Edmund G. Gress

“ Finish in the design of a letter is a merit only when it improves, but if made at the expense of design it constitutes a defect.
Ruskin’s universal law, that “neither architecture nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect,” applies no less to our type designs. Types are made to use, and when spontaneous in design, the natural irregularities and deficiencies are signs of life and sources of beauty, giving credit to the designer for careful craftsmanship according to his ability. ”

“ The average typographer or artist, on the other hand, must not only incorporate the suggestions of half a dozen persons, but must submit to the deletion of most of the little things that to his way of thinking give his work character and make it worth while—the penalty of being merely an average typographer. Mr. Cleland is a student of the best printing of past centuries, and his refined taste and wonderful skill with the pen enable him to produce effects that would be envied by the master printers of old. ”

“ It was some years after this that typography came under the influence of the Italian Renaissance, and both type-faces and decoration assumed the Roman style. In the old days there was sympathy between the various arts and crafts, and it worked for harmony in effects. Building-decoration, metal-carving and wood-engraving were governed by the same artistic motive, and were often done by the same man, much as the printer at one time was compositor, pressman, binder, typefounder, ink-maker and paper-maker, all in one. ”

“ Spacing is seemingly one of the little things—merely incidental to the mechanical practice of typography. When the apprentice compositor is told to divide his spaces evenly among all the words in a line; not to thin space one line and double-thick space another; to transpose a two-point lead, or make some other what to him may appear to be trivial alteration in spacing, he judges his instructor to be over-particular. Yet the proper apportionment of space on a page determines the tone and the balance and aids in giving proportion and emphasis. ”

“ Goudy is a humanist; he believes that type-faces should be more expressive of the art of the letterer than the skill of the typefounder. He is speaking:
Type must be finely and boldly designed to be beautiful. In the majority of cases where these points are claimed for a type, it will be found that the claims rest on their perfect finish, exact lining or ranging, perfection of curve, precise angles, straightness of stem, or sharpness of serif and hair line. None of these points give beauty or legibility, altho they may be present in a type both beautiful and legible. ”

“ Art is essential to printing; so are Uncle Sam’s specimens of steel engraving. The more art the printer absorbs the larger should grow his collection of these engravings. Study of art arouses ambition; ambition brings better and harder work. It reveals in the typographer the difference between mere lead-lifting and the artistic selection and arrangement of types. The boy who sweeps the floor and does his best is nearer art-heaven than he who sets type and cares not how he does it. ”

“ EXAMPLE 86
The bead ornament as a typographic border
The printer and he of an allied vocation should take less thought of food and raiment and devote more thought to learning the things of today and yesterday with which he may be but little acquainted. If one knows just enough to “make a living” he will never make more than a living. A study of art, of history, of the larger things in the printing business, will result in the good things of the earth being added.
Is ornamentation necessary to art-typography? Ask one good printer and he will answer, yes. ”

“ EXAMPLE 256
Classic, refined treatment, for art and literary purposes
The typographer who prefers freedom from care, and the blissfulness of ignorance, is a poor member of society. He should line up among the world’s workers and accept some of the responsibilities. The first things he observes, should he become a student, are the imperfections of his own product. Work that before looked good to him, now, viewed in a new light, is defective, and finally the old verdict is reached, “There is none perfect, no, not one.” ”

“ A page of display typography composed of a mixture of irregular gray and black tones is inexcusable in the sight of the art-loving reader. As combinations of inharmonious type-faces are wrong, equally so are combinations of incongruous tones. For the sake of contrast and variety in typography, art principles are too often ignored, the printer confessing to ignorance or lack of ingenuity. Contrast is necessary, but it may be had without sacrificing uniformity. ”

“ Any man who is not interested in his vocation is to be pitied. Unless his heart is in his work, a lawyer, preacher, editor, ad-writer, artist or printer will not be successful.
Interest may be developed. If the typographer will devote a portion of the time now spent on outside matters to the study of his craft, and especially the art side of printing, his work will become lighter and the hands on the clock will chase each other. The same concentration of thought now devoted to unimportant side interests would bring large dividends if invested in the study of typography. ”

“ The foremost citizen of a country town is considerably reduced in importance when he rubs elbows with the big men of the cities. The homely adage that “a big frog in a small puddle is a small frog in a big puddle,” is applicable to typography. A display line surrounded by other type lines (Example 64) must be made larger or by strengthened strokes made bolder than when alone on the page (Example 65) . The old City Hall in New York is claimed to be the most beautiful work of architecture in the city, but is ridiculously out of proportion with the towering office buildings surrounding it. ”

