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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 1

Type Standards

page 85

Type Standards.

In former articles we have shewn that any system of measurement based on a private instead of a national standard is not to be relied on, and can never meet with general acceptance. No such attempt hitherto has been successful; and anyone who compares the picas of the American houses professing to have adopted the Johnson standard—or even the Johnson picas cast at intervals of three or four years—will probably find they do not agree.

We have shewn that until lately, in English-speaking countries, there has been no system. But where a system of gradation has been established, it has generally been based on a national standard. The first, devised in 1737—just 150 years ago—by Fournier, a French founder, was based on the French inch, divided into 72 equal parts, or points, of which 6 constituted a nonpareil and 12 a pica. The aliquot measurement was carried through the whole scheme, and the system—with the exception of a minute difference in the standard— was exactly the same as that introduced within the last few years in America. The scheme is not therefore, « American. » It may have been often independently worked out by others—as it was by the present writer many years ago; but to Fournier belongs the credit of not only devising, but carrying into effect, the greatest reform in type manufacture since the invention of printing. His system was based on three fundamentals: (1) A National Standard; (2) divided into aliquot parts; (3) on a duodecimal system. Mr DeVinne complains of Founder's unscientific procedure in illustrating his plan by a rough brass-rule diagram. We see no great force in this objection. A national scale being the basis, it would have been superfluous on his part to have supplemented it by a private, and possibly imperfect, standard.

After the death of Fournier, the celebrated founder Ambrose Didot took up the system, basing it upon the royal foot of France (pied-de-roi) = 12·7892 English inches. How Fournier obtained his scale does not appear from the data before us, but his standard was nearly one-twelfth smaller than that of Didot.* In fact, Fournier's inch and foot were nearer the English imperial than the French royal standard. Beyond this change, Didot made no alteration, retaining the same duodecimal division; but of course every size differed from the scale of Fournier by the uniform proportion of nearly one-twelfth. The system of Didot came widely into use, but has never entirely superseded that of Fournier; and the concurrent use of the two standards has occasioned great confusion.

In England the continental 6-point nonpareil is called « emerald, » in America, « minionette. » It is almost unknown as a scale for body-founts, being intermediate between nonpareil and minion; but is the basis of all the fine borders of continental origin, and of many original ones—thus introducing one of the chief sources of confusion in type bodies. In our own office we have three small emeralds, and six of the « Cicero » or twelve-point Didot—no two of which absolutely agree, and the quads of which have to be kept apart. We attribute the divergence in the latter chiefly to the abolition of the ancient national standards on the continent in favor of the clumsy and unscientific « metric » system of decimal measurement.

In the absence of a practical national standard, the celebrated rule-manufacturer, H. Berthold, of Berlin, a few years ago, did a very commendable action. At his own expense, he had some sixty scales engraved, with the utmost accuracy and uniformity, to the Didot standard, and presented one to every typefoundry in Germany. As he manufactures rule to work with the types of many of these houses, it is to the interest of all concerned that uniformity should be observed; still, as we have shewn, there is much diversity.

A national standard being accepted, how should it be divided? Without hesitation, we answer, duodecimally. This is the system of Fournier, of Didot, of Hawks, of Wood, and of Caslon. Decimal division —so much in favor with theorists, and so heartily abhorred by practical artizans—is only attempted by one house—the Typefounding Company. Starting with a sound foundation, the English inch, they divide it first by 6, for pica, and then again into 20, their point being 1/120-inch. The scheme has more than one serious disadvantage. It renders necessary 1/10-and ⅕-pica leads, which fall in with no other system, and which cannot possibly be kept from mixing with the ¼ and ⅙ leads in general use at present. A job office using this system would require to close its doors to the productions of any other foundry, except as regards nonpareil and its multiples. Moreover, as shewn by an American contemporary, the gradation of sizes is bad— minion, brevier, and bourgeois differing in body only by 1/20-inch each, the lineal difference being no greater than between the smallest sizes, minikin and brilliant, and the proportional difference being of course much smaller. The system of geometric progression, with its incommeasurable relations, is adopted by one house only, and we have already shown its objectionable points. Some of the houses where no regular system is adopted, exhibit strange anomalies. MacKellar's old two-line english bears only a nominal relation to his english, being cast to a larger standard. Similarly, Stephenson, Blake & Co.'s two-line great primer bears no relation to their great primer, but is really three-line pica. To thus change a single body without altering the name only increases existing confusion—to have changed the great primer, bourgeois, and diamond at the same time would have been a valuable step in the direction of the interchangeable system.

At the present time Caslon is the only founder who adopts the scheme that must ultimately come into general use* —the standard inch, duodecimally divided. This is the only system that will bear examination. And we regret to add that his reward, so far, has been the common lot of reformers—very scant appreciation, and a good deal of obloquy and abuse. We hope he will persevere, and that printers generally will set their faces against any further perpetuation of the nondescript and shifting « Johnson » standard.

We intend to close this series of articles with one of a recapitulatory character, in which we will show that every systematic type standard in the world, and probably every pica, has had its origin in the inch and foot scale.

This is how Mr Schraubstadter's article, quoted in our last issue, strikes the Napier News: —« With respect to the beautiful type that we see prints from in all sorts of publications, an American has let the cat out of the bag. It has been a trade secret, and to those who suggested that it was done in such-and-such a way, the trade's reply was, 'Oh dear, no, you're quite mistaken: that idea has been proved worthless.' It appears, in fact, to have been worth to the typefounders all the difference between machine-work and hand-work in the preparation of originals for several years. The prices of ornamental type will have to come down with a run, now this American has given the string a yank. »

* According to Piazzi Smyth, F.R.A.S., an authority on international measures, the old French inch (interdicted since 1840, but surviving, as we have seen, in type standards throughout the world) is = l·094 British inches. That of Prussia (abolished in 1872) is = l·030. MacKellar's standard does not correspond with either of the twenty-six varying inches shewn in Smyth's table, but comes nearest to the Nuremberg inch: = 0·997 British inches; MacKellar's 72-point = 0·996.

The following is the order of nineteen measured founts, from the largest to the smallest: 1 Woellmer, Gronau; 2 Klinkhardt, Miller & Richard, Brendler; 3 Stephenson Blake & Co. (a); 4 S. B. & Co. (b), Schelter & Giesecke, MacKellar (a), Conner (a); 5 Berthold (brass rule), S. B. & Co. (c), MacKellar (b), Conner (b), American (founder unknown), 6 Cincinnati, 7 MacKellar (c), 8 Caslon, 9 Figgins. Our comparison was made in a length of 80 ems emerald = 960 points. Only three or four bodies in this list absolutely agree, but we have bracketed together those where the variation in 80 ems (about 43 pica) is infinitesimal. Between 2 and 3, there is about 1 point difference in the 960; from 3 to 6, by almost imperceptible gradations, there is a diminution of 3 points; between 6 and 7 there is a sharp break of 3 points; and altogether, between the largest and the smallest of the bodies in our list, the difference amounts to 7½ points in the 960. It might be thought that these minute variations are of no practical importance; but the reverse is the case. The length we have taken for comparison is just about the width of our own page, or the longer dimension of an ordinary 8vo border. A difference of less than one point, or one-thousandth of the whole, is enough to throw a border off its feet, and entirely spoil the work. Nor can the evil be averted by dealing with one foundry only, when two or three varying bodies are made by one house.

* We notice that Caslon still makes the extraordinary error of asserting that the new American scale is also based on the inch—a statement opposed to the testimony of the founders themselves, and easily disproved by measurement.