Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering

by Edward Johnston

If lettering is to be rightly constructed and arranged, the study of good models is essential. Some of the writing and lettering in the old MSS., and the letters used on various old tombstones and brasses, weeded of archaisms, will be found almost perfect models. Yet to select one of these from the many which are “more or less” good, requires much discrimination.

It is suggested below that the essential virtues of good lettering are readableness, beauty, and character. If, then, we can discover some of the underlying qualities which make for these, our choice will at least be better considered, and instead of [p238] forming our “style” on the first type of letter that pleases, we shall found our work on a good model, full of possibilities of development.

The Roman Capital (Chap. XV.).—The ancestor of all our letters is in undisputed possession of the first place: but it is open to comparatively few to make a practical study of its monumental forms by means of cutting inscriptions in stone with a chisel.

The Pen-formed letters are more easily practised, and the mastery of the pen acquired in the practice of a root form—such as the half-uncial—is the key to the majority of alphabets (which are pen developed) and to those principles underlying the right construction and arrangement of lettering, which it is our business to discover.

Doubtless a “school” of lettering might be founded on any fine type, and a beautiful alphabet or fine hand might be founded on any fine inscription: but the practical student of penmanship may be sure of acquiring a knowledge of lettering which would be useful to any craftsman concerned with letters, be he printer, book-illustrator, engraver, or even inscription carver.

THE QUALITIES OF GOOD LETTERING

The first general virtue of lettering is readableness, the second, fitness for a given Use. And the rational basis of the following summary is the assumption that such fitness is comprised in beauty and character, and that a given piece of lettering having readableness, beauty, and character has the essential virtues of good lettering.

The qualities on which these virtues seem chiefly to depend, and their special significations in the case of plain writing, may be set forth as follows:— [p239]

THE QUALITIES OF GOOD WRITING

• RIGHT FORM
  • READABLENESS
    • 1. Simplicity:
      As having no unnecessary parts (and as being simply arranged: see 6).
    • 2. Distinctiveness:
      As having the distinguishing characteristics of each letter strongly marked (and the words distinctly arranged: see 6).
    • 3. Proportion:
      As having no part of a letter wrongly exaggerated or dwarfed (and as the lettering being proportionally arranged: see 6).
  • BEAUTY
    • 4. Beauty of Form:
      As having beautiful shapes and constructions, so that each letter is an individual and living whole (not a mere collection of parts) fitted for the position, office, and material of the object bearing the inscription.
    • 5. Beauty of Uniformity:
      As the assimilation of the corresponding parts—“bodies,” “limbs,” “heads”—and as the “family likeness” of the different letters, so that they go well together.
• RIGHT ARRANGEMENT
  • BEAUTY
    • 6. Beauty of Arrangement:
      As having a general fitness in the placing, connecting, and spacing of letters, words, and lines, in the disposal of the lettering in the given space, and in the proportioning of every part of the lettering and its margins.
• RIGHT EXPRESSION
  • CHARACTER
    • 7. Essential qualities of (Hand and Pen) work:
      As being genuine calligraphy, the direct outcome of a rightly made and rightly handled pen. (See p. [278].)
    • 8. Freedom:
      As having skilled and unaffected boldness. (See pp. [122], [327], [323], [369].)
    • 9. Personality:
      As having the characteristics which distinguish one person’s hand from another’s. (See also pp. [278], [323].)