Specimen of Printing Types Cast at Austin's Imperial Letter Foundry
A specimen book from the Imperial Letter Foundry of Richard Austin and his son in Worship Street, London, closing with a price list dated June 1827.
What it is
A specimen book from the Imperial Letter Foundry of Richard Austin and his son in Worship Street, London, closing with a price list dated June 1827. It opens with Austin's address To Printers, written when he set up the foundry. He complains that the modern faces the French brought in about twenty years earlier have hairlines so thin that they wear down after a few washes, print raggedly and suit stereotyping badly, and he promises types cut by the founder himself for durability and elegance, warranted to outlast any other foundry's. Then come the roman and italic sizes from Great Primer down to Nonpareil, set in Cicero's first speech against Catiline, English verse, a passage on sincerity and an auction notice for Jack Straw's Castle on Hampstead Heath, followed by display letters, flowers and rules, and a closing notice with prices, credit terms and a warranty on every fount.
Why read it now
Austin's address is a clean model of positioning against a fashion. He does not start by calling the thin-hairline modern faces ugly; he attacks them on the printer's own costs: letters that wear out after a few washes, softer packing and more pressure, ragged impressions, poor stereotype plates. Then he offers the fix, durability with elegance, and backs it with a promise that his types will bear more work than any other foundry's, later adding that every fount is warranted perfect or exchanged. Studies of warranties as quality signals support that second move: a firm that promises to pay if it fails is believed more than one that only claims quality. The closing line that Austin and Son are the only London founders who cut their own punches is a process claim a buyer can check. What has dated: the patriotic preamble, and his verdict on modern faces, which kept spreading for decades; his own types softened that style rather than rejecting it. Use: when your category chases a trend that costs buyers later, name that cost in their terms, show your fix, and put a warranty on it.
Passages worth keeping
how can it be expected that types cut nearly as thin as the edge of a razor can retain their form for any reasonable length of time
الحروف ذات الخطوط الرفيعة جدًا لا يمكن أن تحافظ على شكلها طويلًا، فجمالها في العرض يتحول إلى خسارة للطابع في العمل.
In point of economy, it is of much importance to the Printer to have the utmost durability united with the most elegant shape
الطابع يحتاج إلى حرف يجمع المتانة والأناقة معًا، لأن المتانة توفر عليه المال والأناقة ترضي عملاءه.
A. and Son are the only Letter Founders in London that cut their own Punches
يميّز المسبك نفسه بأن أصحابه يصنعون قوالب الحروف بأيديهم، لا يتركونها للعمال، وهذه ميزة في طريقة الصنع يسهل على المشتري التحقق منها.
all work delivered from their Foundry is warranted perfect, or will be exchanged
كل ما يخرج من المسبك مضمون الجودة، وما يظهر فيه عيب يُستبدل، فيتحمل البائع المخاطرة بدل المشتري.
the best way for a man to seem to be any thing, is really to be what he would seem to be.
أقصر طريق لأن تُعرف بصفة حسنة أن تتصف بها فعلًا، فالتظاهر يتعب صاحبه وينكشف في النهاية.
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.