DESIGN MADE WITH BRASS RULE
Executed in 1879, it is one of the best specimens of the rule-curving period
The fourth example is a reproduction of the title-page of MacKellar’s well-known manual, “The American Printer” (now out of print), and presents what to the head of the most prominent American type foundry was probably an ideal arrangement. While revealing the long-and-short-line characteristics of the previously mentioned pages, as a whole the effect is more interesting to printers. In this page may be noticed the trend toward delicate, characterless typography.
A printer, Charles Whittingham, of the Chiswick Press, and a publisher, William Pickering, of London, England, furnish an example of effort made in the middle of the nineteenth century to raise the practice of typography to a more artistic standard. These men, both lovers of books, and artists in temperament, had become intimate friends, and together endeavored to introduce into their publications simplicity, appropriateness, and other artistic qualities.
Desiring to use an old-style face on one of their books, Whittingham inquired of the Caslon type foundry if any of the punches cut by the first William Caslon were in existence. The original punches being recovered after years of disuse, fonts of type were cast and used on a book, “The Diary of Lady Willoughby,” printed in 1844. The title-page of this book is reproduced on a following page, and it will be seen that Whittingham arranged the typography in the Colonial style to harmonize with the literary motive of the book. So well was this done that one has to look twice at the date to satisfy himself it is not 1644. Other typography from these men is not quite so radically different from that of their contemporaries, but is more refined, artistic and tasteful, as may be seen by the “Friends in Council” page further on in this chapter. An innovation by Whittingham was the omission of punctuation marks excepting where needed to make clear the significance of the wording.
Whittingham and Pickering, in the field of artistic typography, were fifty years ahead of their time, as printers in general were not ready to accept the good things offered them. The modern renaissance came later.
Job printing as a distinct department is of modern development. Typographers of old were primarily book and pamphlet printers, and in many cases interest was chiefly centered in publishing newspapers or almanacs; job printing was incidental. This caused similarity in the typography of newspaper, book and job work, a condition that today exists only in a small degree. Now these three classes of work are generally separated into departments, each with its own rules, styles and practices, job composition being less restrained by customs and rules than any of the other departments.
TITLE-PAGE OF 1810