page 9

Design in Typography.
"Japanese" Vignettes.

Nine years ago, the « æsthetic » movement in art had scarcely affected printing types. The early attempts at vignette combinations had been out of date for years, and nothing was available in the way of type ornament but running borders in their varying combinations. In illustrated works, where woodcuts were employed, the new style had made its mark; on book-covers there was sometimes a startling freedom of decorative treatment; but except the beautiful and elaborate « Ivy Flowers, » and a few series of line ornaments already described, nothing had appeared to break the traditional monotony of type combinations. About that time, some Japanese cards attracted the attention of American designers, and a number of the most characteristic patterns were engraved on steel for business cards, and had a great sale. It occurred to an ingenious punch-cutter that the designs would be an acceptable novelty in types; the notion was carried into effect, and in 1879 appeared, in four series, MacKellar's « Japanese » combination, which marks a distinct era in type decoration.

Just in proportion to the capabilities of use of any given object is its capacity of misapplication; and no other combination has been so misapplied, or so roundly abused, as this. We do not see the force of the objections raised. In many quarters it was absurdly overrated, and used in all descriptions of work, only to be quickly laid aside in disgust. Used in moderation, and with discretion, it is a very useful addition to the resources of the art-typographer. The « æsthetic » movement was marked by ludicrous affectations and absurdities; but its extravagances have died out, and it has left a permanent and beneficial influence on decorative art— emancipating it from formality and stiffness, and affording a wider scope for originality of design and treatment.

Incidentally, too, this series marks another step in progress—it was the first combination (line-ornaments excepted) in which the leading American foundry abandoned the continental bodies, and cast a border to the pica standard.

In the London Modern Printer, a short time ago, the editor condemned any departure from Japanese models in the use of these designs. Symmetry was to be studiously avoided; and working the ornaments in panels, after the fashion of German combinations, was especially condemned. Here we join issue with the critic. In the first place the designer himself departed to some extent—and very wisely—from Japanese models. One of his nonpareil sorts, for instance, , we had in our office eighteen years before the Japanese combination appeared, and it may be found in Figgins's specimens of much earlier date. The patterns had to be adapted for rectangular work; and as they are used for the decoration of English typography, and not of Chinese manuscripts or pottery, they have to be modified accordingly. In fact, to our mind, a defect in the combination is the studied avoidance of symmetrical right- and left-hand pieces: a defect which Bruce, in his somewhat similar border of 1880, carefully rectified. And as regards panel-work, some of the best and most effective jobs in which the combination is used, have been composed in this fashion.

The first and most useful characteristics of this combination is that it contains pieces which may be used to occupy any vacant space in a page, and the most notable feature in other respects was the device for crossing the work with bands at angles of 45° and 60°.

The first and fourth sections consisted chiefly of conventional representations of natural and artificial objects for combination, the second and third were mainly mat and ribbon patterns. The combination was not in any sense a border; the few pieces available for the purpose bore a very small proportion to the whole, and unless specially ordered, are supplied in insignificant quantity.

It is in regard to the objects represented that the greatest judgment is required, and it was in this respect that the most egregious mistakes were made. In the case of such figures as these, it would seem scarcely necessary to premise that they should be set right-side up; but even this precaution is often neglected. We have seen the pica sorts used as a running border in this fashion: —and eccentricities of arrangement as below:

What idea the compositor could have had of the object or scope of the design it would be hard to say. The square flower-pot (§4, 10), as any one may see, has four round knobs for feet, three of which are shewn. By a curious perversity, these are more often turned up than down. A well-known English pirate has electrotyped it thus, with a plant growing out of one of the feet, and charges 2/- for the electro.

The « mat » pattern in the second section is elaborated to a great extent; but is after all of very little use. The arrangement of the following seven characters is ingenious:

By means of these pieces, the work may be crossed by a band at an angle of sixty degrees, leaving the card white above and below, or the corner space below the band may be filled with mat-work.

page 10

It will be noted that these pieces can only run in one direction. By reversing one of them a scroll effect is produced, as illustrated in the central figure.

A notable deficiency in the mat pattern is the absence of a 2-em piece corresponding with to carry the pattern sidewise. A better plan still would have been to have made a one-em instead of two-em piece, in which case the design could be spaced to a pica in either direction. In gold or colors, it makes a good ground-tint pattern.