Cover design for a German periodical entitled Pan, by Franz Stuck. Original, 8 by 12. Printed in black on heavy green cover paper.
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Department heading designed by Eugene Grasset for La Revue Encyclopédique, showing an excellent style of lettering (founded on the Caroline), also an admirable decorative outline made to give a finished effect, or an effect of delicacy.
adapted to rough, heavy paper, which will make a durable cover.
The design for Pan, by Franz Stuck, is a particularly good example. Possibly the shadow thrown by the head is a disturbing element in the composition; it makes the right-hand side heavy and is not in itself decorative.
The spacing also between the P and the A is greater than between the A and the N, without, so far as we can see, having a valid reason for so being. But the design was for the cover of a publication of artist’s sketches, and it was consequently more permissible for the artist to draw with freedom than had he been designing a more conventional cover. Stuck is one of the best letterers in Europe; and, in his more serious moments, is most exact in his spacing. The two most interesting characteristics of the design are the elegance of the letters and the boldness of the drawing of the head; {173} substitute more commonplace lettering as in the “Roebuck” heading (page [168]) and such delicate drawing as in the Grasset “Encyclopédie,” and the design would lose force as a pamphlet cover.
The Westminster design, given on page [157], recommends itself because of the silhouette steeple, which could be easily engraved on wood, and also because of the lettering, which is as good an example of “pen-hand” as is the Pan of “monumental” lettering. It also suggests effects to be got by white on black, as does the Jugend.
The “Roebuck” (page [168]) lacks the elegance of the Pan and the robustness of the Westminster, but it shows a good style for such newspaper lettering as has to be made quickly; as, for example, drawn on the chalk-plate in half an hour, when perfect spacing and proportioning is out of the question. There are times also when a letter is needed that is not truly elegant. It seems sacrilegious, as it were, to design a heading for “On the Diamond and Gridiron” with letters from a Lucca Della Robbia monument, or the Mazarin Bible. Therefore, some such lettering as the “Roebuck” comes in appropriate for the light departments of a paper.