EXAMPLE 158
EXAMPLE 159
Three pages that demonstrate the possibilities of type and rule in obtaining effective results. By Barnard J. Lewis, Boston, Mass.
Those houses that have made a success of booklet printing produce a job that is harmonious and complete. Reading matter, illustrations, decoration, paper, ink and color treatment, all blend on their booklets. There is a central motive around which all concerned in the make-up of the booklet weave their ideas.
Altho such a condition is ideal, it is not absolutely necessary, and it is not always profitable, for a printshop to have under its roof a complete equipment for producing every detail of a booklet. One of the successful producers of booklets—an artist with associates able to interpret his ideas—had in his artistic suite of offices a palm which he enjoyed showing to visitors who asked to see the “plant.” On the other hand, there is the head of a large printing concern producing high-class booklets who has artistic ideas but who depends upon the open field of artists and engravers to develop and perfect his plans. He manages to meet a prospective customer and from conversation with him learns something of his tastes and preferences. This printer then selects an artist whose style of work will most likely appeal to the customer and be best for the purposes of the booklet. He assumes that the most successful artists are those who have specialized on some one kind of work—classic Roman lettering and decoration; seventeenth-century French decoration; Old English or American colonial effects; modern German coloring and decoration; art-nouveau creations, the serious and the humorous; illustrations of child life, or of the Civil War period. While there are versatile artists like Will Bradley who can do good work in many styles, they are not numerous.
Some printers retain typographic artists who serve clients by the hour. These artists sometimes are advertising writers who have studied the art side of printing and know that much depends upon the type-face used.
To plan a booklet properly the commercial printer must know something of the principles of art and advertising and of good book typography. Booklet printing is really the connecting link between job printing and book printing. The unconventionality of job typography and the dignity and conservatism of book typography can successfully be blended in the booklet.
Example [149] (Insert).—This style of title-page is appropriate for a booklet or brochure in which the typography plays an important part in the production. The printer having plates of this kind delivered to him should for the remaining pages endeavor to use a type-face which has some relation in style to the lettering found in this example. The page having been drawn by Frederick W. Goudy, one of his type-faces would, of course, be most harmonious, but other old-style letters such as Cloister Oldstyle, Caslon Oldstyle and Old-Style Antique would also be suitable. Some of the pages would possibly include initial letters drawn in the same style as the decoration, and thruout the work the motif established by the title-page should be maintained. An antique-finished paper blends best with the general decorative plan, but if coated stock must be used it should be of a dull finish. Art work of the quality of this example cannot be procured from every artist. This example is expressive of the personal taste and talent of Goudy.