An Essay on Typography - Monoskop

AN

ESSAY BY

ON

TYPOGRAPHY

ERIC

GILL

C o n te n ts: Com position o f Tim e & Place

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Lettering

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Typography

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Punch-cutting

75

O f Paper and Ink

81

The Procrustean Bed

88

The Instrument

93

The Book

103

But W h y Lettering ?

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Printed and Made in Great Bntain b y Hague & Gill, High W ycom be Published by Sheed and W ard 3 1 Paternoster Row, London E.C. First Published in 1931 Second Edition 1936

THE

THEME

T h e them e o f this book is Typography, and T y pography as it is affected b y the conditions o f the year 1 9 31. The conflict b etw een industrialism & the ancient m ethods o f handicraftsm en w h ich resulted in the m uddle o f the 19th century is n o w coming to its term. But th o ’ industrialism has n o w w o n an alm ost com plete victory, the handicrafts are not killed, & they cannot be quite killed because they m eet an inherent, indestructible, perm anent need in hum an nature. (Even i f a m an’s w h o le day be spent as a ser vant o f an industrial concern, in his spare tim e he w ill m ake something, i f only a w in d o w b o x flow er garden.) T h e tw o w orlds can see one another distinctly and w ithout recrim ination, both recognising w h a t is good in the other — the p o w er o f industrialism, the hum anity o f craftsmanship. N o longer is there any excuse for confusion o f aim, inconsistency o f m ethods or hybridism in p ro d u ctio n ; each w o rld can leave the other free in its o w n sphere. W h eth er or no industrialism has ‘com e to stay’ is not our affair, but certainly craftsm anship w ill

The Theme be alw ays w ith us — like the poor. And the tw o w orlds are n o w absolutely distinct. The imitation 'period w o rk ’ and the im itation handicrafts mer chants alone are certainly doom ed. Handicrafts standards are as absurd for m echanised industry as m achine standards are absurd for the craftsman. T h e application o f these principles to the making o f letters and the m aking o f books is the special business o f this book. This b ook w as w ritten in 1 9 30, and n ow that a second and cheaper edition is called for it seems de sirable to re-write a great part o f it. It w as one o f the author’s ch ief objects to describe tw o w orlds — that o f industrialism and that o f the human w orkm an — & to define their limits. It is one o f the b oo k’s ch ief faults that that object w as but im perfectly remem bered. It has not been possible to correct this, but the book has been am ended in m any small particulars and a chapter added. f Six years is a considerable time in human life, and if it be true that the w itty remarks one makes at a dinner p arty seem peculiarly foolish the next m orn ing, h o w m uch m ore does the enthusiasm o f 1930 appear foolish in 1936. The tw o w orlds are still

The Theme w ith us; the industrial w orld continuing in its dia bolical direction, the hum ane w orld indestructible by its very nature. But the divorce b etw een them is even more com plete, and the sphere o f the handi craftsman even m ore curtailed. T h e determ ination to have all necessary things made b y m achinery, & to organise m achine indus try in such a w a y as to have only a few h our’s w o rk per day is n o w m uch m ore clearly defined than it w as even six years ago. And printing is one o f the obviously necessary things, & to do it in any other w a y than b y m achinery appears m ore and m ore absurd. Thus one after the other the crafts, w hich w ere form erly the w ork m an ’s means to culture, are being m echanised m ore or less com pletely, & n o w only such things as musical com position & painting pictures & giving lectures on the wireless, dem and the actual responsible skill o f the hum an being w h o does them. All other w orkm en are released from any other considerations but econom ic ones. It w as possible to say these things six years ago; but to-day m any m ore people are conscious o f their truth. The newspapers are full o f evidences that people are beginning to see the issue clearly. The w idespread propaganda o f financial reform is alone evidence o f

The Theme a great change in p eo p le’s minds. Th ey see n o w very clearly that the old man o f the sea is a financial rather than a social tyrant. T h e industrial w o rld m ay be w recked b y its bad finance and the w ars w h ich bad finance foments, or, as seems less likely, a brave n ew w orld o f logic ally organised m achine production m ay be achieved. In either case hum an com m unications w ill continue, printing w ill still be called for, & much in this book m ay still be useful.

