 IV A Font of Type 165 V Faces or Styles of Type. Old-style Roman 182 VI Modern Faces of Roman Letter 209 VII Condensed Roman Types 255 VIII Italic Types 269 IX Fat-face or Title-types 281 X Black-letter 291 XI Gothic 315 XII Antique Types, Runic, Celtic, and Italian . 323 XIII The Classes and Prices of Printing-types . 336 XIV Large Types. Wood Types. The Panto- graph. Benton's Punch-cutting Machine 345 XV Recent Quaint Styles of Plain Type . 359 : o^^^^ PLAIN PRINTING-TYPES The Processes of Type-maMng RINTING-TYPES are made from an alloy of melted lead, tin, antimony, and sometimes copper, that fills the monld exactly and shrinks bnt little in cooling. The utility of tj'pogra- phy depends upon the accuracy of each Types must type, and the consequent squareness of a be fouuded thousand or a hundred thousand types in any combination. This accuracy is most certainly secured by founding each type singly in a mould. Experiments in cutting or swaging them from cold metal have hitherto been unsuccessful. Nor is there any practical substitute for type-metal brass and copper melt at a great heat that soon wears out the mould ; lead and tin are too soft for will the service required ; glass is too brittle, and 10 Departments of Type-making fill the matrix gutta-i)erclia and cel- not entirely ; luloid cost more and have disadvantages that out- weigh their merits. Large types for posting-hills ^^*^ like Large types made from close-grained wood made from that of the box, maple, or pear tree : for hardAvoods ^j^-g y^^..^^^^^^ ^f printing, types of wood are preferred, as lighter and cheaper than those made from metal. Types of wood are seldom smaller as to height of face than one inch. They can be made smaller, but small pieces of wood warp after heat or swell after moisture and are unfit for practical work. As now practised, type-making has six distinct departments: (1) Punch-cutting, or the art of de- ^ig^iiug engraving the 8ix depart- ^^d model char- ments in actcrs from which types are made ; (2) type-iiiaking i^itting-up, or the art of adjusting the matrices to the moulds Electrotyping, or the ; (3) art of making matrices by electrolysis IMould- ; (4) making, or the art of constructing the moulds in which types are cast, and the exact tools by which their accuracy is tested Type-casting, or the ; (5) art of founding types in nnmlds Tvi)e-dress- ; (6) ing, or the art of finishing the incomplete work of the type-caster. The breaking-off of surplus metal from the cast types, the rul)l)ing-down of the feather edge made in casting, the kerning or adjusting of overhanging letters, and the final in- spection of each finished type are additional oper- ations. Every large foundry has a few workmen 1 Pimch-cutting the First Process 1 who are expert in two or three of these depart- ments, but the ordinary workman has knowledge and practice in one department only. Punch-cutting is the first process, which must be preceded by a careful drawing of the characters. No oijeration in typography requires puncii-cut- more skill than this, and in none is ting is the ^^^t process error more disastrous.^ The modern punch-cutter is not fettered by arbitrary rules : he does not conform to the models devised by Albert Diirer, nor those subsequently made by French theorists in type-founding. He is at liberty to design characters that may be taller or broader, thicker or thinner, than any heretofore made^ but he is required to make all the characters of a full font uniform as to style, so as to show perfect correlation. The characters must seem Types must uniform as to height, line, stroke, serif, he drawn curve, and angle; they should be in ^^''^^^^'ateiy proper relative proportion as to size, and as to nearness and distance in all combinations. The beauty of text-types is in then* precision. That free- dom of drawing which is permitted, and some- 1 Type-founding is not like If the punch-cutter has not the other arts, in which imperfect requisite ability for the work, workmanship may find a use the founder, who gives metal, proportionate to its relative and the printer, who gives value. Printing should toler- paper, cannot retrieve his er- ate nothing that is bad, nor rors. They are obliged to per- even that which is mediocre, petuate these evidences of his since it costs as much to fouud mean ability, and to dishonor ty- and print bad types as it does pography. Fournier, "Manuel to found and print perfect ones. Typographique," vol. i, p. 3. 12 Methods in IJcsifjning of Letters times approved, in the letters of a good penmau, or in engraving, or in the types of job printers, is not tolerated in the text-types of books, which must be precise.^ The assortment of characters known to printers as a font of roman book-type requires the en- graving of 150 punches : 29 large capitals, including &, M, and (E ; 29 small capitals, including &, jE, and CE ; 33 lower-case characters, including fi, fl, ff, ffi, ffl, 8B, and oe ; 19 figures and fractions ; 22 points, refer- ences, and signs ; 18 other characters. Accents and the special signs required for some books are not furnished in the regular assortment. These characters are divided into six classes of irregular heights of face: (1) Full-bodied letters, like Q and j — that occupy the entire body of the 1 Diirer's rules and diagrams planatious of it are ffiveii in his for the formation of letters, iu " Regulae Trium Ordinum Lit- his " Unterweysung der Mes- erarum Typographicarum " of sung" of 1524. are reprinted 167G. The extreme of scientific in "Die Initialen der Kenais- precision was attempted by a sance," by Camillo Sitte and commission of tlie "Acad^mie Josef Salb (folio, Vienna, 18«2). des Sciences" of Paris, appoint- Geoffrey Tory of Paris, in his ed in 1G94, of which M. Jaugeon " Champfleury " of 1529; Ycair was the chief. Ho recommended of Saragossa, in his "'Ortho- the projection of every roman graphia Practica" of 1548; and capital on a framework of 2304 Paccioli of Venice, in his " De little squares, and on a congeries Divina Proportione " of 1500, of squares and rhomboids and have also devised geometrical curves for lower-case and italic formulas for letters. Moxon's letters. These rules and dia- scheme for the plotting out of grams no doubt are of some use each letter in little squares 42 to designers of letters, but they wide and 42 high is illustrated in have never been fully adopted the text (p.