A Printed Specimen of Caslon Old Style Type, with Appropriate Ornaments
A 40-page booklet from Redfield-Kendrick-Odell Co., printers and map makers at 311 West Forty-Third Street, New York, announced as the first of a series showing the types in its composing room.
What it is
A 40-page booklet from Redfield-Kendrick-Odell Co., printers and map makers at 311 West Forty-Third Street, New York, announced as the first of a series showing the types in its composing room. It opens with the story of Caslon Old Style: William Caslon, an engraver of gun-locks, set up as a type-founder in a garret in Helmet Row in 1720 with 500 pounds from the printers Bowyer, Watts and a third backer. It tells of his Arabic fount for a Psalter and New Testament, his rise, the face's eclipse by the modern romans of Bodoni, its revival in 1843 by Charles Whittingham, and its naming as Caslon in America in 1895. The specimen pages run a reprinted history of the face through every size from 6 to 42 point, roman then italic, in black and rose, followed by ornaments and a colophon limiting the edition to 500 numbered copies.
Why read it now
The lesson is how to sell a commodity. Every printer in New York owned Caslon, so the booklet sells the story around it and the care of the shop that tells it. Running one continuous history through the size showings solves the usual specimen problem, that nobody reads sample text, and research on narrative transportation, such as Green and Brock's work in 2000, agrees that readers absorbed in a story argue with it less. The limited, numbered edition turns a trade circular into something kept on a desk. What has dated: the providential tone, the idea that English printing was rescued from Dutch type when modern historians see Caslon's roman as close to Dutch models, and a pace few buyers would sit through today. For Gulf readers one detail stands out: Caslon's first commission as a founder was an Arabic fount, used for a Psalter printed in 1725. Use: if you sell dates, coffee or oud that rivals also sell, write the product's origin as one story and run it through your catalogue, so every variant gets read in order.
Passages worth keeping
CASLON has perhaps the most interesting biography of all type faces in general use.
يفتتح الكتيب بتقديم الحرف كأن له سيرة حياة، فيتحول منتج عادي يملكه الجميع إلى شخصية لها قصة.
Happily resurrected in 1843, they have since steadily grown in favor until today no printer would seriously attempt to do business without being plentifully supplied with the classic Caslon letter.
بعد إحيائه عام 1843 صار الحرف ضرورة لكل مطبعة، أي أن الكتيب يعترف بأن المنتج متاح للجميع، ويبني التميز على شيء آخر.
That few expected that it would ever come back into use is proved by the fact that type founders almost universally destroyed their old style punches and matrices.
كاد الحرف يختفي، فقد أتلف معظم صانعي الحروف قوالبه ظنًا أنه لن يعود، وهذه عقدة القصة التي تجعل عودته تستحق المتابعة.
Caslon’s fount was preferred for the text, and in it appeared, in due time, first the Psalter in 1725, and afterwards the New Testament in 1727.
الحرف العربي الذي صنعه كاسلون فُضّل على حرف منافس، وطُبع به كتاب المزامير ثم العهد الجديد، فبدأت شهرته بعمل عربي.
the type which has given him lasting fame was first named Caslon in this country in the year 1895.
اسم كاسلون نفسه لم يُطلق على الحرف إلا في أمريكا عام 1895، أي أن اسم العلامة جاء بعد المنتج بأكثر من 170 عامًا.
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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