Hermann Zapf on Alphabets

Hermann Zapf's legacy remains today in the typefaces offered by Microsoft Word: Optima, Palatino, and Zapfino. Other platforms deliver Melior and Linotype Aldus. Searching Google for Hallmark Jeannette will not take you to the font he designed for the greeting card company. The Blogspot platform is woefully underpowered for typography. We make do with what we have.

The whole duty of Typography, as of Calligraphy, is to communicate to the imagination, without loss by the way, the thought or image intended to be communicated by the Author. – Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson. (Frontispiece.) 

[Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson (né Sanderson; 2 December 1840 – 7 September 1922) was an English artist and bookbinder associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. ... He was the godfather of Bertrand Russell. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._J._Cobden-Sanderson]

“While visiting the United States in 1954 and 1957, I often talked with friends about printing types and modern industrial design. It seemed odd to find ultra-modern folk there for whom a plane that needed nineteen hours to fly from Frankfurt to New York was already a hobbling vehicle, but who in their own printed works preferred the most old-fashioned types of the 19th century. How one wished to ask these fanatics of ‘progress’ whether they still drive cars built in 1900, or furnish home or office in turn-of-the-century style. […]

The type of today and of tomorrow will hardly be a faithful recutting of a 16th century roman of the Renaissance, nor the original cutting of a classical face of Bodoni’s time—but neither will it be a sans-serif of the 19th century. It will surely be said that most book printers and their customers demand the historical forms. But on the other hand most of the public, too, demands cheap imitations of Chippendale furniture, Renaissance writing tables and romantic reproductions. Nor is it always the little people for whom the modern forms lack appeal, since taste only too often fails to keep pace with the growth of the bank account. Progress always demands courage; and as the powers of conservatism were and are always in the majority, they will not stop the entire development, they can only retard it. But where do we stand today? There is much talk of modern design, but if we study the catalogues and promotional printing we often find late 19th century printing types used to promote these ‘modern forms’. Just to which point in the 19th century do our lives and endeavors seek to return? Can the second half of the 19th century, the time of stylistic confusion and historicism, offer any basis for a future development? One has only to think of railway stations with Doric columns of iron, and of neo-gothic churches, or simply the ample beards of our great-grandfathers.” – pg. 36-37.

And is it not an anachronism when Albert Einstein’s relativity theory, or works by Bertrand Russell, Pasternak, and other such are printed with types of historic design? Pg. 59-60

 

 

See also Hunt Roman: The Birth of a Type,
George H. M. Lawrence, ed., Pittsburgh Bibliophiles, 1965.
Zapf designed this face for the Hunt Botanical Library.
(See also https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/hunt-roman/)

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Words into Type 

Start the Presses! 

For the Glory of Old Lincoln High 

Money as Press and Speech 

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 contemporary, Ayn Rand's Howard Roark, when he complained of typographers who produce copies of copies of copies (The Alphabet, page 50n.) 

 

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On Second Thought 

The Universe of 1962 

My Armadillocon Presentations 

Regimental Public Affairs Officer 

 

Frederic W. Goudy by Peter Beilenson

I wish that this story were more interesting. I am willing to believe that the life of Frederic W. Goudy was prosaic and yet could be made heart-pounding. In this case, the complete lack of examples only delivered a dinner speech for those already in the know. Fonts and faces are cited by name and they are described as heavy or full but not strong and so on, none of which delivers a tenable image.

 

Composed in Village No. 2 by
the Lanston Monotype Machine Co.
of Philadelphia. Printed by Walpole Printing.
Paper from Quincy P. Emery. Bound by 
Russell-Rutter. 300 copies made.

Attribution: American Type Founders.
Digitisation is public-domain.via Wikimedia Commons

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Armadillocon 45 

Armadilloncon 44 Part 2 

Armadillocon 40 Part 1 

Armadillocon 39 

Words into Type

Sir Robert worked hard and well to make himself a king and then wanted to unite his realm under a single banner. So, he called his vassals into his great hall where they stood with their shields, escutcheons, and crests. Looking out over the array, he said, “The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.” (That fable was in a computer magazine from about 1987.) 

