IMPRINTS
The printer’s name or device should, with all regard to good taste, be placed on every well-executed piece of work produced by him. That this is not more often done is due to neglect of advertising opportunities and to fear of the customer’s objection. Why should not the printer mark his product as other craftsmen and manufacturers do? Each piece of clothing he wears, from hat to shoes, probably carries the name or trademark of its maker, as do automobiles, pianos, watches, silverware and many other articles he owns. The maker’s name and trademark are a guarantee of a certain quality of product; in fact, they are absent only on cheap or imitative articles. If the printer is doing careless work and giving no thought to quality, he had better hide his identity, but if he is really producing good printing, as a duty to the craft of which he is a member he should “let his light shine before men.”
EXAMPLE 529
The first imprint-device, and three marks based on it
EXAMPLE 530
Aldus’s anchor-and-dolphin device, and adaptations by modern printers
If a commercial printer has not been in the habit of placing an imprint on his product, and he decides to do so, customers should tactfully be made acquainted with the innovation. They probably stand ready to be convinced of its reasonableness. It may be an excellent plan for the printer to mail his customers an announcement to this effect: “The standard of quality attained by the Smith Printshop is such that it is due our customers and ourselves so to mark each piece of printing produced by us as to identify it as a product of the Smith Printshop. This we will do hereafter.”
As a further precaution, all proofs receiving the O. K. of the customer should contain the imprint just as it is to be used, and on important large orders, where there is any doubt, permission should be obtained. There are instances where customers have refused to accept printed work for the reason that an imprint was placed on it.
It is only necessary to have printing-office patrons become accustomed to the new order of things.
John Dunlap, who printed the Declaration of Independence for Congress, placed his imprint on it (see frontispiece of this volume). If some friend had suggested to John Gutenberg that he imprint his name on his work, the discussion that has since arisen as to whether or not he printed the “Bible of Forty-two Lines” would not have taken place.
The commercial printer’s imprint should be unassuming and placed inconspicuously. Decorative imprints could be used on booklet and catalog work, and in addition the decorative device should find place on every piece of the printer’s own stationery and advertising matter, even on the office door.
The use by printers of decorative devices dates back to one of the first printed books, the famous Psalter of 1457. For a great many hundred years previous, pictures and devices in various forms had been relied upon to convey information and to act as distinguishing marks for various purposes. Figures such as the white horse and the red lion, hung as signs in front of taverns and public houses during the last two centuries, were outgrowths of the coats-of-arms of titled folk who in ancient times hung the family device in front of their estates as emblems of hospitality to the weary traveler.
EXAMPLE 531
The most popular imprint-device as early used by printers, and modern interpretations
Emblems and devices seem always to have had place in human history. The sign of the Cross in the eleventh century led the Crusaders against the followers of the Crescent. The cross of St. George (+) furnished inspiration for the English in their warfare with the Scots, who rallied around the cross of St. Andrew (❌), and the combined crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick now inspire the patriotic Britisher.
It would seem that printers could do better work if they were to select some device which would represent an ideal, and then attempt to live up to it.
While the Gutenberg Bible of Forty-two Lines, generally accepted as the first book printed with separate metal types, contained neither device nor printer’s name, the Book of Psalms, or Psalter, of 1457, not only has the names of Fust and Schœffer and the date, but an imprint device which has the distinction of being the first ever used on a book typographically printed. This famous Psalter was the product of Johann Fust and Peter Schœffer, who succeeded to Gutenberg’s printing office. At the end of the book, printed in red ink, is the colophon of the printers (Example [528-A]), a translation of which follows: “This book of Psalms, decorated with antique initials, and sufficiently emphasized with rubricated letters, has been thus made by the masterly invention of printing and also of type-making, without the writing of a pen, and is consummated to the service of God, thru the industry of Johann Fust, citizen of Mainz, and Peter Schœffer of Gernszheim, in the year of our Lord 1457, on the eve of the Assumption.”