i. C O M P O S I T I O N

OF TIME

AND PLACE Tim e & place must be taken into consideration in the discussion o f any human affair, and this is particularly true in an abnorm al tim e like the 20th century. It is not our business to w rite at length o f this abnorm ality, but it is necessary at least to de scribe it, though, as is very often the case, it is m ore easy to say w h a t it is not than w h a t it is. It is not sim ply that abnorm ality w h ich is caused b y an e x cess o f riches am ong the few and the p overty o f the m any; such an excess on either side does not necessarily destroy or disturb the essential hum an ity o f our life. N or is it the case o f a free m inority as against an enslaved or servile majority. Such a state m ay be ethically good or bad, but neither the free nor the slaves are necessarily condem ned to a life contrary to nature. The abnorm ality o f our time, that w hich m akes it contrary to nature, is its de liberate and stated determ ination to m ake the w orking life o f men & the product o f their w o rk ing hours m echanically perfect, and to relegate all the humanities, all that is o f its nature hum ane,

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An Essay on Typography

to their spare time, to the tim e w hen they are not at w ork. T h e full force o f this abnorm ality is not apparent to the m ajority; perhaps no m ore than ten people in England see it. This state o f affairs, though n o w deliberately fostered and definitely stated in m any places, has been very gradually arrived at — it is on ly recently that it has arrived at any sort o f com pleteness; but it is n o w alm ost com plete and has com e to be regarded as in no w a y contrary to nature and actually to be a norm al state o f affairs. T h is is not the place to dem onstrate the steps by w hich the w o rld has com e to such view s & to such a condition, nor to discuss the ethical causes and consequences. It is sufficient for our purpose to de scribe the w o rld o f England in 1 9 31, & it is neces sary to do that in order that w e m ay see w h a t kind o f w orld it is in w h ich the thing called Typography n o w exists. W e are concerned w ith Typ ograp h y in England; it m ay be that the conditions are m uch the same in France, G erm any and America, but w e have no m eans o f being certain o f this. M oreover there are differences o f language and even o f lettering w hich m ake it necessary to restrict the circle in order to

Time and Place avoid confusion.

W h a t sort o f a place, then, is

England? It should n o w be possible to describe England pretty clearly; the transition from a pre industrial, agricultural state is n o w m entally and practically com plete; the thing can n ow be seen sharply defined against the background o f her past. There are still all sorts o f survivals, and even vigorous survivals, m any o f w hich are o f their na ture perm anent and indestructible, but th ey are to be seen n ow as survivals and relics and not as integral parts o f the w orld w e have made. They are not o f the soul o f the existing structure, they are bodily survivals determ ined b y another soul. f T h e small shopkeeper, for instance, is still w ith us, and though the time has almost com e w herein he w ill have no apparent place, nevertheless his survival is perm anent; for nothing can stop small boys from selling one another marbles, and it is that personal dealing w hich is the root o f all trad ing.

Even the small craftsman, in spite o f the im

possibility o f com petition w ith ‘big business’ and mass-production, cannot be perm anently put out o f action, i f o n ly because the pen-knife is alw ays w ith us and men w ill alw ays w a n t to m ake things to please themselves, th o ’ o n ly in their spare time.

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An Essay on Typography N oth ing w ill stop m en singing or m aking songs,

even though music ‘on ta p ’ supply the bulk o f the demand.

A nd, m ost im portant o f all, religion,

w hich in spite o f its establishm ent has n o w no effect in politics, cannot be destroyed. Even th o ’ every institutional religion be banished from the state, every man w ill m ake a religion for himself, for no man can avoid some attem pt at an answer to the question ‘W h a t’s it all bloom ing w ell for?’ . N evertheless, in spite o f their indestructibility, these things and others are n ow to be seen sim ply as survivals from our pre-industrial past; for in dustrialism is o f its nature inimical to all o f them, & it is industrialism that is the body o f our m odern w orld. As to its soul w e are not im m ediately con cerned; our business is to describe England in that aspect o f it w hich concerns us as producers, makers o f things. The spiritual and political description is outside our com petence. Mr Maritain, in his recent essay on Religion and Culture, says: ‘The m odern w o rld is spiritually dom inated b y the hum anism o f the Renaissance, the Protestant Re form ation and the Cartesian Reform ’ . And though this be the exact truth its dem onstration is here no affair o f ours.

Such dem onstration, how ever,

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is quite unnecessary, for there are n o w fe w w h o w ould w ish to deny it. Leaders o f shop-keepers, like Mr Selfridge, or o f m anufacture like Messrs Robinson and C leaver o f Belfast (w h o in their cata logues state that th ey are able to supply ‘Best blan kets at 80s per pair, blankets ‘for the spare room ’ at 63s, blankets ‘for servants’ bedroom s’ at 23s, and blankets ‘for charitable purposes’ at 1 8s — or some such scale o f figures), leaders o f finance like Lord M elchett, or o f politics like the first Earl o f Birkenhead, w ould all heartily agree that such are the spiritual dom inations o f the m odern w orld. Here, therefore, w e are concerned m erely w ith description and not at all w ith either history or proofs. Alm ost for the first tim e w e find ourselves able to say things w ith w hich nearly everyone w ill agree. W e ask then again : W h at sort o f a place is m od ern England? As w e have said. Religion counts, the Churches are pow erful forces; N ationality counts, the W ar could not have been fought had not the various peoples been m oved b y notions o f patriot ism. Customs, habits, all count; the clothes w e wear, the language w e speak, our architecture, th o’ for the m ost part a jum ble o f all the styles on

