Sunday, February 11, 2024

Goudy by Bernard Lewis and Goudy in His Own Words

Twice Frederic W. Goudy lost his life work to fires that destroyed his offices and workshops. Disheartening as they must have been, we have not much in his own words about the affects. He regained his equilibrium by focusing on the immediate work and then continuing with the projects that had been interrupted. 

Much of Behind the Type: The Life Story of Frederic W. Goudy 

Behind the Type:
The Life Story of Frederic W. Goudy
 
by Bernard Lewis . 
Issued by the Department of Printing,
Carnegie Institute of Technology,
Pittsburgh, 1941.
by Bernard Lewis would be considered creative non-fiction today. It was the style of the times for biographers to add dimension and color to the recorded facts. Born on March 8, 1865, Goudy’s early life lessons came in small towns in Illinois and the Dakota Territory. Even before he left home, he was a salesman, an impresario, an entrepreneur. So, some of this story came from contemporary newspaper accounts written by Goudy or about him but there is little of that in the opening scenes that introduce us to the child and the teenager.
 

“The year before [when he was seventeen], he had exhibited a copy of a wood engraving from one of the current magazines in the Shelbyville County Fair and had won first prize, earning an award of three dollars and a blue ribbon. To any who congratulated him he observed that there was little competition, but he admitted that he had a good eye and copied well. And to prove it he repeated another prize performance at the next annual fair.” (p. 14-15).

 

He often worked as a bookkeeper typically for real estate companies that were transient themselves, even when he was not. He had little patience for ineptitude or idleness and until he discovered typography, he let his natural curiosity take him to an array of ventures, such as the Anglo-Dakota Loan and Trust Company when he was 23. All of those experiences eventually served him well when he matured into the career that made him famous to us. Even so, his path in printing and typography was halting with changes in direction at each station. His sense of personal purpose complemented his artistic sentiments and Goudy continued to develop the aesthetic motives that defined his commercial projects.

 

“In printing the Chapbook Goudy engineered a simple stunt that amazed printers and made him the subject of much discussion. He at first could find no type suitable for printing the Chapbook because of its small size, but after taking measurements he ordered nine point “Original Old Style” cast on an eight point body, achieving admirably close fitting type.” (p. 36-37). 

The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering
by Frederic W. Goudy.
University of California Press, 1942.

That success changed the name of his firm from Booklet Press to Camelot Press when he moved to the center of the printing district in Chicago. 

 

Goudy is remembered for adapting the line weights, curves, stems, and serifs of Renaissance hand lettering to modern printing. That is shallow and wrong. He was not a copyist. Goudy studied the best of the previous designs in order to understand why they worked. In his essay, “The Ethics and Aesthetics of Type and Typography: An address delivered at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, February 12, 1938,” he said: 

“There was a time in the golden age of type design when a page decoration, a head-piece, a fleuron, a new type face might have proved a key to typographic distinction because it was recognized as the work of a master and respected accordingly. But by this I do not intend to imply that deference must necessarily be given to old types or old work of little merit because they are old. Many, unfortunately, possess shortcomings even as those of later vintage. Yet even the best of the old types should not be revived, imitated, adapted, reproduced, or copied for present day use with camera-like fidelity—prima facie evidence of modern poverty of invention (or mental laziness). The originals had matchless charm because they were stamped with the personality of their makers. The reproductions invariably lack the spirit of idealism of the originators and cannot fail to betray the fact that the faker can never do entire justice to the distinctive qualities that made the original designs great.”

Goudy could have been speaking for his comtemporary, Ayn Rand's Howard Roark, when he complained of typographers who produce copies of copies of copies (The Alphabet, page 50n.) 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

On Second Thought 

The Universe of 1962 

My Armadillocon Presentations 

Regimental Public Affairs Officer 

 

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