“ Or, Benjamin Franklin, as he founded the first circulating library? Andrew Carnegie, ridiculed when announcing his intention to use his wealth in providing buildings for public libraries, lived to see himself acknowledged a benefactor of mankind.
Next to providing books is the necessity of providing good books and of printing them according to the laws of art and good taste. Continual association develops a taste for the things associated with. If the majority of books are poorly composed or poorly printed, they will unconsciously be taken as standards of book style by the reading public. ”

“ In many cases title-pages are constructed with no regard to the motive suggested by the design on the cover. Bibliophiles judge a book not only by the excellence of its execution, but by the harmonious unity that may be expressed in every detail, from the literary contents to the last bit of tooling worked on the cover. The type, ornamentation, paper, ink, margins, leather, the arrangement of the title-page and the cover treatment, all must be selected and utilized in expression of a dominant central motive. The same rule presents the key to good typography in job work. ”

“ And there is the modern politician who wears a slouch hat and constantly carries a quid of tobacco in his mouth because Henry Clay did so. There are also house-organ publishers who use inharmonious and inappropriate type-faces and decoration because Elbert Hubbard thus treats the cover of the Philistine.
It is not a question of the sort of clothes a person actually needs to go from one end of a street to another—Lady Godiva reached her destination with no clothes at all—yet we often admire a person dressed harmoniously and in good taste without knowing the reasons for our admiration. ”

“ While the entire advertisement is easily read, especially in its larger form, and probably has the approval of those who insist on legibility in advertising composition, there is yet something about it that will also interest those who maintain that typography should be built on art principles. The border, trademark and name of the article advertised blend in tone, while the remaining type matter shows a pleasing gray. Inserting the trademark in the space left by the shorter words of the heading makes the effect unusual. ”

“ The esthetic importance of uniformity of tone is universally recognized. Choirs are robed in white and black; fashion has its uniform clothing for the hours and functions of the day and night; theater choruses and the soldiery are living masses of uniform tone and color. As uniformity is important in these things, so is uniformity important in the tone of a page of printing. A type-page exhibiting a variegated mass of black and gray tones is not unlike a squad of recruits in different styles of clothing marching irregularly ”

“ Now instead of being the cause of an oriental handshake, a good job of printing ought to be an everyday occurrence, and the stirring of the waters should be left for the bad job of printing when, unfortunately, it happens along.
Lack of interest is the reason for the non-development of many printers in the art side of typography. Because, to many compositors, printing is merely a means of making a living, only enough knowledge is acquired to enable them to “hold their jobs,” or, in the cases of employers, to retain their customers. ”

“ In designing the present-day Bodoni, the typefounders gave it much of the “finish” in design that was given type-faces by Scotch and American founders during the nineteenth century. Typefounders seldom succeed in faithfully reproducing old type-faces, for the reason that they “correct the faults” of the old faces, and in doing so lose much of the humanistic spirit of the original. Were it not that the punches of some of William Caslon’s types were preserved, we would not have the true rendering of this old-style that we now possess. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A young man some years ago became possessed of a desire to do artistic printing and had a number of type ornaments purchased with which to express his ideas. When one proof after another came from the customer with ominous blue marks upon the cherished ornaments, he realized the necessity of revising his ideas of art. For fully a year after that he worked without voluntarily using an ornament, meanwhile developing all the possibilities of good type-faces and appropriate paper stocks and color combinations. It has been claimed that fasting has a beneficial effect on the body ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are men who in their endeavors to do something to win fame—something astonishing and entirely original—set out on unknown seas without rudder or compass. The result usually is shipwreck. The printer who starts out to produce typography not founded on some proved and tried base builds a house in the sands that may come tumbling down at the first test of endurance. A type-face of squared shape such as the capitals of lining gothic is best fitted to accompany the squares and angular ornaments of the mission or secession style. ”

“ Time spent in the printshop is considered drudgery and the pleasures of life come after the whistle has blown. There are young printers who know comparatively nothing about good typography, yet are authorities on the rules of pinocle, baseball, or other pastimes. And there are older printers, too, who could write a book about chicken-raising, yet do not know when type-faces harmonize. ”