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Design in Typography.
Vignette Combinations.

Pursuing the subject of Vignette Combinations, we come next in order of time to the « Orient, » « Zigzag, » « Chinese, » « Egyptian, » and « Assyrian » series—all American in their origin. Bruce's Japanese series we have only briefly referred to. It contains 83 characters, and is in some respects an improvement on the Johnson Foundry's design. The nine pieces of ribbon are developed into seventeen, enabling many symmetrical patterns to be formed, and a special feature is an ingenious bamboo design of ten pieces, which is remarkably free, and can be carried into almost any part of the work.

Early in 1880 the Johnson Foundry brought out the « Orient » and « Zigzags » designs, of 44 and 37 characters respectively. In these we have some suggestions, though very imperfect, of regular borders. The « Orient » has the following pieces:

The corner is formed as shewn below. The border is very incomplete, possessing no corner on its own body, and no shorter piece than two ems pica, though the pattern would allow of spacing to a nonpareil em. A second border in the same series contains thirteen characters:

Pretty and graceful as the border is, it is full of imperfections. It will not space to less than two ems pica; the pointed piece is four ems long, and there is no opposite piece to the first. The chief defect, however, is the clumsy bottom corners. They soon became hackneyed, and for many kinds of work where the border would have been appropriate, they were entirely unsuitable. An original feature of this combination—afterwards repeated in the « Egyptian » series—was the palm-tree, with the trunk set up in sections. Here again the artist followed his invariable rule—to make no piece shorter than two ems. The « Orient » series harmonizes well with the « Japanese »

The « Zigzag » comes properly into the category of Ribbon designs. It possesses four border-pieces, but no corners.

The pattern is capable of justification to a pica, but nothing shorter than two ems is supplied.

In the same year the same foundry brought out in three sections, with a total of 130 characters, the « Chinese » series, and two sets of « Card Ornaments, » with 39 more. This combination contains an almost bewildering variety of sorts—some of them, especially in the second section, very small and petty. A shaded ribbon, eight pieces, in this section, is well worked out. A bamboo design is effectively introduced into the first section:

There is remarkable delicacy and beauty in these ornaments. Some of the characters have been imitated, as below, in a recent series by the Dickinson Foundry:

In the third section there are some good designs for ground-tints, the most striking being the « boxn » pattern:

This is open to the old complaint—it cannot be spaced to less than two ems either way. Two quarter-pieces of one em or half-pieces 2x1, would have made it space to pica, and two quarter-slices off the pattern, horizontal and vertical, would justify it to nonpareil either way.

Of the « Card » Ornaments, the first series was chiefly floral, as below:—

It contained 13 sorts in all. The second, of 27 sorts, chiefly corners, was more geometrical in character:

These ornaments became very popular for labels, programmes, &C., and have never gone out of fashion.

In the same year the foundry of Conner's Sons produced an « Egyptian » combination, of 27 characters. It was ill-designed and indifferently engraved. The square-topped crooked-stemmed palms were unlike anything in nature, and the sphinxes and seated figures were unlike anything in art. This series, which never became popular, was followed almost immediately by two very fine Egyptian combinations, more particular reference to which we defer to a future article.