THE PRACTICE OF TYPOGRAPHY 6b THE PRACTICE OF TYPOGRAPHY A TREATISE ON THE PROCESSES OF TYPE-MAKING, THE POINT SYSTEM, THE NAMES, SIZES STYLES AND PRICES OF PLAIN PRINTING TYPES BY THEODORE LOW DE VINNE, A.M. SECOND EDITION NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1902 Copyright, 1899, by Theodore Low DeVinne. The DeVinne Press. PREFACE treatise is a summary of detached notes THIScollected 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- facture, I have not considered it judicious to change the earlier and best -known name of any type- 6 Preface foundry which has introduced a new face of type. Many of them are now branches of the American Type Founders Company. To accredit each face of type to a great company which 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. of the New York to Mr. Munson, Type Foundry ; J. W. Phinney of Boston, Mr. L. S. Benton of New York, and Mr. Henry Barth of Cincinnati, of the American Type Founders Company to Mr. Charles T. Jacobi of the Chiswick Press," and Mr. T. W. Smith of H. W. Caslon & London to Company, ; the late William Morris of London, and Messrs. Claude Motteroz of Paris, Theodor Goebel of Stuttgart, Venancio Deslandes of the Imprensa Nacional 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 in 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 vn Condensed Roman Types ....... 255 vni Italic Types 269 ix Fat-face or Title-types 281 x Black-letter . 291 g xi Gothic 315 xn 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 PLAIN PRINTING-TYPES The Processes of Type-mafcing '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 typogra- phy depends upon the accuracy of each Types must be founded type, and the consequent squareness of a m mou 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 ; the service is will required ; glass too brittle, and 2 9 10 Departments of Type-making not fill the matrix and cel- entirely ; gutta-percha luloid cost more and have disadvantages that out- weigh their merits. Large types for posting-bills are made from wood like Large types close-grained made from that of the box, maple, or pear tree : for hardwoods ^ branch of printin g, 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- and the model char- 8ix depart- signing engraving ments in acters from which are made types j (2) type-making Fitting. upj or tlie art of adjusting the matrices to the moulds or the j (3) Electrotyping, art of matrices Mould- making by electrolysis ; (4) making, or the art of constructing the moulds in which types are cast, and the exact tools by which their is tested or the accuracy ; (5) Type-casting, art of in moulds founding types ; (6) Type-dress- ing, or the art of finishing the incomplete work of the type-caster. The breaking-off of surplus metal from the cast types, the rubbing-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 Punch-cutting the First Process 11 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 operation in typography requires j^ax-cnXr more skill than this, and in none is ting is the flrst roce88 error more disastrous. 1 The modern P 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 Type8mu8t be uniform as to height, line, stroke, serif, drawn accuratel and should be in y curve, angle ; they proper relative proportion as to size, and as to nearness and distance in all combinations. The beauty of text-types is in their 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 found 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 Designing of Letters times approved, in the letters of a good penman, or in engraving, or in the types of job printers, is not tolerated in the text-types of books, which 1 ' 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 and CE 29 small and &, M, j capitals, including &, JE, ce 33 lower-case ; characters, including fi, fl, ff, ffi, ffl, and ce 19 and fractions 22 refer- se, j figures ; points, and 18 other characters. Accents ences, signs ; 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 planations of it are given in his for the formation of letters, in "Regulse Trium Ordinum Lit- " his Unterweysung der Mes- erarum Typographicarum " of " sung of 1524, are reprinted 1676. The extreme of scientific in "Die Initialen der Renais- precision was attempted by a sance," by Camillo Sitte and commission of the "Academie " Josef Salb (folio, Vienna, 1882). des Sciences of Paris, appoint- Geoffrey Tory of Paris, in his ed in 1694, of which M. Jaugeon " " Champfleury of 1529; Ycair was the chief. He recommended of Saragossa, in his "Ortho- the projection of every roman Practica " of 1548 graphia ; and capital on a framework of 2304 " Paccioli of Venice, in his De little squares, and on a congeries Divina Proportione" of 1509, 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. 13), and detailed ex- by any punch-cutter. Types Must be Made by Rule 13 type; (2) Ascending letters, like A, b, h, d, that occupy the upper three-fourths of the body; (3) like that Descending letters, p, y, g, q, irregular occupy the lower three-fourths of the heights of characters body; (4) Short letters like a, o, that occupy about one-half of the body in the middle part; (5) Small capitals, that are sometimes in height more than one-half of the body, but not as high as the ascending letters; (6) Irregular characters, like the *, that have no arbitrary height, but do have a definite position.