Applied Design for Printers / A Handbook of the Principles of Arrangement, with Brief Comment on the Periods of Design Which Have Most Strongly Influenced Printing

This primer of design is an earnest effort to make intelligible to the apprentice student certain fundamental principles of arrangement and of ornamentation whose use is instinctive to the accomplished typographer.
It has been often written that there are no rules in Art, and equally often that the master artist (or craftsman) is he who can skillfully break all rules. It must be inevitable that the apprentice shall adhere too closely to each newly observed principle before his work can be a well-rounded embodiment of them all. To him is commended this exact procedure, recognizing, as his perception grows, that there are good reasons why traditions are emphasized here and all-embracing rules and formulae are not to be found.
Due credit must be paid to Mr. Ernest Allen Batchelder, who first devoted his pen and brush directly to the printer’s problem in design, and who in turn gives honor to the influence of Mr. Denman Ross. Neither has expressed a method but has graphically analyzed the attitude of mankind during successive epochs toward those matters which deal with beauty.
It is to be hoped that this little book may serve as a simple guide and as a stimulant toward an extended study of the larger attributes of printing which are not concerned with utility alone. H. L. G.




Raw material may be made into a finished product which will have the quality of usefulness alone. Utility is the first purpose of most of the works of man. But when the maker is moved by pride in his work and a desire for beauty to make his handiwork pleasing in appearance as well as useful a second purpose is fulfilled. All civilization and most forms of savagery demand that the equipment of routine life shall be pleasing to the eye after its prime purpose of usefulness has been developed.
If an article be pleasing in appearance its making will have involved some of the elements of design. The relationship of its parts, the lines of its construction, its coloring, the manner in which it is ornamented will depend first upon its purpose, but will be guided by a group of recognized traditions which we call the principles of design .