Reference Book of James Hedderwick & Son, Printers, Melville-Place, Glasgow
An 1823 specimen book from the Glasgow printing office of James Hedderwick & Son that shows the office's types by setting a real essay instead of sample alphabets.
What it is
An 1823 specimen book from the Glasgow printing office of James Hedderwick & Son that shows the office's types by setting a real essay instead of sample alphabets. The text is Hedderwick's own A Summary Digest of Gleanings in America, written after a tour of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1822 to learn whether America was a good place to live. He disputes Frances Wright's praise of the republic and describes the heat, yellow fever, mortgaged farmers paid in store orders, militia drills and slavery, and warns Scottish emigrants. Running heads name each setting (WITH THICK AND THIN LEADS, WITH THICK LEADS, WITH THIN LEADS, WITHOUT LEADS) as the type steps down from English to Minion. Notes quoting 1822 New York newspapers follow in small type, then page-size borders, card flowers, ornamental types and SIZES OF TYPES FOR BILLS, one short paragraph per page in display type.
Why read it now
This is the collection's best answer to the dummy-text problem. Instead of Latin or alphabet strings, the office set a text people would want to read, written by the owner, so the specimen gets read and kept, and it promotes the owner. Each running head names the setting, so the reader compares leading while absorbed in the story, with no comparison table. The pages move from generous to dense, which shows the buyer the cost curve and lets him pick his point on it. User-experience testers today give the same advice for the same reason: real content exposes layout problems that placeholder text hides. What has dated: the essay's opinions, some of them on American women and on limiting the vote, belong to their time, and the book reads more as an office reference than a sales piece. Use: when you show a design system, template pack or print service to a Gulf client, build the demo from content he wants to read, such as a short useful guide in Arabic and English, name each option in the page header, and step from roomy to tight.
Passages worth keeping
my object simply having been, to learn if it were a desirable country to reside in, by ascertaining how men thought, acted, and lived in the modern Republic.
يوضح الكاتب أن رحلته لم تكن علمية، بل كان هدفه أن يعرف هل تصلح أمريكا للعيش، بمراقبة طريقة تفكير الناس وحياتهم.
Indeed, America may be appropriately styled The Land of Trees, for it seems to be a fact, that wherever cleared land is allowed to lie unoccupied, up springs a forest of young trees.
يصف أمريكا بأنها أرض الأشجار، لأن أي أرض تُترك بعد تنظيفها تعود غابة من جديد. والنص الحي هنا هو مادة العينة نفسها.
the oily-tongued knave who would deceive persons to their ruin, is a far more dangerous member of society than the characterless unpretending thief.
المحتال المعسول اللسان أخطر على المجتمع من اللص الظاهر، وهي عبارة يحذر بها المهاجرين من الغش في التعاملات.
The richest family in society is interested in the virtue and happiness of the poorest individual.
أغنى أسرة في المجتمع لها مصلحة في صلاح أفقر فرد وسعادته. وقد صُفّت الجملة بحروف كبيرة لتعرض مقاسات الإعلانات.
What it teaches best
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