The colophon contains a typographic error, perhaps the first to be made by a typesetter, the second word showing “spalm-” for “psalm-.” On several of the Psalters still in existence (one is without it) the colophon is accompanied by the decorative device shown in Example [529], consisting of a pair of shields suspended from the limb of a tree. The significance of the characters on the shields is not definitely known. Humphreys, in his “History,” asserts that the shields contain the arms of Fust and those of Schœffer. It is conceded that the shield on the left is Fust’s and the shield on the right Schœffer’s. In Rietstap it is found that one branch of the old German family of Faust bore a coat-of-arms containing on a shield two crampons in saltire (crossed). Bullen claims the character in the Fust shield is the Greek letter Chi (Χ) and that in Schœffer’s shield the Greek letter Lambda (Λ), and that they had some connection with secret societies to which Fust and his son-in-law Schœffer belonged.
EXAMPLE 532
Arms supposedly granted the Typothetæ, a society of master printers, by Frederick III
Schœffer’s device was used for many years by his descendants, Example [529] showing its use as late as 1747 by Peter Schœffer, of Bois-le-Duc, in the Netherlands.
EXAMPLE 533
The imprint-device of England’s first printer, its probable derivation, and two notable devices evolved from it
This device of Fust and Schœffer furnished inspiration to several printers of the same century, chief among whom were Michael Furter and Nicolas Kessler, whose devices are shown in Example [529]. Furter, who printed at Basel, Switzerland, in 1490, was once credited with being the inventor of printing, thru an error in a book, the date of which was made to read 1444 (M.CCCC.XLIIII), instead of 1494 (M.CCCC.XCIIII).
EXAMPLE 534
Two modern designs with ancient motifs
What is considered to be the most classic of all imprint-devices (Example [530]) is that used by Aldus Manutius, the great Venetian printer, who introduced the italic face of type. The device, an anchor, around which is twisted a dolphin, is said to be symbolic of the proverb “Hasten slowly.” The anchor represents stability and the dolphin swiftness. The mark was taken by him from a book he had printed, “Reveries of Polyphilus,” and was used as the Aldus device for the first time in an edition of Dante of 1502.
In a spirit of affection and regard for the famous Venetian, the device of Aldus has been adopted or adapted by several well-known printers. There is a nice sentiment connected with the use of this mark by William Pickering, the noted English publisher. In place of the “AL-DVS” of the original, Pickering’s adaptation contained a motto in which he announced himself as the English disciple of Aldus. The reproduction of the Pickering device shown is from a book published by Pickering and printed by Whittingham in 1840.
By 1892 we find a lion added to this device, as used by the Chiswick Press.
The McClure Publications of New York have a conventionalized interpretation which shows the dolphin and anchor in white upon a black circular background (Example [530]).
Bruce Rogers, at the Riverside Press, has most interestingly adapted the Aldus device. It seems that he always had a fondness for the thistle, the national flower of Scotland, and when seeking a motif for his mark, naturally turned to it. When the time came for putting it into use, the first requirement happened to be for an Aldine page, so it was cast in a form that would distinctly suggest the Aldus anchor and dolphin. (Compare the two designs in Example [530].) While on the subject of Bruce Rogers’s device it may be interesting to relate that later, when he desired to use it on a book modeled on French sixteenth-century work, he reshaped it as shown in Example [540], which carries a suggestion of one of Robert Estienne’s marks shown with it. Rogers redrew his personal device, or that of the Riverside Press, to blend with the motif of the book on which it was to be used, a practice that embodies the highest use of the printer’s mark.
EXAMPLE 535
The pun, as found in two printers’ marks
One of the most famous imprint-devices is that adopted by the Society of Printers of Venice in 1481 (Example [531]), about the time of the death of Nicholas Jenson, who is supposed to have originated the design. Various explanations have been given of the significance of this device, the most reasonable being that the globe and cross refers to the millennium, when, according to prophecy, God shall reign upon earth. The globe-and-cross symbol was frequently embellished with supplementary characters having other religious significance. The mark of Androw Myllar (Example [535]) contains a figure 4, which denoted the Supreme Being. People of antiquity frequently composed the name of the Deity in four letters. The globe in the Venetian device probably represented the earth, altho the fact that the earth was round was not common knowledge in the early days. The theory, however, was accepted by the educated priest and layman long before Columbus sailed, as he thought, for India.
