Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 4

Recent Specimens

page 3

Recent Specimens.

From the Cleveland Foundry we have a very pretty little book of novelties, in the pocket-edition style now in fashion. « Litho » is a new circular style, on a light old-face basis, some of the letters being flourished. The flourishes are not on kerns, but on an L-projection. It is a pretty letter, though there is a distortion we do not like in the caps C and N. « Chic » is another pretty light circular style, with the top of the G and the bottom of the C twisted strangely out of place. Some of the caps resemble the « Signet, » by the same house, but the general style of the letter is different. « Walton » is a really good fanciful old-style ornamented with lowercase, something in the « Lafayette » style, but lighter and less eccentric. « Armoric » is a good wide old-style, with lower-case. « Capital Mortised » is a series of initials very like the « Dearborn » initials of Barnhart Bros. & Spindler noted by us in August last, and open to exactly the same objections. « Apple Blossom » ornaments, in tint, are delicate and artistic, free and without formality—a treasure to any tasteful compositor.

Caslon & Co. send us specimens of their backslope two-color type « Pisa, » in three sizes. This is an American design already described under the original but somewhat unpleasant names of « Erebus » and « Hades. » It is a valuable job-style. « Quill-Pen » is Caslon's latest, and is an original face. It is a very large and heavy script, quite unique in style, and very suitable for such work as contents bills. The letters are formed with freedom, and without flourish, and do not join. It is cast in two-line great primer, two-line english, and four-line pica.

Through our English agent we have received specimen lines from The Patent Type Foundry 31 Red Lion Square, London, W.C. The style above is entitled « Holbein, » and is cast to 2-line pica. It belongs to the same family as the American faces known as « Lafayette, » « Makart, » « Dürer, » and « Rubens, » the latter of which it most resembles, though of lighter cut, and the lower-case is not so disproportionately large. It is a neat and legible style, complete with figures. It is not professed that the types shown by this house are all New Faces —in fact this letter will be at once recognized as the 2-line great primer « Rococo, » of the Central Foundry. It is not, however, a piracy, this and other styles being produced by arrangement with the original proprietors. Two smaller sizes are shown—all complete with small caps and figures. The type of this foundry is cast in Hard Metal and this letter (« Old-style Extended » ), of which we show two sizes, 2-line pica and great primer, will be acknowledged to be Neat and Effective The smaller size shows the small-caps, the larger the lower-case. We are able also to show, here and elsewhere, specimens of the neat and pretty latin initials on stippled ground, 2-line great primer body, one of the specialties of this foundry, already noted in this column. For small pages and narrow measure they are specially suited.

Wilhelm Gronau, Berlin, has brought out, in four sizes, the « Favorite » script, which we think will justify its title. It is in the style of some of the recent American compromises between script and italic—the letters do not join—but it shows a quiet artistic taste in detail, and an absence of extravagance characteristic of the German taste. It has a double set of caps, plain and ornamented, and is cast with accents for all the European languages. It is light, and the lower-case letters have a uniform thickness of line throughout.

Messrs J. H. Rust & Co., Vienna, have produced, under the name of « Schlanke Cursiv-Grotesque, » a series of highly-compressed italic sans. The letter is neat, legible, and uniform, and fills a space hitherto vacant. It is shown in nine sizes—brevier to canon.

Marder, Luse, & Co. still develop their idea of « Contour » or outline sorts to correspond with solid characters. They have now carried it into the field of ornaments, and we have « Contour Nicnacs, » 10 characters, much resembling a fount of astronomical signs, and « Contour Palmetto » ornaments, 6 characters, corresponding with the heavy « Palmetto » brought out by them some months ago. « Nicnacs No. 2, » 12 characters, is a very small series of little stars, crescents, and other ornaments, and « Rule Ornaments No. 4, » 8 characters, is a series of little centre-pieces for ornamental rules.

The MacKellar, Smiths, & Jordan Company show twenty-two artistic and attractive ornamental vignette headings for bills of fare. « Nymphic, » by the same house, is a flourished roman with an extra set of big mortised caps. It is cut with the uniformity and accuracy characteristic of the foundry, but has no particularly useful or original features.

Barnhart Bros. & Spindler show two very wide sanserifs— « Wide Lining Gothic No. 21, » and « Inclined Lining Gothic No. 5, » both useful characters.

The Cincinnati Foundry always show something good. « Octic » No. 2, is lighter than No. 1. It is just a sans with the curves cut off at an angle, and this feature is so slight as almost to pass unnoticed. « Antique » No. 2, is a clean-cut and useful plain style. The celebrated nonpareil and pica series of borders are now followed up by bolder styles on the same bodies—more coarsely and deeper cut, and less likely to knock out on coarse work, while at the same time suitable for the finest and most delicate work if printed in tints.

The Lindsay Foundry have produced a pretty engrossing script, unkerned and perpendicular, under the name of « Marguerite. » It is on two-line pica, and takes up a good deal of space. It would be a valuable letter to the job printer.