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earth.all these things count, but as yet they are very little o u tw ardly the product o f that w hich is the essence o f our w orld. IT T h e w orld is not yet clothed in garm ents w hich befit it; in architecture, furniture, clothes, w e are still using and w earing things w hich have no real relation to the spirit w hich m oves our life. W e are w earing and using them sim ply because w e are accustom ed to them. The intellectual excitem ent w hich m oves indivi dual designers does not affect the mass o f people. The m ajority still think G othic architecture to be appropriate to churches, th o ’ Gothic architecture is sim ply a m ethod o f building appropriate to stone and is not really m ore Christian than Hindu. W e still m ake tables and chairs, even w hen w e m ake them b y m achinery, w ith the same ornam ental turnings & cornices & so forth as w hen furniturem aking w as the job o f a responsible handicrafts man. W e still w ear collars and ties, w hether w e be kings, clerks or furnace men, though there is no necessity for a collar or a tie in any o f these trades. All this is m erely intellectual sloth ; nobody can be bothered to live according to reason; there is even a strong national feeling o f distaste for any attem pt to do so. Doubtless a distrust o f human

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reason is reasonable, but fe w adventures are m ore honourable than an attem pt to live b y it. N o w the ch ief and, though w e b etray our perso nal predilection by saying so, the m ost m onstrous characteristic o f our time is that the m ethods o f m anufacture w hich w e em ploy and o f w h ich w e are proud are such as m ake it im possible for the ordinary w orkm an to be an artist, that is to say a responsible w orkm an, a m an responsible not m ere ly for doing w h at he is told but responsible also for the intellectual quality o f w h a t his deeds effect. That the ordinary w orkm an should or could be an artist, could be a man w h o m w e could trust w ith any sort o f responsibility for the w o rk he does, or proud o f anything but that kind o f craftsm anship w h ich means skill and attention as a m achine operator (and that responsibility is a purely m oral one) is an idea n ow w id ely held to be ridiculous; and the widespreadness o f this opinion proves m y point as w ell as I could w ish. W hen I say no ordinary w o rk man is an artist, no one w ill say I am lying; on the contrary, everyone w ill say; O f course not. Such is the state o f affairs, and its consequences should be obvious. That they are not is the cause o f the m uddle in w hich m anufacture is at present

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to be found. For in a w o rld in w h ich all w orkm en but a few survivals from pre-industrial times, a num ber so small as to be n o w quite negligible, are as irresponsible as ham m ers and chisels & tools o f transport, it should be obvious that certain kinds o f w o rk w h ich w ere the products proper to men for w h o m w o rk w as the natural expression o f their intellectual convictions, needs & sympathies, as it w as o f those w h o bought it, are no longer either natural or desirable. If you are going to em p lo y m en to build a w all, and i f those men are to be treated sim ply as tools, it is im becility to make such a design for your w all as depends upon your having masons w h o are artists. The 19th century architects’ practice o f designing ornam ental w alls and draw ing out full size on paper every detail o f ornam ent is n o w at last seen to be ridiculous even b y architects; it is n o w understood that ornam ent is a kind o f exuberance and that you cannot be ex uberant b y p roxy; nineteenth century attem pts at so being are desolate, and a w orld w hich desires pleasure m ore than anything else finds itself sur rounded b y things that please no one but fools. It is n o w clearly understood that m odern build ing must not rely upon ornament, it must rely

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simply upon grandeur, that is integrity and size. There are things w hich can be measured; w ith these alone can the m odern architect, em ploying the modern w orkm an, concern himself. O f beauty there need be no lack, for the beautiful is that w hich pleases being seen, and those things are pleasing w hen seen w hich are as nearly perfect as m ay be in their adaptation to function. Such is the beauty o f bones, o f beetles, o f w ell-built railw ay arches, o f factory chim neys (w hen th ey have the sense to leave out the ornam ental frills at the top), o f the new concrete bridge across the Rhine at Cologne, o f plain brick w alls.

