The American Printer, Craftsmen Number, August 5, 1924
The August 5, 1924 Craftsmen Number of The American Printer, the fifth of the magazine's annual feature issues, timed for the printing house craftsmen's convention and Graphic Arts Exposition in Milwaukee.
What it is
The August 5, 1924 Craftsmen Number of The American Printer, the fifth of the magazine's annual feature issues, timed for the printing house craftsmen's convention and Graphic Arts Exposition in Milwaukee. Walter Dorwin Teague designed the cover from type and border ornaments alone. The core is an exhibit of inserted leaves by more than a hundred designers, engravers and printers, which editor Edmund G. Gress walks through in "A Dash Through the Centuries", from Ashurbanipal's clay tablets and the Trajan column to Gutenberg, Garamond and Bewick. Other articles: Teague on the Metropolitan Museum's "Arts of the Book" show, John Clyde Oswald on why printers should collect books, Douglas McMurtrie on the early typefounders, and J. M. Bowles asking whether printers must always copy the classics. Around them run dozens of trade ads for presses, papers, electrotypers and engravers.
Why read it now
Read it for two things. First, the ads show how suppliers sold to a skilled trade: the Kelly Press ad rests on a named St. Louis printer's letter reporting $2.35 of repairs in three years, and the Cantine paper ad opens by saying the problem is no longer making output but selling it. Specific, checkable proof from a named buyer still persuades better than adjectives. Second, the issue is itself the sales piece: by asking a hundred firms to print one leaf each, the magazine turned its readers' skill into its content and its advertising. Sponsored showcases and partner reports run on the same logic today. What has dated: the romance of the craft, historical type treated as the only standard, and pages of equipment specs. The unsigned note that advertisers set everything in Garamond, as they once did Caslon, still describes brands that follow the default face of the moment. Use it by building one issue, report or page where clients and partners each contribute a piece of proof.
Passages worth keeping
The problem today is not how to get an output, but how to sell it.
الصعوبة لم تعد في الإنتاج بل في البيع، ولذلك تصبح المطبوعات التي تبيع أهم من المواد الخام نفسها.
The typography of the inserts in this number demonstrate the advisability of selecting a type face to fit each typographic problem, and not to depend on the same type face for all purposes.
لكل مهمة طباعية خط يناسبها، والاعتماد على خط واحد في كل شيء يضعف الرسالة.
one cannot help wondering why just at present all their messages should be set in Garamond, as they were previously set in Caslon.
المعلنون يتبعون الخط الرائج في زمنه وينتقلون منه إلى غيره جماعيًا، دون أن يسألوا هل يناسب رسالتهم.
Must we forever copy the classics? Must we eternally play variations on old themes? In printing are there no new songs for us to sing? If not, why not?
يسأل الكاتب لماذا تبقى الطباعة أسيرة النماذج القديمة، ولماذا لا يكون لعصرها أسلوب خاص كما في الفنون الأخرى.
Constant association with books makes one a better producer of books.
من يعيش بين الأعمال الجيدة في مجاله يصبح أقدر على صنع عمل جيد، فالاطلاع الدائم جزء من الصنعة.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
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