A.T.A. Type Comparison Book by Frank Merriman.
Advertising Typographers Association of American, Inc. 1965.

I consider The Chicago Manual of Style to be the baseline. It is easy, direct, and common for American English. That volume is in my wife’s office. She edited over a hundred books for Bantam-Doubleday Dell and has several other style guides on her shelf. I have Chicago’s origin, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate L. Turabian, fifth edition revised and expanded by Bonnie Birtwistle Honigsblum, University of Chicago Press, 1987. Unless otherwise directed, I turn to that first.

 

A.T.A. Type Comparison Book by Frank Merriman.
Advertising Typographers Association of American, Inc. 1965.

When I worked at Coin World newspaper, we were given our own copies of the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. It was a revelation to learn what a newspaper can be sued for. The truth is not always a defense in a court of law. In Michigan, it is and that was written into the state constitution.

 

Microsoft PowerPoint

For science writing, I have the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fourth edition, 1994. 

 

The book that taught me first was Strunk & White’s Elements of Style. I still open it for random reminders and I pick up used copies to give to people who tell me that they want to be writers. But OMG it is over a century old. OTOH, the best style is conservative. Of course, YMMV. 

 

A.T.A. Type Comparison Book by Frank Merriman.
Advertising Typographers Association of American, Inc. 1965.

On that basis, I was happy to find Modern English Handbook, Third Edition by Robert M. Gorrell and Charlton Laird, Prentice-Hall, 1962. I bought it for 50 cents in 2001. It was the textbook for 12^th graders at Cleveland’s Lincoln High School when I was in the ninth and tenth grades 1964-65 and also on the staff of the school newspaper. My first journalism class was an eighth grade elective, but junior high pupils were not allowed to work on the Lincoln Log. At that time, I also had printing as a shop class elective. The Lincoln Log was not a school product but was contracted to a commercial printer which produced other school and community newspapers. With large ethnic communities, Cleveland had weekly papers in German, Hungarian, and other languages.

A.T.A. Type Comparison Book by Frank Merriman.
Advertising Typographers Association of American, Inc. 1965.

 

I actually never used Words into Type. It is in Laurel’s office. I just liked the phrase as a descriptive title for this blog entry. 

 

Accepted as an assistant editor for This Month in Astronomical History, an online publication of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society, I was promoted early to editor in the wake of the Covid crisis. Considering that my degrees are in criminology and social science, and that I am an Amateur Affiliate member of the AAS, it is an honor and privilege to be responsible for fact-checking, as well as grammar, syntax, and style. I collaborate with subject matter experts, researchers, faculty, and other astronomers. I recruit writers and also write features to fulfill the editorial calendar of monthly columns. I report to a senior editorial team that is chosen biannually. Find the series here: https://had.aas.org/resources/astro-history.

A.T.A. Type Comparison Book by Frank Merriman.
Advertising Typographers Association of American, Inc. 1965.

 

I developed a style guide for HAD’s TMIAH. (Use endnotes not footnotes. The ampersand is not a word.) For AAS writing, the foundation is the style guide of the American Physical Society. However, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar amended that when he served as editor of the Astrophysical Journal (1952-1971). That perturbing force sent the AAS into a different path. Just for one example, we do not require that manuscripts be submitted in TeX/LaTeX.

 

A.T.A. Type Comparison Book by Frank Merriman.
Advertising Typographers Association of American, Inc. 1965.

I learned Donald Knuth’s programming language for typesetting mathematics publications back in 1985 when I was taking computer classes and teaching technical writing at Lansing Community College. The Arts and Sciences Division acquired a DEC VAX 11/785 and interactive terminals, overcoming the objections of the Business Division with their IBM 360 mainframe and punched cards in Cobol and RPG. I served as the editor of the newsletter of the DECUS chapter. I then worked as a technical writer for a medical information firm whose previous technical writer had the insight to acquire TeX. Consequently, I have almost 40 years of experience with HTML.

