The Alphabet: Fifteen Interpretative Designs
Frederic W. Goudy's lettering handbook, introduced in October 1918, set by his wife Bertha M. Goudy in his own Kennerley type and published by Mitchell Kennerley.
What it is
Frederic W. Goudy's lettering handbook, introduced in October 1918, set by his wife Bertha M. Goudy in his own Kennerley type and published by Mitchell Kennerley. Seven short chapters trace Western letterforms from Greek and Roman inscriptions through rustics, uncials, Irish half-uncials, Caroline minuscules, the national hands and Gothic, to the first printing types of Gutenberg, Jenson, Aldus, Caslon and Bodoni. The argument: the tool shapes the letter, legibility comes first, and a craftsman should grasp a form's spirit rather than copy it. Each plate then shows one letter fifteen ways in fixed positions, from the Trajan column capital of A.D. 114 to Goudy's own Forum and Kennerley faces, drawn large because small facsimiles lose the detail. A short history of each letter sits beneath.
Why read it now
For a marketer the value is in three arguments. Legibility first: Goudy attacks hairline strokes because they tire the eye, and current practice agrees, keeping high-contrast faces for large headlines and plainer strokes for small text on screens. The tool shapes the letter: pen, chisel and type each leave marks, which today means checking a face at the size and on the screen where it will be read. Study, then vary: copying a model gives you its form without its feeling. His comparison grid, one letter fifteen ways in fixed positions, is a working method for choosing brand type. The book also records a market lesson: Aldus found his large-type books unsalable, and Jenson printed in Gothic to sell in northern Europe, so format follows what buyers accept. What has dated: taste verdicts such as calling Bodoni's types devoid of artistic quality, when fashion mastheads have long been built on that high-contrast style, and a Latin-only scope. Use: set your brand name in ten candidate faces, Arabic and Latin, in fixed cells at phone size, and choose by comparison.
Passages worth keeping
The main purpose of letters, then, is the practical one of making thoughts visible
الغاية الأولى من الحروف عملية، وهي أن تجعل الأفكار مرئية، وكل زخرفة تأتي بعد ذلك.
Most facsimiles of early manuscripts or printed books are unsatisfactory because the reproductions are too small to exhibit the subtle variations clearly enough to enable the forms to be studied intelligently.
النسخ المصغرة من المخطوطات والكتب القديمة تُخفي الفروق الدقيقة، لذلك رسم غودي نماذجه بحجم كبير لتُدرس بوضوح.
Aldus found that his beautiful books in large types and broad margins were unsalable.
حتى أشهر الطابعين خضع للسوق، فكتب ألدوس الفاخرة لم تجد مشترين، فاضطر إلى كتب أصغر وأرخص وحروف أصغر.
Pleasing legibility is the primary consideration. One point to avoid is extreme attenuation of any lines, as this involves constant alteration of the focus of the eyes, which though slight in reading a few words or a line, is extremely wearing in the aggregate.
الوضوح المريح هو الاعتبار الأول، والخطوط الرفيعة جدًا ترهق العين لأنها تجبرها على تعديل تركيزها باستمرار، ويتراكم هذا الأثر مع طول القراءة.
The preceding chapters present no royal road to lettering. The student must do his own work, draw his own conclusions, and rediscover for himself the fundamentals the writer has attempted to outline.
لا يقدم الكتاب طريقًا مختصرًا، فعلى المتعلم أن يعمل بنفسه ويصل إلى الأسس بتجربته.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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