In both England and America Morris was the subject of much criticism. Men who as art printers were not fit to touch the hem of his garment were loud in condemnation of his work. Others, more fair, pointed out the excellence of his printing, but claimed that neither his type-faces nor his style of typography would be used many years. This last prediction has proved partly true. The Jenson, or Kelmscott, type-face was used so frequently and so generally that despite its virtues it finally tired the public eye, and is now seldom seen. Satanick, the “Troy” type-face, as made by the American Type Founders Company, is not now displayed in that company’s specimen book.
A BUSINESS CARD OF 1889
One of the author’s early attempts at artistic (?) printing
However, the work of William Morris, tho not accepted as the model for general use, was the cause of a revolution in modern typography. Instead of the delicate and inartistic type-faces and ornamentation of 1890, the contents of type-foundry specimen books revealed strong, handsome, artistic letters and common-sense art borders and ornaments. Morris’s experience as a printer did not cover five years, yet his name will always live because of the good he did typography in the nineteenth century.
Decorative artists were wielding a big influence in the revival taking place in the field of typography. Contemporary with Morris in England was a young artist, Aubrey Beardsley, prominent in a new school of art which saw merit in the flat masses of color as found in the seemingly grotesque designs of the Japanese.
Here in America the work of Morris and Beardsley found favor in the eyes of Will Bradley, who was destined to lead the forces in the typographic revolution on American soil. Bradley had been a country printer; as apprentice, journeyman and foreman he had tasted both the joys and sorrows of practical work in the printshop. However, Bradley was more than printer; he had artistic tendencies which finally influenced him to go to Chicago to study art. There he frequented the art galleries and public libraries, and developed into a poster artist of exceptional merit. There were those who called him the “American Beardsley.”
The year 1896 found Bradley with a studio at Springfield, Mass., where his love of printing influenced him to open a printshop which he called the “Wayside Press.” In May of the same year he issued the first number of “Bradley: His Book,” a unique publication for artists and printers. The type-faces used were Jenson, Caslon and Bradley, and almost every page contained decoration. There were many odd color combinations and Bradley must have stood close to his presses when this first number was printed. Purple-brown and orange, olive-green and orange-brown, orange-yellow and chocolate-brown, purple-red and green-blue—these were some of the color harmonies.
The Christmas number of “Bradley: His Book” was set entirely in Satanick, the American copy of Morris’s “Troy” type, and bright vermilion was nicely contrasted with dense black print.
While Morris was a medievalist, and received his inspiration from the printed books of the fifteenth century, Bradley was inspired by both past and present. Printers know him particularly because of his adaptations of the styles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He demonstrated how Colonial printers could have done their work better. In presenting the Colonial specimens which are here reproduced from the November, 1906, “Bradley: His Book,” Bradley wrote:
Antique and deckle-edge papers enter so largely into the making of books today that printers cannot do better than to study the styles of type-composition that were in vogue when all books were printed upon hand-made papers. A knowledge thus gained should prove of great value, especially in the setting of title-pages.... The only face of Roman type which seems appropriate to antique paper is that which is known as Caslon. When types were fewer, and the craft of printing less abused than it is now, this was the only type used in bookwork; and some of the title-pages in our earlier books are extremely interesting and suggest motifs which may well be carried out today. Taking suggestions from these books we have set a few pages, using as subjects the titles of some modern works. There seems to be an unwritten law which we are supposed to follow in this class of composition; and yet one should be a little brave and daring, purely for the joy of getting out of the old beaten track.