The double-cross in the Roman church today is associated with the authority of an archbishop, and as a decorative form of the cross, extends back many centuries. The ornamental double-cross pictured in this connection was once the property of St. Waudru of Belgium, who died in 670. The double cross or Lorraine cross was used by Geofroy Tory as a small mark on his wood engravings (see lower left corner of the Tory mark in Example [536]).
EXAMPLE 536
Devices used by notable printers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
EXAMPLE 537
A colophon-imprint by D. B. Updike, from “Petrarch and His Masters,” 1907
EXAMPLE 538
The Lion of St. Mark appropriately adapted by Bruce Rogers to a book on Venetian life
EXAMPLE 539-A
The Lion of St. Mark as a printshop device
EXAMPLE 539-B
The Oswald Press mark designed by T. M. Cleland
In further consideration of the cross-and-globe device it may be well to mention that an astronomical sign consisting of a circle with a cross above it (♁) was used by the Egyptians many years before the Christian era. Such a sign is yet used astronomically and also to indicate the male in botany. Another astronomical sign bearing on the subject is that of a cross within a circle (⨁), by which the earth is indicated.
EXAMPLE 540
Robert Estienne’s mark, and Bruce Rogers’s adaptation of it
EXAMPLE 541
An appropriate mark for a printer to adopt
The cross-and-globe device of the Venetian Society of Printers has proved the most popular of any of the old imprints. When Elbert Hubbard established the Roycroft Shop at East Aurora, N. Y., in 1896, he adopted it as a work-mark, placing an “R” in the lower half of the circle in place of the dot. Fra Elbertus’s interpretation of the device established the circle as “the emblem of the perfect (the complete), and the lines puncturing the circle the attempt to make a perfect article, to do perfect work.”
When the advertising manager of the National Biscuit Company was looking about for a trademark this old device of the Lorraine cross and circle must have appealed to him strongly, and such is the power of advertising that printers may some day be accused of copying the design from this biscuit house.
The remarkable adaptability of the device is also demonstrated by the Griffith-Stillings imprint, in which it forms a part of a clever modern decorative design (Example [547]).
Frederic W. Goudy incorporated the Venetian printers’ device most interestingly in the decorative mark of the Village Press (Example [531]).
The imprint-device of the Gould Press (Example [543]) may have originated with the Venetian printers’ design. It is an interesting variant.
These numerous uses by printers and others of the old circle-and-cross design suggest a paraphrase of an ancient proverb: “A good device lives forever.”
William Caxton, England’s first printer, used an imprint-device (Example [533]) that in appearance resembles a rug, which it may have been intended to represent, as Caxton is supposed to have used this mark when he was a merchant at Bruges in Belgium. The characters contained in the design have caused much discussion. The “W” on the left and the “C” on the right are generally accepted as the initials of Caxton. The center characters have been claimed by some to be the figures “74,” but the most reasonable explanation is that they form a trade device used by the merchants of Bruges. This explanation is seemingly confirmed by the discovery of a memorial plate to one John Felde, containing his trademark as a merchant, which trademark is very similar to the characters in the center of Caxton’s imprint-device. The reproduction of the Felde design shows that if the top stroke were taken away and a loop added the result would be Caxton’s characters.
Wynkyn de Worde, when he succeeded Caxton as England’s printer, adopted Caxton’s characters (probably a sentimental act) and in the device shown added his own name at the foot.
William Morris, in planning an imprint-device for the Kelmscott Press, evidently made a study of de Worde’s design, for there is resemblance in shape and in the placing of the name at the foot.
