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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3

Recent Specimens

page 73

It is our object, in this department, to critically note every new and original design in types, borders, combination ornaments, and initials. Without specimens, however, such an article is little more than a catalogue of names. New faces can only be described by comparison with previously-existing patterns—it being impossible to convey by description an idea of the essential characteristic of any given design, that being precisely the quality in which it differs from all others. Typefounders are invited to send us specimen letters or lines of original faces, which can be readily and cheaply done by parcel post. (Types from the continent of Europe should be to English height.) We insert such free, finding our recompense in the additional interest this column would possess to our readers. Many of the beautiful styles we describe from month to month would be irresistible to colonial buyers if once seen, and those we criticise unfavorably might commend themselves strongly to printers whose tastes differ from our own.

Recent Specimens.

Germany comes out well ahead in the specimens to hand this month. The Rudhard Foundry, Offenbach am Main, send us a parcel of very beautiful novelties. First we note a preliminary specimen showing four sizes of a sharply-cut and legible Gothic, the « Germania. » Three sheets of vignettes follow: the first containing a portrait of Pope Leo, and a number of papal emblems, and the other two chiefly national subjects—portraits of the present and the two late emperors, Bismarck, &c. The « Annoncen » border, 5 characters, is a curtain design, on solid background, suitable for handbills where heavy type is used. The « Zeitungs » or news borders are of a class dear to the Teutonic newspaper comp, who seems never so happy as when he puts an advertisement into the deepest mourning. These are peculiar to continental papers. The present series contains 19 characters on pica em body, and 3 on 2-em. With some of the lighter sorts, pretty borders can be composed, and we think that characters 20 and 22, shown only in black, would look well together in colors. A large quarto sheet shows the synopsis of the « National » border, in five series, from 12- to 72-point, with a total of 61 characters. This is really seven separate and distinct borders. The first, on pica, contains 9 characters, all on em set,—oak-leaves in silhouette, very like MacKellar's oak ornaments. Series B, a 24-point border, is a close design of laurel-leaves with a broad band wreathed round them, and the same design is repeated in Series E, on 72-point, with three fine square corners to 96-point. Series D is a border of German imperial eagles in silhouette. Series C contains 24 characters, all square—12- to 24-point and 12- to 36-point. It is really four borders. Each size contains six pieces of a laurel and six of an oak border, in white, on stippled ground. This is a most artistic and graceful design. The whole five series are shown in colors on a great broadsheet, with fine effect. The oak and laurel borders (series A and C) would be a valuable acquisition to any artistic printer. But the finest of all—and one of the grandest of modern German combinations—is the magnificent Gothic « Herbaria » border. It is not overburdened with sorts—the border proper contains 30 characters, 10 are added for inner corners and ornaments, and for two-color work, 21 solid groundwork characters are added. Six pieces to 72-point, carefully designed in regard to justification, with a square 96-point corner, form a grand border in the best mediæval style, which has never been more successfully imitated in typography. Three characters on 36-point, with two corners on the same body, form a second border, harmonizing with the first, but of different design. Four more, on 24-point, represent a graceful acanthus, twined around a staff, and two pieces on 18-point make a beautiful border by themselves. The whole series, displayed on a broadsheet in the most elaborate and tasteful manner, with colored groundwork and gold rules, has a magnificent effect. The sheet is a triumph, both of typefounding and art-printing, and the border is one that will bear the closest criticism—one of which the eye can never tire.

In one of our English exchanges we find specimens of a very comprehensive combination—the « Renaissance » border of the Berger Foundry, Leipzig. There is not the profusion of sorts that distinguish architectural combinations like the « Akanthea » and « Germania » the design being more in the nature of the « Florentine » or « Holbein, » with this difference, that there is no background, either solid or stippled. The design covers the ground more closely than any other combination we have seen, and the drawing and shading is also very close, but delicate. The border, which is in five sections, contains 136 sorts, but many of them are of very large size, so that the complete set weighs about a hundredweight, and costs about £20. The design is very artistic, and the effect, when well displayed, is striking. There are no two-color sorts in the combination. The sixth section is not only distinct from the other five, but contains twelve separate borders: two 6-point, six 12-point, and four 18-point. These are intended primarily as inner and outer boundaries for the main design; of which, however, they are quite independent. A complete fount of this series would be a welcome Christmas-box to a job printer. Not many in this part of the world, these times, could afford to buy it! However, either of the sections, apart from the others, forms a useful series. We would like to see the founder's own specimens.—The same house has brought out also a set of eight very tasteful corner vignettes. They are similar in size and general character to those by the Gronau Foundry, noted in our March number, but they are designed and drawn with greater delicacy, and have the further advantage of being rights and lefts in equal numbers. They are all, however, for the lower corners of the page. A novelty in initials by the same foundry is the « Curtain » series, in two sizes. In a square, on a dark ground, is a prettily-figured curtain, upon which appears the initial in black.

Hr. W. Woellmer, Berlin, shows a new combination, the « Raphael » border, 56 characters. It is in mediæval style, with diversified effects in open and tint backgrounds, and the pieces being mostly small, the printer does not require an enormous weight. The border has a decided character of its own, and is not an imitation of any previous combination. Typographic artists with a taste for the German style will find this new design add materially to the attractiveness of their work.

The « Rococo » border is a new and very graceful combination by the Flinsch Foundry. With some of the novelties of this house our readers are already acquainted. The design is exceedingly well wrought out, and the drawing is correct and delicately executed. The specimen page before us does not show the synopsis of characters, so we cannot say how many sorts it contains.

The Actiengesellschaft für Schriftgiesserei (Offenbach-am-Main) show a series of new ornamented. The lowercase is an ordinary lined latin, but the caps are extra-decorated with filigree work.

Mesrs Day & Collins, London, show about a dozen series of large ornamental initials, nickel-faced, for one and two-color work. They vary in size from 6- to 12-line, and some of them—notably series 20 and 23—are very handsome and effective.

A neat and beautifully-printed little book comes to us from the Boston Typefoundry, showing original faces, most of which we have already described. « Record » is a light-face fancy italic, caps only, some of the letters running out beyond the line. « Boston » script is in the American style of penmanship—flourished caps, like the « Penman » and « Spencerian. » « Skinner » script, is a quaint and pretty style, named after a gentleman whose handwriting it imitates. « Bewick » is a backslope heavy-footed italic, for circulars. « Mantua » is a hair-line roman, and « Milan » an exceedingly thin-faced condensed ionic sloped. « French Old-style » in pica, is an original and very striking and legible old-face body-fount, in the French style. « Lubeck, » a thin condensed ornamental old-style; « Bremen, » a similar character, extra condensed. « Rimini, » a heavy, condensed sloping sans, many of the letters projecting beyond the line; « Dunbar, » an expanded heavy roman, with an exaggerated bracket to the serif. « Soudan, » a neat lined French clarendon; « Syrian, » the same page 74condensed; « Nubian, » the same expanded. « Moslem, » an original style of condensed latin, with half-serifs; « Dresden, » a heavy narrow roman, in the modernized old-style. The peculiar style « Rogers, » described by us nine months ago, now appears in a smaller size (36-point) and the two founts produce striking effects in combination.

In the new dotted ground borders of the Cincinnati Foundry, the white lines between the dots do not run in the usual fashion, horizontally and perpendicularly, but at an angle of 45°. This is somewhat of a defect when the borders are set straight-ahead, as the dots are closer at the edges, breaking the pattern at every square. When, however, they are set with alternate nicks sidewise, a very pretty regular pattern is the result.