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.
