While house-organs should be edited with the purpose of presenting useful technical and business information to customers, there should be sufficient light matter and features to maintain interest. Not unimportant is the typography of such features. In the make-up of all house-organs are spaces at the end of articles that are available for feature purposes. Example 432 shows how one bit of blank space was made attractive by well-arranged small capitals, and in Example 450 similar use has been made of italic.

Articles of merchandise that are old-fashioned in their appeal furnish a motif for typographic treatment that can be made a feature. Examples 433 and 434 show Colonial typographic treatment, the use of italic and spaced small capitals, added to which is a feature page topped by an old-fashioned woodcut.

There is a suggestion of ancient rubricated books in the typographic handling of Example 445, appropriate for a printer who does typography especially well.

Borders around the text pages of house-organs can be made to act as features if they are designed with proper restraint, as was done in Examples 432 and 450.

Rules and decorative borders, ornaments and initials are not out of place on house-organs when used as they are in Examples 440, 443, 444 and 445.

When the house-organ is issued monthly an old-fashioned “almanack,” with appropriate matter interpolated, makes a good feature, as in Example 457.

As a novelty, house-organs have been printed on blotter stock. The general treatment for blotter house-organs is not different from that of other kinds. The appearance of a publication is maintained and the matter is merely adapted to the dimensions of the blotter.

House-organs are sometimes successful when laid out in newspaper style for four pages about 9 × 12 inches in size. The text matter is planned for three columns, the text type being eight- or nine-point, such as is customarily found on machines. Headings are graduated on the newspaper plan according to their importance. Illustrations are included at suitable points in such newspaper-like house-organs.

There is suggestion for a novel house-organ treated in old-time newspaper style in the reproductions of the first two newspapers published in America. (See Examples 401 and 402 of the chapter on “Newspapers.”)

A western printer, who has found the house-organ to be effective in his business, expressed himself in these words:

Nowadays children are entertained as they are taught, and they learn unconsciously and much more readily than when study was made a task and a hardship. That is the principle we must embody in a house-organ—entertain and instruct simultaneously. Make your readers smile and enjoy themselves while they are learning the value of good printing, prompt service and square dealing. Create in them a desire to be as particular about their printing as they are about their company or the set of a collar, but keep them entertained and interested the while. Of course this can be overdone, so don’t make the mistake of having too much outside matter, but keep to your subject in a tactful way.

The day is past when business secrets can be kept from the buying public. During the past ten years magazine and general advertising policies have educated consumers along entirely new lines, and now they insist on knowing why they pay special prices for specific articles. They not only want to know why, but what it is, where it comes from, who makes and sells it, and how. The sooner we tell them these things, just that much sooner will confidence be established and buyers of printing acquire a knowledge that will enable them to buy intelligently, to distinguish between the economy in good service and the extravagance in poor service. In a house-organ there is unlimited opportunity for preaching the gospel of good service and for educating the public to the fact that that kind of service is the cheapest.

I consider the establishment of this confidence between the printer and customer one of the strongest pulling features of a house-organ. I do not mean by that that one should open his books to the public, but give enough information to let your readers know that you are in a business that requires capital for its conduct, that it is a dignified business, that you give efficient service, and that such efficiency costs you proportionately as much as it costs him. Having let your readers into this much of your business secrets, keep hammering away on your service and efficiency, but do it in a tactful way. Don’t bore him. Entertain him. Remember the old proverb, “He who tries to prove too much proves nothing.” So give it in homeopathic doses, but mighty regular ones.

A feature of the house-organ as issued by a printer should be specimens of actual work. Small cover designs and pages from booklets and other specimens can be saved and collected from overruns and presented in the house-organ. It would be better to use but one or two specimens in each issue than to overload the publication. Only creditable work should be included in this manner. If, say, a bit of four-color process work is produced, it should not be used as an exhibit merely because there is color in it, but it should be tested by answering these questions: Is it a good drawing? Are the colors properly blended, or is there an unpleasant predominance of red and yellow? Are the plates in good condition? Have they been properly printed? Unless the answer is affirmative, it would be better to include neat, modest black-and-white specimens.

Many house-organs are made ineffective by the anxiety of the business house issuing it to include everything possible. A number of issues should be planned and each should contain a limited amount of text matter and illustration. Many of those to whom the house-organ is sent also receive dozens of others, and examination and reading of the publication should not be discouraged. When there is too much of an abundance, the house-organ is either thrown in the waste basket or laid aside and never looked at again.

