When buying display type of some good face it is always advisable to buy weight fonts of the entire series instead of job fonts. A weight font, say 25 pounds, will usually fill a job case, and give the printer plenty of characters to work with, while a job font contains only a few duplicates of each character.
Have only a limited number of good type faces, but have plenty of each size and character. Also have an abundance of 2-point leads, 6-point slugs, 12-point slugs, quads, spaces and metal furniture. Labor-saving brass rule—1-point face on 3-point body, is of particular advantage for borders of labels, panels for box-tops, etc.; 2-point face rule on 2-point body, and 6-point face rule on 6-point body, are also very useful. Running borders of artistic design, in 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-point sizes, are admirable for borders for box labels of the larger size.
For the printed matter on the fronts of small-size cartons, the box-maker will need a number of small, compressed type faces, such as for example: 6-, 8-, 10-, 12- and 14-point Extra Condensed Cheltenham Bold. Regular Condensed Cheltenham Bold, in these same sizes, will also be found very useful. Extra Condensed Gothic, in all sizes from 6-point to 72-point, is excellent for narrow-measure display composition on carton work, narrow labels for boxes and bottles, and so forth. These are facts which must be carefully considered by every box-maker who may be thinking of installing a printing plant.
Many small labels and fronts of cartons contain “Direction for Use,” and other information printed in very small type, and this means that the box-maker having a printing plant must use a considerable quantity of 5-point and 6-point body type. Old Style Roman is a good face for this class of composition, and it should be kept in open news cases on the top of type cabinets so as to make the work of setting as easy as possible for the compositors. It is the right thing to keep all job type stored in dust-proof cabinets, but in the case of small body type which is being used frequently, it is advantageous to keep it in open cases, despite the fact that open type cases are “dust collectors.”
Hartford Platen Printing Press.
Much of the smaller work for labels and cartons is of such an intricate character as to call for the use of a great deal of small-size type, like 5-point Old Style Roman, 6-point Extra Condensed Gothic, etc. Often the forms must be spaced out with the greatest care so as to make the forms fit small spaces. A complete assortment of thin copper spaces, and of 1-point brasses, laid out in small cases, will be found exceedingly useful for the fine spacing referred to.
It would be a mistake for anyone to be under the impression that box-makers’ printed matter is of the common-place variety, for many of the wrappers, box-tops and labels produced for fine candy boxes, rubber goods boxes, holiday boxes and other boxes are printed in the best style. The type forms and designs, in many instances, are works of art. This means that the compositor working in the box manufacturing factory should be a high grade craftsman, capable of producing first class display typography.