Monotype: A Journal of Composing Room Efficiency, Vol. 21 No. 72 (August 1927)
The August 1927 issue of the house journal of the Lanston Monotype Machine Company, Philadelphia, laid out by Bruce Rogers.
What it is
The August 1927 issue of the house journal of the Lanston Monotype Machine Company, Philadelphia, laid out by Bruce Rogers. It opens by saying the issue is meant to be more than an advertisement for the machine. A company history, "Progress Follows Service", follows: Tolbert Lanston, a clerk in the US Pension Office, files his first patent in 1885; the redesigned machine of 1898 raises the character count from 120 to 225; the Giant Caster of January 1926 brings "non-distribution" (casting fresh type for every job instead of sorting used type back into cases) up to 72 point. Then six inserts reprint ads that ran in printing and advertising journals from October 1926 to September 1927. Rogers set each one in a different style under the same space and copy limits. A closing specifications page lists every face used, from Washington Text to Bodoni Bold.
Why read it now
The issue is a vendor proving its product with the publication itself. Every page was set with Monotype matrices, and the last pages name each face, size and matrix number, so a printer could check the claim against the object in hand. That device still works: a specifications page turns a quality claim into something the buyer can audit. The six inserts are the second lesson. One continuing story, fixed space, fixed copy length, six different layouts across twelve months. It is an early case of varying execution while the brand and message stay constant, which fits later work on distinctive brand assets. What has dated: the prose is self-praise without evidence. "Superior to any other" is asserted, not shown, and the only numbers are installed base (over 4,000 plants, more than 18,000 machines). Hot-metal type is gone, and parts of the scan are unreadable. Use: when a Saudi supplier publishes its annual review or client newsletter, produce it with its own service and add a short colophon that states exactly what was used and by whom.
Passages worth keeping
This issue of "Monotype," as is true of other issues during the past four years, is intended to be more than an advertisement of the Monotype Machine.
الشركة تعلن أن مجلتها ليست إعلانًا فقط، بل مساهمة في تحسين الطباعة، وهذا أساس المحتوى الذي تصدره العلامة لتكسب ثقة المهنة.
Mr. Rogers, though working under fixed limitations as to space and copy, has produced six distinctly different effects.
القيود الثابتة في المساحة والنص لم تمنع المصمم من إخراج ستة إعلانات مختلفة الشكل، فالتنوع يأتي من التنفيذ لا من تغيير الرسالة.
GOOD printing requires good typography. Good typography embraces good design, fitness, good taste, and unity.
جودة المطبوعة تبدأ من اختيار الحروف وترتيبها، والمعيار أربعة أشياء: التصميم الجيد، والملاءمة، والذوق، ووحدة العناصر.
Human hands have never manipulated the keyboard of the Monotype to its maximum capacity.
الإعلان يصف سرعة الآلة بأنها أعلى من قدرة أي مشغّل بشري، وهو ادعاء يُقال دون رقم يثبته.
Its growth is an exemplification of the theory that PROGRESS FOLLOWS SERVICE.
الشركة تربط نموها بخدمة عملائها، وتجعل هذه الفكرة شعارًا يتكرر في العدد كله.
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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