Loose inclosures should not be numerous. Attention is frequently taken away from the house-organ itself by the variety of envelop slips, calendars and blotters that are included in the mailing. There should be nothing but a return post card, and this should be clipped to the inside of the rear cover and not tucked in on top of the title-page, as is too often done. Several return cards are reproduced (Examples 460, 461 and 462). When these post cards are planned the postal regulations governing their use should be investigated. It may be well to quote from the United States Postal Guide:

Post cards manufactured by private persons, consisting of an unfolded piece of cardboard in quality and weight substantially like the Government postal card, not exceeding in size 3⁹⁄16 by 5⁹⁄16 inches, nor less than 2¾ by 4 inches, bearing either written or printed messages, are transmissible without cover in the domestic mails (including the possessions of the United States), and to Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Republic of Panama, and city of Shanghai (China), at the postage rate of 1 cent each, and in the foreign mails at the rate of 2 cents each, to be paid by stamps affixed.

Advertisements and illustrations may appear on the back of the card and on the left half of the face. The right half of the face must be reserved for the address, postage stamps, postmark, etc.

TYPE-FACES, at first acquaintance, are no more easily remembered than the faces of people we meet. Many persons look alike and many type-faces look alike, until we get to know them intimately and are able to distinguish their characteristics. The average man or woman is unable to identify Caslon Oldstyle, Scotch Roman, Bodoni Modern, or any specific letter used in printing, altho there are those who have a vague idea of the existence of types known as “old-style” or “modern.”

The fact that there are thousands of type-faces on the market adds to the difficulty of recognizing and naming them, and the situation is further involved by the practice of composing-machine makers in using only numbers to designate type-faces and by various typefounders giving different names to the same design of type. The special type-faces of private presses are usually given the name of the work on which they are first used.

Six Representative Standard Roman Type-Faces

Believing that such a service would be appreciated by printers and users of typography, the author made a study of the thousands of Roman type-faces on the market, with the purpose of selecting a half-dozen representative standard faces. It was felt that these type-faces should be legible and good-looking, and possess character; that their merits should be acknowledged by authorities, and that the types should be capable of wide serviceability on both book and job work.

The face first selected—and without hesitation—was Caslon Oldstyle as originally designed. Scotch Roman was the second selection, Cheltenham Oldstyle the third, Cloister Oldstyle the fourth, Bodoni Book the fifth, and French Oldstyle the sixth. (All shown in Example 467.)

Type-faces designed and cut for private use were not considered in making these selections, as it was believed best to adhere to type-faces that are procurable from most foundries and that are available for machine composition. It may be well to inject here a warning that most so-called Caslon Oldstyles are not as good as the one selected (Example 467-B); that Jenson Oldstyle is inferior to Cloister Oldstyle (Example 467-A) as a representative of the original Jenson type. However, good representatives of Scotch Roman (Example 467-D) are obtainable under the name of Wayside, of National Roman, etc.

Selection of these faces was also made just as a person makes a wise selection of records for a Victrola—for permanency and investment. As standard records can be selected which will “wear” for a long time, so standard type-faces can be selected which will look well for many years. Good type-faces are like good music.

We will discuss these six faces.

Cloister Oldstyle.—Use in American printing of a standard type-face based on the Roman letter cut by Nicholas Jenson about 1470 has been retarded by the fact that typefounders in this country some years ago used as a model Morris’s interpretation of the Jenson face instead of going direct to the original letter. Jenson’s face had been copied by Bruce Rogers, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, Frederic W. Goudy and others, and the fonts used privately, but for general use it was not until 1914 that a creditable copy of the face was made available by the good judgment displayed by the American Type Founders Company in bringing out Cloister Oldstyle. This is probably the best rendition of the spirit of an old Roman type-face that a modern type foundry has made. If there is a fault, it is that the lower-case letters set a trifle too close.

Jenson’s face was not the first Roman type made, as is sometimes supposed; others had previously been used (Example 469), but it was the first Roman type to meet the approval of those who preferred the Italian White Letter to the Gothic Black Letter.

Sweinheim and Pannartz were German printers who, in 1465, began to print near Rome. Until this time the black Text letter such as Gutenberg had printed with ten years before was the only one used in typography, but book buyers in Italy wanted Italian lettering. The German printers attempted to cut an Italian face, but in appearance they did not advance far from Gothic lettering (Example 468).

John and Wendelin of Spires, Germans, began to print at Venice in 1469 with a type-face that was more Italian in character, yet it had Gothic characteristics. Nicholas Jenson, a Frenchman, who began to print in 1470 at Venice, was more successful, and he gave to the world the fine Roman type-face that he used on his first book, shown, together with a sample of contemporary lettering of similar design, as Example 470. More facts about Jenson will be found on page 14.

