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