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

Bold Types

There is a legitimate use for bold type-faces, especially in small sizes, on books of reference, schoolbooks, catalogs, and similar printed work, but it is safe to wager that half the bold types in use, and almost all of the large sizes, could well be dispensed with. When used to a great extent, the printed work on which it appears is unattractive. Bold type is to typography what the bass drum is to music: it fits in nicely for purposes of accentuation and emphasis; but who likes a bass drum solo?

However, a slight strengthening of lines sometimes serves special purposes well. Daniel Elzevir used a letter with slightly deepened strokes for the main line in Example [477].

Old-Style Antique has long been popular with good printers for typography requiring a darker tone than is given by Caslon Oldstyle; the so-called Caslon Bold will never really take its place.

Most of the standard type-faces referred to in this chapter are procurable in bold form. Cloister Bold, Caslon Bold, Bodoni Bold and Cheltenham Bold are included with a few other faces in Example [526].

Ornamental Types

Typography has its periods of abstention and fasting, which usually follow periods of revelry in decorative types in which good taste and dignity are not infrequently sinned against. After the typefounders of the nineteenth century had twisted, distorted, decorated, shaded and otherwise disguised the Roman alphabet until Jenson, Aldus, the Elzevirs, Caslon and Franklin would no longer recognize it, the users of printing, the printers and the typefounders became sobered and realized what they had done.

A period of fasting set in, but, recollections of the old typographic carousal wearing off, ornamental letters again began to appear. They were on different models, however—some of them very good—and were acceptable for informal typography (Example [527-C]).

Some ornamental types of historic origin are based on the eighteenth-century letters of Fournier, the French typefounder, and on those of English founders (Examples [527-A] and [527-B]).