As time went on, printers and typefounders made changes in the Jenson design, but these alterations were not numerous (the cross stroke in the lower-case e was one, Example 495), and fairly close resemblance to the Jenson types is found in the Roman types of Paul Manutius, 1566 (Example 472), Daniel Elzevir, 1675 (Example 477), and Fournier, 1766 (Example 478).

In selecting a page from Jenson’s book, “Eusebius,” to be photographed, the writer had great difficulty in finding one of sufficient evenness and clearness of print. It may be that Jenson, in his endeavor to enhance the “White Letter” effect of his types, used a minimum of ink, and, under these circumstances it was perhaps more difficult for him to maintain consistent page color than it was for Gutenberg to do so with his “Black Letter” pages. Bruce Rogers’s printing of his Jenson-like pages of typography would be a revelation to the old-time Venetian printer.

Jenson made his Roman letter in only one size, and that fairly large (about sixteen-point), so that the open design of the characters would admit white light from the paper background. When, some years later, he was required to print cheap devotional books, he cut and used a compact Black Letter Text type for the purpose.

There is now a movement away from the mechanical style of type-face, restricted in design by arbitrary craft rules, in the direction of the graceful, interesting yet legible faces represented by Cloister Oldstyle.

This type will be found in use in Examples 171, 240, 256, 266, 286, 316, 337, 340, 341, 345, 357, 359, 372, 383, 399 and 452.

The Italic that accompanies Cloister Oldstyle is based on the Italic of Aldus Manutius.

Caslon Oldstyle.—This is a historic American type-face. It was used by that renowned American printer, Benjamin Franklin; it appears on eighteenth-century school books, and even our paper money was printed with it. It was the type-face used by John Dunlap, the Philadelphia printer, in setting up and printing the first published copies of the Declaration of Independence, a few hours after it had been passed by Congress, July 4, 1776. (See facsimile that appears as a frontispiece to this book). It was one of these copies that was read to the Continental Army.

The Caslon foundry in England now casts the original letter as “Caslon Old-face.” In this country, all typefounders make some sort of Caslon, and it may be procured practically in its original form, with long descenders, kerned f and j, old special characters, decorated Italic capitals and all, from the American Type Founders Company, which has named it “Caslon Oldstyle 471” (Example 517).

Other foundries are preparing to furnish the letter more in its original form, and composing-machine makers are doing likewise. The monotype company, after cutting several faces in imitation of imitations of Caslon’s type, finally copied the original fairly successfully, and this, as now obtainable, is known as Caslon Oldstyle No. 337. The linotype company is recutting its Caslons and is making a sincere effort to reproduce the original letter as closely as possible. Mechanical difficulties prevent an exact duplication in every detail of the Caslon type in machine composition, yet the companies that are attempting it show a spirit that augurs well for the future quality of printing in America.

Caslon Oldstyle is not at its best printed on a smooth, highly-calendered surface.

When properly composed and printed, it presents as a page a dark-gray tone, formed of a pleasant mixture of black ink and white paper; its letters show more of a contrast in thick and thin strokes than do the Roman types of Nicholas Jenson, and have more color and interest than the modernized old-styles of the nineteenth century. In the sizes above ten-point it measures up in legibility and beauty to the requirements of the best printers and other students of typography.

Caslon did not create an entirely new Roman letter, but with the elements that had already been provided by Jenson and the type designers of Holland he did, with good taste and skill, build a type-face that is distinctive, legible and beautiful. The illustration of the evolution of Roman lower-case in Example 465 furnishes opportunity for study of this point.

The story of the designing of Caslon Oldstyle has been often told, yet a few brief facts may be of interest here.

Typefounding and printing had deteriorated in England, and the product of the printing press was pathetically poor (the author was surprised, in examining important volumes printed in England about 1700, at the consistently poor work of typefounder, compositor and pressman), when, in 1720, William Caslon, an engraver on metal, was called upon to cut a font of Arabic characters, to be used in printing a New Testament for the poor Christians in Palestine and Arabia. At the same time, for use at the foot of the proofs of his Arabic types, he cut his own name in Roman, pica size. (This was at the time when Benjamin Franklin was working as a journeyman at Watt’s printing office.)

The pica size, however, was not cast immediately. So far as is known, the size of Roman first to be cast by Caslon was that called “English” (about fourteen-point), which he cut in 1722. Additional sizes followed, and at about the period of his death, in 1766, there were at least thirty fonts of Roman (pearl to five-line pica), nineteen fonts of Italic, ten fonts of Black Text, and various fonts of Greek, Hebrew and other alphabets, together with more than a half-hundred fonts of flowers and bands.

