Specimen Pages of Printing Types from The Plimpton Press
A specimen pamphlet from a book manufacturer in Norwood, Massachusetts, showing every face the press used for book work.
What it is
A specimen pamphlet from a book manufacturer in Norwood, Massachusetts, showing every face the press used for book work. Its method is a controlled comparison: the same passage from a church sermon is reset in each face and size, made up to book page size, solid and with two-point leading, and every page is footed with its word and line count. The faces include the house's No. 31, Caslon Old Style, Edinburgh, Elzevir, Antique Old Style and Cheltenham, from 6 point to 18 point. The counts turn taste into arithmetic: at 8 point and 49 lines, Caslon Old Style holds 638 words and Antique Old Style 513. Display sizes follow up to 72 point, with sample lines such as UTILITY IS PREFERABLE TO GRANDEUR, then initials, borders, and the introduction retyped as a letter dated Boston, July 30, 1904, to show the typewriter face.
Why read it now
The method holds and is the logic of any fair test: keep the copy fixed so the only thing that changes is the type. The printed counts make the choice a budget question, since a face or leading that drops words per page adds pages, paper and cost; leading the 8 point No. 31 takes it from 555 to 435 words, over a fifth fewer. The same trade-off now shows up as characters per line on a phone screen, and in bilingual work, where the Arabic and English versions of one text rarely fill the same space. What has dated: the hot-metal faces, the missing prices, and a sermon as sample text, which tells a buyer little about how their own kind of book will read. The piece also sells with no selling copy, relying on buyers who already know what they are looking at. To use it: when a client chooses between templates or layouts, set their real copy in each, then print the number they care about, such as pages, slides or characters.
Passages worth keeping
The different pages of book faces have been made up, approximately, to book size, solid and two-point leaded, displaying to a certain extent the effectiveness of the type for book purposes.
صُممت صفحات العينات بحجم صفحة الكتاب تقريبًا، بفراغ بين الأسطر وبدونه، ليرى المشتري أثر الحرف في كتاب حقيقي.
The number of lines and words to the page is given in each specimen, so that word averages for any size page may be closely estimated.
يُذكر عدد الأسطر والكلمات في كل صفحة، ليقدّر الناشر متوسط الكلمات لأي حجم صفحة يريده.
We have selected these book faces for our general book work, believing that in both the old style and modern letters we have chosen types that are readable and at the same time artistic in their design.
اختارت المطبعة حروفها لأنها تجمع بين سهولة القراءة وجمال التصميم، في الطرازين القديم والحديث.
UTILITY IS PREFERABLE TO GRANDEUR
عبارة عرض نموذجية معناها أن النفع العملي مقدم على المظاهر الفخمة.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
If this library is useful, leave an email
We send new patterns, ads, and notes when we add them. Name and phone are optional.
You are on the list
We will write when we add more library material.