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Start the Presses! 

Art & Copy 

Art as Ordered Narrative 

Innovation and Discovery 

For the Glory of Old Lincoln High

For the Glory of Old Lincoln High

Next weekend is the 50^th Anniversary Reunion of the Class of 1967 of Lincoln (Lincoln West) High School of Cleveland, Ohio. A few things got in the way of my attending, among them Hurricane Harvey. I actually did not graduate with that cohort, having transferred to John Marshall High in the middle of the tenth grade. However, for odd reasons, LHS was 7-12, so I spent almost four years with my classmates. Of all the benefits of my education at LHS the greatest has been this, writing and editing.

 

Chandler & Price, Cleveland, Ohio, 1912
(LetterPressPrinting.com.au)

We boys had to take shop classes in the 7^th and 8^th grades; and the teachers could not fail us because it would keep us out of the junior honor society. I never did well at wood, metal, or mechanical drawing. But printing grabbed my attention. This is how books, newspapers, and magazines were made. I learned the arcane craft of creating the carriers of ideas.

In today's world of desktop publishing with Word, XML, and Madcap Flare, we do not know the Job Cases (upper case for capitals, lower case for little letters), the composing stick; the leads and slugs between lines, the molly quads and nancy quads to justify type; pulling proofs, the frames, furniture, and quoins; the kiss impression when cold type touches paper and you ride the pedal up, brushing out one sheet, and placing the next as your weight on the treadle brings the platen forward.

At the same time, I had journalism as a half-credit elective. Junior high schoolers were not allowed to actually work on the school newspaper. The next semester, I was in high school and on the staff with a semester of experience, counting headlines, and learning the special vocabulary of newspaper publishing. Today, very few educated people know the masthead from the banner, a tombstone from a gutter. Even though newspapers are as quaint as Amish buggies, the principles of good layout remain – even for tweeting.

 

Composing Stick
(Edinburgh City of Print. Wikimedia Commons)

I went from The Lincoln Log to the John Marshal Interpreter to the College of Charleston Meteor. A score of years and half a dozen life changes later, I was setting type on a DEC VAX in Donald Knuth’s TeX, the parent of SGML, the grandparent of HTML.

In Cleveland Public Schools, English classes alternated each semester between grammar and literature. In junior high, we had a lot of general reading. In the 11^th grade, it was American Literature and in the 12^th, English English Literature, by Jove. Although hormones lit up 

“Evangeline,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” “Annabelle Lee,” and “Lenoir,”  my secret passion was tracing word origins to their Indo-European roots. 

I became a technical writer when no one else on a database management project wanted to write the user manual.

"A Plan of Printing Instruction for Public Schools"
Library Catalog Card. Another root technology.

Twice, classmates from Lincoln High intersected my career path, Walter Rowinsky, and Greg Stricharchuk, both writers, formerly editors of the Lincoln Log. In 1987, I was writing user manuals for a start-up in Lansing, Michigan, when I saw a product review in PC Week or PC World by Walter Rowinsky. How many people could have that name? I sent him an email (via Fidonet most likely). It was he. Wally recommended that I write product reviews. I did place some, but sold more writing about the politics and sociology of computing, hacking, and informatics.

About 1993, I discovered numismatics. A few years later, I was the international editor of Coin World. Combing through the Wall Street Journal while researching fraud and theft in the hobby, I found an article about corporate crime by Gregory Stricharchuk. Not many people could have that name. So, I emailed him, probably via AOL. Greg said something like, “Where else would a kid from Tremont end up but under a street lamp on a dark night waiting to meet a hoodlum?”  

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Art & COPY  

Start the Presses!  

Forgery and Fraud in Numismatics

Money as Press and Speech