Specimens of Printing Types
The 600-page specimen book of American Type Founders, New York, issued a few years after the company was formed by merging independent foundries.
What it is
The 600-page specimen book of American Type Founders, New York, issued a few years after the company was formed by merging independent foundries. A one-page preface, dated April 1897, claims printers have never been offered so extensive a selection and that type cast in its Copper Alloy lasts longest. The rest shows rather than argues: brass rule and leads, Greek, Hebrew and German faces, romans and old styles set in passages on printing history, self-spacing type explained in its own setting, then scripts, gothics and a long parade of display faces such as Bradley and Satanick, set in odd sample phrases like FASTIDIOUS DAMSELS. Every size lists its character count and price. Borders, ornaments, newspaper headings, society emblems and electrotyped cuts follow, and the book closes with advertisements for the Thorne typesetting machine and Peerless and Chandler & Price presses, each page naming the face it is set in.
Why read it now
The book argues once, in the preface, then lets 600 pages of samples do the work. Its claim is range, not quality, which is the claim a newly merged supplier could back, and the size of the book is the proof. Each size carries its character count and price on the same line, so the specimen doubles as an order form, the logic of any product page today. The self-spacing pages show a sound way to explain a technical product: set the explanation in the product itself and give one measured benefit, a compositor about 25 per cent faster. The back pages show the limits of confident claims: the Thorne machine promised to halve composition costs, yet the Linotype took over American composing rooms instead. What has dated: most display faces and the nonsense sample lines, though the lines do let a buyer judge each face in a mood. Use: when you sell many near-identical options in the Gulf, such as fonts, fabrics or finishes, show each in a realistic sample with its price on the same line, and put your single argument up front.
Passages worth keeping
Never since the invention of printing has a selection of Type been submitted to printers so extensive as this
الحجة الأولى للكتاب هي اتساع الاختيار، فالشركة تقول إن الطابعين لم يُعرض عليهم منذ اختراع الطباعة مجموعة بهذا الحجم.
Repeated experiments with the new type have shown that the average compositor gains about twenty-five per cent, in speed, with no trouble in justification whatever.
يشرح فائدة الحروف ذاتية المسافات برقم واحد قابل للقياس: المنضد العادي يصبح أسرع بنحو الربع دون عناء في ضبط طول السطر.
THE THORNE reduces the cost of composition one-half, while the quality of the work equals best hand type-setting.
إعلان يعد بخفض كلفة صف الحروف إلى النصف مع جودة تعادل الصف اليدوي، وهو وعد لم يحمِ الآلة من منافسة اللاينوتايب.
PLAIN TYPE is always an evidence of taste
عبارة عينة لافتة في كتاب مليء بالحروف المزخرفة: الحرف البسيط دليل على الذوق، وهي فكرة ما زالت صحيحة في معظم الإعلانات.
This page is set in Caslon Old Style.
حتى صفحات إعلانات الآلات تُستعمل لعرض الحروف، فكل صفحة تذكر الحرف الذي جُمعت به وأين يجد القارئ مقاساته وأسعاره.
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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