COMPOSED IN EMERSON TYPES
Stanley Morison
FIRST PRINCIPLES OF TYPOGRAPHY
Published 1951 by the syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
NOTE: This essay towards a rationale of book-typography was first attempted as an article, s.v. "Typography," in the twelfth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago and London, 1929). It was reconsidered and entirely rewritten for No. 7 of The Fleuron (Cambridge, 1930) when it also went out of print.... Although several reprints have been brought out and extracts have been made, demands continue for the whole text from printers as well as from those outside the trade for whom the article was originally written.... As the brevity of the essay seems to be one of its most approved qualities, no expansion, and only slight revision, was made.... The present reprint is that of the Amsterdam edition published in 1947, in which the first paragraph was interpolated.... It may be added that while the principles here set forth apply to the typography of books, the sections dealing with composition may be adapted to the design of newspapers and publicity....
S.M.
I
Letters of the alphabet that are cast or founded for the purpose of impressing upon paper are known as "types" and the impression thus made as a "print." But every impression, from any raised surface, is a "print." Hence the impression from the particular raised surfaces known as "types" is called a "typographical" impression; or, to use a more old-fashioned term, "letter-press." The precise form of the "types" and the exact position they need to occupy upon the selected paper involve skill in the art that is called "typography."
Typography may be defined as the art of rightly disposing printing material in accordance with specific purpose; of so arranging the letters, distributing the space and controlling the type as to aid to the maximum the reader's comprehension of the text. Typography is the efficient means to an essentially utilitarian and only accidentally aesthetic end, for enjoyment of patterns is rarely the reader's chief aim. Therefore, any disposition of printing material which, whatever the intention, has the effect of coming between author and reader is wrong. It follows that in the printing of books meant to be read there is little room for "bright" typography. Even dullness and monotony in the type-setting are far less vicious to a reader than typographical eccentricity or pleasantry. Cunning of this sort is desirable, even essential in the typography of propaganda, whether for commerce, politics, or religion, because in such printing only the freshest survives inattention. But the typography of books, apart from the category of narrowly limited editions, requires an obedience to convention which is almost absolute—and with reason.