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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3

Design in Typography. Elementary Forms.—The Diagonal

page 45

Design in Typography. Elementary Forms.—The Diagonal.

XXIX.

Each of the elementary forms of which borders are composed has applications of its own, apart from its combinations with others. This quality has already been illustrated in the case of the running-piece and corner. As we are now dealing with simple elements, we diverge from the subject of the fundamental characters of all type borders, classed in former articles as A, B, C, and D, to a piece which is by no means essential—which, in fact, does not fall into the general plan of running borders at all, but stands alone, and will bear comparison with either of the pieces already described, in the variety of its adaptations as a border or ground-tint. This piece we shall call the diagonal.

In its simplest form—a line drawn from corner of a square /, it is merely equal in design to the plain rule border, but with this difference, that it is at an angle of 45° to the work. In this form it calls for very little remark. Some of the simpler groundwork designs, resolved into their elements, are found to consist merely of this character, so repeated as to form a lattice-work. This arrangement, in an ornate form, may be seen in the central ornament of our headpiece, which is composed of the character For the construction of patterns, the characters in which the whole square is filled with parallel lines, are the best. A piece of this kind may be used by itself in three ways as a running border, but on account of the cut-off appearance of the lines, it always looks best when closed by a rule. Like the running-piece already shown, it is capable of being set double or treble in either of these forms:— and is equally suited for groundwork patterns:

As with the running-piece and corner, the breadth of a groundwork allows of greater freedom and variety of design than in the narrow limits of an ordinary border. An effective pattern is formed by alternating squares of four set in the same direction with squares of four set lozenge-wise or cross-wise, and in our next column we show larger patterns composed of the same elements.

The diagonal is not a piece to combine readily with other forms. Horizontal and perpendicular lines bear no relation to it except as a cut-off, and when used together they form separate panels—the effect resembling that of square tiles of various patterns arranged together.

It will be noted that with the exception of the three specimens above, all the groundwork patterns on this page are composed from a single character. We show other examples:

These are only a few of the patterns which this single character is capable of producing. When it is to be had in different depths of tint, the designs may be multiplied indefinitely, by the introduction of variegated or shaded effects: