Some Early Type Specimen Books of England, Holland, France, Italy, and Germany
A short bibliography by the printing historian William Blades, reprinted from the Printers' Register, London, 1875.
What it is
A short bibliography by the printing historian William Blades, reprinted from the Printers' Register, London, 1875. It lists type founders' specimen books issued before 1820, with remarks on each. Blades starts from the problem: specimens lose their value to their makers so fast that no foundry can show its first one. The English section runs from Moxon's dated sheet of 1669, through the Fell types at Oxford, Caslon's 1734 broadside of 38 founts and his 1764 book, to Figgins, Fry and Thorne. Short American and Continental sections follow, from Fuhrmann at Nuremberg in 1616 and the Vatican in 1628 to Enschede at Haarlem, Fournier, and Bodoni's Manuale Tipografico of 1788. He explains why founders set their faces in Cicero's Quousque tandem, and closes by condemning the post-1820 fashion for fat faces and fancy founts.
Why read it now
Two ideas here matter to marketers. First, firms throw away their own sales material, and that loss erases their history; Blades could not find any foundry holding its first specimen. Keeping every edition of your catalogues, decks and ads costs little, and it is what later lets a brand prove its heritage and learn from its own record. Second, the entries show specimen books turning into sales tools: Enschede at Haarlem began giving patrons a bound book in 1743, later founders printed face names in four languages, which Blades calls a bid for foreign orders, and Breitkopf named its punch-cutters, a custom he commends. Naming the makers and speaking the buyer's language still hold. His account of Quousque tandem, a House of Commons favourite that makes type look better in Latin, is his own guess, and his verdict on post-1820 fat faces is taste, not evidence; he admits they sold well. The lists of surviving copies are dated. Use: set up a dated archive of every piece your brand issues before the next campaign goes out.
Passages worth keeping
Perhaps no class of books is more subject to this unkind destiny than the specimens issued by Type-founders, which soon become so worthless in the very eyes of their own parents, that large editions entirely disappear
كتب العينات تفقد قيمتها عند المسابك التي أصدرتها بسرعة، فتختفي طبعات كاملة منها ولا يبقى لها أثر.
who was quite alive to the fact that all types show better in Latin than in English.
يرى الكاتب أن كاسلون اختار نصًا لاتينيًا للعرض لأن الحروف تبدو فيه أجمل منها في الإنجليزية، فالعينة تُختار لتُظهر المنتج في أحسن صورة.
This notice by name of the artists to whom the credit is due for any beauty the types may possess is a custom much to be commended.
ذكر أسماء الصناع الذين صمموا الحروف عادة حسنة، لأنها تنسب الجمال إلى أصحابه وتمنح المنتج قصة وثقة.
we meet in the specimen an evident bid for foreign orders, the names of the founts being placed above each specimen in Dutch, German, French, and English.
كتابة أسماء الحروف بأربع لغات كانت وسيلة واضحة لجذب المشترين من خارج البلد، فمن يريد السوق الأجنبية يخاطبها بلغتها.
The eye, like the palate, may become accustomed to bad food, and even like it
العين تعتاد الرديء كما يعتاده الذوق، بل قد تحبه، وهذا حكم ذوق من الكاتب على موضة الحروف السميكة في عصره.
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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