The Art & Practice of Typography / A Manual of American Printing, Including a Brief History up to the Twentieth Century, with Reproductions of the Work of Early Masters of the Craft, and a Practical Discussion and an Extensive Demonstration of the Modern Use of Type-faces and Methods of Arrangement

by Edmund G. Gress

EXAMPLE 240
Showing the use of roman, italic and spaced small capitals on an organization announcement

EXAMPLE 241
Unusual division into two groups, providing for fold. By the Calumet Press, New York

Example [238].—This announcement was printed in black ink on a Government postal card. The young compositor will, no doubt, recognize the small amount of actual typesetting necessary for this page; however, he should not overlook the fact that the results were really secured by one-tenth manual labor and nine-tenths brain exercise. A specimen such as this is good not because of what is put on but because of what is left off. There are only a rule border, a small silhouette illustration and four lines of type exclusive of the signature, yet the busy man gets the message and experiences pleasure in getting it. The type in the original was no larger than was necessary to be easily read. Compositors frequently forget that announcements of this kind are read at a distance of only a foot from the eyes, and that twelve-point type is really large enough for the purpose. It is usually a mistake to make the type-face very large or very small. One is an unnecessary size and the other is an illegible size.

Example [239].—This is another announcement set in twelve-point type, with a liberal distribution of blank space. The personal mark of Mr. Baker adds a decorative touch of color that attracts attention and helps to make the page distinctive.

EXAMPLE 243
Harmony of type-face and decoration

Example [240] (Insert).—This announcement has typographic interest in that it shows how variety and advertising emphasis can be obtained by the proper use of italic and small capitals with lower-case roman, especially with a type-face such as Cloister Oldstyle. The small capitals are letterspaced; they usually respond pleasingly to such treatment. Typographers who have studied the matter of spacing have found that capitals and small capitals can be letterspaced with good results, and that roman and italic lower-case seldom look well if the letters are separated by spacing. It is probably an exaggeration to say that lower-case should never be spaced, as typographic artists such as Will Bradley have produced very effective results with letterspaced lower-case; but the average compositor had better adhere to the rule of never letterspacing lower-case letters. It will be noticed that on this announcement the name of the organization, the words “Dinner” and “Exhibit” and the name of the guest, are set in capitals and small capitals with letterspacing. The names of the books, the title of the talk, and the request to return a card, are in italic. Only one size of type has been used, excepting for the committee group at the foot. In order that the words “Program Committee” should not look exactly like the other lines in this group, they were letterspaced.