T. C. Hansard, on the title-page of his “Typographia” (1825), uses a device which tradition tells us was granted by Emperor Frederick III of Germany to a corporation of master printers known as the Typothetæ. (See Example [532].) References by writers to the origin of this design are generally contradictory. The United Typothetæ and Franklin Clubs of America, an association of employing printers, has adopted the device and uses it in the conventionalized form shown. The design in its original form tends to heraldic elaborateness. There is represented an eagle holding a copy guide in one claw and a composing stick in the other. Surmounting the design is a griffin (eagle-lion) grasping two ink balls. The Winthrop Press mark (Example [543]) and other printers’ devices have been inspired by this emblem, as the griffin copyholder and ink balls are familiar decorative forms.
In Great Britain the printer whose name would allow a pun has always been considered fortunate. John Daye, a London printer of 1560, had an elaborate device, paneled, in the center of which is a picture of a reclining man being aroused by a figure which, pointing to the sun, says, “Arise, for it is day.” (Example [535].)
Androw Myllar, who printed in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1510, used a device which portrayed a miller climbing to his mill (Example [535]). The arrangement of his name in the lower part of the design suggests de Worde’s, and the characters in the shields have meanings that may be determined by a study of the religious symbolism of the Middle Ages.
EXAMPLE 536-A
The printer’s device and imprint here occupies two-thirds of the title-page. From a book by Robert Estienne, Paris, France, 1544
The imprints of some of the notable printers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are interesting. The first mark in Example [536] shows one of the devices of Geofroy Tory of Paris from his “Champ Fleury” of 1529. It consists of a broken pot filled with instruments and the Latin phrase Non plus (nothing more). The Lorraine cross in the lower left corner is interesting in connection with the use made of it by the Venetian Society of Printers (Example [531]). Tory, an accomplished scholar and noted wood engraver and printer, was, according to an epitaph written by a compatriot, “the first man to discuss seriously the art of printing,” and “taught Garamond, chief of engravers.” His work on the derivation and formation of Latin characters had considerable renown. He claimed, according to Fournier, that all the letters are formed of I and O. Proportions are arrived at by dividing a square into ten lines, perpendicular and horizontal, forming one hundred squares completely filled with circles, the whole giving form and figure to the letters.
EXAMPLE 542
Use of the oval shape in the designing of printers’ marks
EXAMPLE 543
Modern imprints suggested by ancient forms
The troublous times of the Reformation, during which John Bebel was imprisoned, may have had some influence on his selection of a device. It consisted of a tree, in the branches of which was a prostrate man, and over him was a large flat thing representing the platen of a printing press (Example [536]). On the platen were words meaning “Do not press poor me to death.”
Christopher Plantin, printer and publisher of Antwerp, Belgium, whose famous printing office, preserved as a museum, was one of the shrines of worshiping printer-pilgrims up to the beginning of the European war, employed a device which is emblematic of the saying of Jesus, “I am the vine.”
A device used by the Elzevirs at Leyden, Holland, in 1620, shows a tree with spreading branches. On one side of the trunk is the figure of a man and on the other a scroll with the words Non solus (not alone).
Robert Estienne had a similar device in 1544 (Example [536-A]). This device as shown is slightly reduced from the original, while those previously mentioned are greatly reduced in size.
John Froben of Basel, Switzerland, who was a close friend of Erasmus, the philosopher and patron of learning, in 1520 used a device containing a staff surmounted by a dove and entwined by two serpents. (Example [542].) The legend, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” occasionally accompanied the design.
Sometimes these printers’ marks were so large as to leave little room for the title-page proper, in contrast to which is the extreme modesty of Ulrich Zell of Cologne, Prussia, whose works are numerous and who is credited with starting the story of the invention of printing by Coster. Zell scarcely ever placed even his name on a book, yet his work may easily be identified.
The Heintzemann Press device in Example [534] has an antique appearance and its designer evidently received inspiration for his anchor, foliage and scroll from such devices as those of Aldus and Plantin. The Rogers-Riverside Press mark, too, has ancient motifs. The anchor-shaped thistle, as already stated, is based upon Aldus’s device, and the frame suggests old designs in metal.