The fonts that have been preserved to us, and that are purchasable, do not include all. There were Nos. 1 and 2 faces in nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long-primer, small-pica, pica, english and double-pica (two-line small-pica). The No. 1 face in each case was a trifle larger than that of No. 2, and a third face, still larger, was made in bourgeois and long-primer.

These faces were all shown, in honor of the memory of William Caslon and as a tribute to the merit of the type, in Luckombe’s “History of Printing,” published by Adlard & Browne, London, in 1770 (Example 482).

It is probably the smaller and lighter No. 2 faces that have been preserved to us in the ten-point (long-primer) sizes and under. The lighter, more open eighteen-point (great-primer) Italic (Example 517), so different from the Italic of the other sizes, is as Caslon made it. In some respects it is better than the Italic of other sizes.

While the general appearance of all sizes of the Roman is the same (and of the Italic also, with the exception noted), there are slight differences in details of design in the various sizes. For this reason, when Caslon Oldstyle is compared with the original letters, the comparison should be with the same size in each instance.

De Vinne, perhaps influenced by the prejudices and practices of nineteenth-century typefounders, in one of his books points out as defects in the original Caslon types features that typefounders and composing-machine makers are today restoring to the face as used in America. The “defects” were supposed to be: “Too long a beak to the f and j; unnecessary narrowness in the s and a, and in some capitals; too great width of the c, o and v.”

Typefounders and composing-machine makers have filled the type cases of the printers of this country with Caslons that have been improved (!), recut, modified, adjusted to “lining” systems, made bold, disfigured, sawed-off and ill-treated generally; and as they bring out good copies of the original letter, it is to be hoped that, so far as possible, sale of the defective and offending type-faces and matrices will be discontinued.

William Caslon died in 1766, and the business was continued by William Caslon the second, and then by William Caslon the third. Mrs. Henry Caslon conducted the business in 1796, when was brought out the modernized Caslon (Example 484-B) that was probably the model for the type we know as Scotch Roman. This modernization was a concession to the demand for types in the new style that had been designed by Giambattista Bodoni, an Italian typefounder.

The influence of Bodoni’s ideas in type design was such that Caslon Oldstyle was not included in the 1805 specimen book of the Caslon foundry, and did not again appear therein until 1860, a year after the face had been reintroduced to America by a Philadelphia foundry.

The story of the revival of Caslon Oldstyle in England has been told in these words:

In the year 1843, Mr. Whittingham, of the Chiswick Press, waited on Mr. Caslon to ask his aid in carrying out the then new idea of printing, in appropriate type, “The Diary of Lady Willoughby,” a work of fiction, the period and diction of which were supposed to be of the reign of Charles I. The original matrices of the first William Caslon having been fortunately preserved, Mr. Caslon undertook to supply a small font of great-primer. So well was Mr. Whittingham satisfied with the result of his experiment that he determined on printing other volumes in the same style, and eventually he was supplied with a complete series of all the old fonts.

America took part early in the revival of Caslon’s old-style types, for in 1858 matrices were brought to the United States by the Johnson Type Foundry, afterward MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, now the Philadelphia branch of the American Type Founders Company.

The first size made in this country was brevier, which was announced in the “Typographic Advertiser,” the company’s house-organ, of January, 1859. Six months later thirteen sizes were shown, and in 1865 Caslon Oldstyle was made in sizes from pearl to six-line pica.

The decorative Italic types, known as Swash letters, were not until 1916 included in the American fonts, but these, redrawn by T. M. Cleland, are now procurable.

Selection of Caslon Oldstyle, in 1892, for the text and advertisements of Vogue, the use of the letter by Will Bradley at the Wayside Press, in 1896, and the general old-style revival, influenced by the work of William Morris, of the Kelmscott Press, in England, were causes that led to the present popularity of Caslon Oldstyle.

This Caslon style of type-face is one of the few standard letters that has practically unlimited usefulness. Properly treated, it looks well on any class of printing, from a business card to the text and advertising pages of periodicals. It may be seen in action in this book by referring to Examples 18, 34, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 81, 82, 86, 96, 119, 121, 126, 127, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 150, 151, 167, 168, 169, 172, 178, 180, 188, 190, 191, 195, 203, 215, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 228, 230, 231, 232, 236, 239, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 260, 262, 268, 274, 282, 284, 287, 289, 290, 292, 294, 296, 297, 300, 374, 375, 382, 384, 385, 393, 394, 396, 426, 429, 430, 433, 434, 436, 438, 439, 440, 441, 448, 450, 451, 453, 455, 459, 460 and 461; the frontispiece; upper specimen, page 21; reproductions, page 23; insert opposite page 32; upper specimen, page 33.