EXAMPLE 545
A mark that has to do with mythology
There is a suggestion of the pot device of Tory in the decorative portion of the Merrymount Press imprint shown as Example [537]. This appeared at the end of the book as a colophon, the style in which the imprint is written fitting it for that position. It will be remembered that the printers of Italy usually had the beginning and ending set in capitals to differentiate them from the body of the book. Elbert Hubbard used the idea commercially on his advertising booklets, as in Example [550].
Perhaps the device shown as Example [541] is a bit too suggestive for practical use by printers of the present day. Stephen Dolet’s name, in its literal meaning, has something to do with an ax, hewing and cutting. Dolet was a scholarly printer of the sixteenth century who suffered martyrdom at the stake in 1546.
The oval shape for imprint designs is not unpleasant, as will be seen by Example [542].
The Fezandat device was designed by Tory. The pheasant is a pun on the printer’s name. The device as a whole is pleasing.
The Riverside Press device is classically Greek in motif. Pan and his pipes appear on many of the marks of this press in various designs. The one shown is from “Pan’s Pipes,” a Riverside Press publication.
EXAMPLE 544
Printers’ marks based on architectural motifs
The winged ball, torch and other symbolic decorative devices are blended pleasingly on the mark (Example [542]), which appeared on the title-pages of the famous Eliot six-foot shelf of books, “The Harvard Classics,” 1909.
EXAMPLE 546
The monogram is an attractive form for printers’ devices
EXAMPLE 547
Representative of the large variety of devices in use by American printers and publishers
An interesting feature of some early Venetian books is the use by printers of decorative devices designed upon the winged Lion of St. Mark. Recent adaptations of this device are the Oswald Press imprints (Examples [539-A] and [539-B]) and the ornament on a title by Bruce Rogers (Example [538]). The Lion of St. Mark is interesting in its significance. Tradition has it that long ago, when John Mark, the missionary companion of Paul, was traveling by way of Aquileia (Roman Secunda) for the purpose of preaching the gospel of Jesus, he found himself, after a violent storm, on one of the Rialto Islands that now form the city of Venice. In a dream an angel appeared saluting him (Pax tibi Marce Evangelista meus) and announcing that on those islands his bones would some day find peace. In fulfilment of this prophecy, in the year 829, several Venetians went to Alexandria, where the body of Mark had been buried, removed it surreptitiously, and took it to Venice. Such was the enthusiasm caused by this event that St. Mark supplanted St. Theodore as the patron saint of the city. “Viva San Marco” was heard as the battle cry of the Venetians, and the winged lion, symbolic of St. Mark, became the glorious sign of the republic. In Venice today there are numerous statuary reproductions of the winged Lion of St. Mark, holding with one claw a book of the gospels. The exposed pages of the book usually contain the salutation of the angel. The story of St. Mark’s vision and of the bringing of the body to Venice is pictured in mosaic work in St. Mark’s Church, Venice, where his bones rest.
The four-winged beasts mentioned in the fourth chapter of Revelations are accepted as symbolic of the four evangelists, the winged lion typifying St. Mark.
Example [543] shows four designs with motifs taken from ancient sources. The Matthews-Northrup device of the mythical phœnix rising from the fire is emblematic of immortality; the torch probably signifies the intellectual light resulting from the invention of printing. The Winthrop Press imprint has already been mentioned as having relation to the ancient Typothetæ arms. The Binner-Wells design suggests that of Froben, by the shape and lettering between lines. The possible derivation of the Gould Press device from the Venetian master printers’ emblem has been suggested.
The unique mark of the De Vinne Press (Example [545]) probably pictures a page from a manuscript book. The legend connected with the Greek lettering is mythical and has to do with one Prometheus, who, while chained to a rock, tells of the benefits he conferred on mankind. A literal translation of the Greek at this point reveals the appropriateness of the quotation as used: “And further, I discovered for them numeration, most striking of inventions; and composition, nurse of the arts, producer of the record of all things.”
Three imprint-devices, based upon architectural motifs, are shown in Example [544]. In the Rogers design the architectural panel is surmounted by a silhouetted heraldic figure that adds much to the attractiveness of the device. A Colonial architectural panel frames the title of the Bartlett-Orr Press. The Egyptian winged ball, asps and open book are well blended with the monogram circle that fits the Roman arch in the Trow imprint.
EXAMPLE 548
Decorative imprints constructed with typefounders’ ornaments and suitable type-faces
Initials in monogram form are frequently adopted by printers, and three such devices are shown in Example [546]. Reversing one of the initials is a favorite method when the nature of the letter allows it, as in the Patteson Press device. Fitting the initials to a general shape calls for clever work, as in the shield shape of the Corday & Gross design.
EXAMPLE 549
Type imprints, and the various interesting effects possible with them
Of the large variety of devices in use by other publishers and printers, those shown in Example [547] are representative.
The Griffith-Stillings device, as has already been mentioned, includes elements of the mark of the Society of Printers of Venice.
The American Printer mark shows an American eagle standing on books, and the initials A. P. used decoratively in the upper right corner. The dimensions of this oblong and the background are borrowed from the Venetian mark.
Unusual in shape and in wording is the Stillson device, which develops attractiveness when printed in several colors and embossed.
EXAMPLE 550
Quaint book-ending, or colophon, as used by Elbert Hubbard
Notwithstanding the cumbersome size of the acorn, the Sparrell Print device is not unattractive.
With a decorative quality that suggests the sixteenth century, the Ginn device is appropriate in its use of the horn book, an old-time teaching help.
Rather clever is the manner in which Goudy has hung the ampersand decoratively on the double-T monogram that is part of the Taylor & Taylor mark.
The diamond-shaped Wright & Joys device, with its conventionalized tree, is also interesting.
It is possible to construct really creditable decorative imprints with typefounders’ ornaments and suitable type-faces. Example [548] presents several such designs as demonstrations of what can be done in this respect. In building these imprints the author has kept in mind the rules that govern combinations of type and ornament, as explained in the chapters relating to harmony, appropriateness, tone, contrast and ornamentation. In the Church Press design the border is made in outline to reflect the ornament. The types used in the Smith-Brown, Willis Works and Gothic Shop imprints harmonize with the ornamentation in both tone and shape. Italic type and the fleur-de-lis are French in motif. The Caslon type-face and the old-style parentheses go well together. The block, or gothic, type-face in its plainness of stroke suggests early Greek letters, and blends with the plain illustration. The money-bag ornament is an attempt at a pun, in the Stuff imprint. The pleasing gray tone of the Horner & Wilburn device is due to harmony of ornament and type-face.
The printer will more often be called on to use a small, inconspicuous type-imprint than the prominent decorative device, and it is just as desirable to have distinction in these small type lines as in the elaborate devices. There are grouped in Example [549], a variety of effects suggested for this purpose. The type used in an imprint should harmonize and blend with the typography of the work on which it is used. An imprint in old-style type would not blend with a page set in modern type. It was the custom at one time to electrotype imprint lines so that they could be easily handled, but now the linotype furnishes a convenient method of casting them. It is well, tho, to strengthen the face by having the slugs copper-faced, which work is done by electrotypers.
APPENDIX
Holiday Greetings
Holiday Greetings furnish opportunity for expression of the art of printing. The more than one hundred specimens reproduced in miniature in this section (received by the editors of “The American Printer” from friends) contain many suggestions of typographic interest
“Everybody in our house
wishes everybody in your house
a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year”
“Volumes of good wishes
to friends of ours
from friends of yours”
“Christmas:
A time for giving and for getting
and forgiving and forgetting”
“May all that thou wishest
and all that thou lovest
come smiling around
thy sunny way”
“At Christmas be merry
And thankful withal,
And feast thy poor neighbors,
The great with the small”
“GLORIA IN EXCELSIS
DEO
ET IN TERRA PAX
HOMINIBUS BONAE
VOLUNTATIS”
“Ule! Ule!
Three puddings in a pule—
Crack nuts and cry Ule!”