T here is nothing specifically

human about such things or in such beauty. T h ey are not redolent o f m an's delight in h im self or o f his love o f God. But that is neither here nor there. W e have elected to order m anufacture upon inhuman lines; w h y should w e ask for hum anity in the product? W hether the present system w ill or can endure is sim ply irrelevant to this essay. The m anifold injustices and miseries w hich seem to be its accom panim ent m ay or may not be inevitable, & in any case are not here our concern; the conditions under w h ich things are made, the m aterial conditions, the technical con-

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ditions, are alone relevant. W e are sim ply concerned to discover w h a t kind o f things can be made under a system o f m anufacture w hich, w hatever its ethi cal sanction or lack o f sanction, is certainly the system w e have, the system o f w hich w e are proud and the system fe w desire to alter. It is necessary to say a few m ore w ords about the w o rd ‘artist’. W e affirm that the w o rd Art means skill, that a w o rk o f art is a w o rk o f skill, and an artist one w h o is skilful at m aking things. It w ould appear therefore that all things made are w orks o f art, for skill is required in the m aking o f any thing. And in spite o f industrialism this remains true. But, as w e have said, the ordinary w orkm an has been reduced to the level o f a mere tool used b y som eone else. H ow ever much skill he m ay have in his fingers and conscientiousness in his mind, he can no longer be regarded as an artist, because his skill is not that o f a m an m aking things; he is sim p ly a tool used b y a designer and the designer is alone the artist.

A n o th er thing that must be

made clear is that w e are not at all oblivious o f the real distinction betw een w h a t the ordinary person n ow adays calls art, and the other things. Picturepainting, sculpture, music, are indeed art par ex-

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cellence, but that th ey alone are n o w called art is not because they alone are or can be art, but b e cause they alone to-day are the w o rk o f m en not only skilful, and not tools in the hands o f another, but w orkm en responsible for the things th ey m ake. Even those higher flights o f human skill, about w hich the critics m ake so much trouble, those paintings, sculptures, & com positions o f m usic in w hich hum an em otion seems to p lay so large a part that it seems as though em otion w ere the substance o f such w orks, even these are things dem anding skill in their m aking, and w e prefer to call them ‘Fine A rt’ to distinguish them , rather than to deny the nam e o f Art to things w hose prim ary purpose is to supply m erely physical conveniences. T h e ordinary w orkm an, then, is not an artist; he is a tool in the hands o f another. He is a m orally sensitive tool, but now , in spite o f the continued survival o f the old fashioned w orkm an (tho’ such survivals are necessarily becom ing rarer in the ranks o f ordinary w orkm en ), he is not intellectually sensitive. It is clear, therefore, that no dem and must be made upon him w h ich calls for anything but good w ill. As in architecture it is n o w recog-

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nised that even plain m asonry must be left from the saw — a chiselled surface has no longer any value — so in all other w orks & especially in those o f factory production, w herein labour is subdivid ed as m uch as possible & the product standardised, everything in the nature o f ornam ent must be om itted and nothing must be put in w hich is not strictly a logical necessity. Houses, clothes, fur niture and all appliances and convenient gadgets m ust be so m ade; and this is not because w e hate ornam ent & the ornam ental, but because w e can no longer procure such things; w e have not got a system o f m anufacture w hich naturally produces them , and, m ost im portant o f all, if w e insist on the ornam ental w e are not m aking the best o f our system o f m anufacture, w e are not getting the things w h ich that system m akes best.

T h e pro

cess b y w h ich a railw ay locom otive has becom e the beautiful thing it n o w is, b y w hich the less ostentatious m otor-cars have becom e objects o f delight to those w h o see them , b y w h ich plain spoons and forks achieve that quality o f neatness w h ich gives nearly as m uch satisfaction as the best Q ueen Anne silver, this process must be w elcom ed in all oth er departm ents o f m anufacture. And i f

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the human race is really convinced that it cannot forgo ornam ent and the ornam ental it m ust, for the m aking o f such things, have recourse to those w orkm en w h o remain outside the industrial sys tem, painters, sculptors and poets o f all kinds, in w hatever m aterial they w ork, w h eth er w ords or w ool, & be prepared to p ay highly; for such things cannot be cheap w h en artists and poets are n ot or dinary w orkm en but highly intellectual and selfconscious people. And ornam ental typ o grap h y is to be avoided no less than ornam ental architecture in an industrial civilisation. Let us take it for granted, then, that the ordinary w orkm an is no longer an artist; and further that no operation is to be regarded as one for w h ich the w orkm an is intellectually responsible; such intelli gence as he has is to be directed solely to the w e ll doing o f w h at he is told to do. W e m ay leave it to the directors o f industry to see to it that labour be properly subdivided & rationalised in accordance w ith the dictates o f econom y; w e m ay leave it to politicians & moralists to see to it that the physical conditions o f the w orkers are hygienic & m orally justifiable. W e, neither directors o f labour nor politicians, are solely concerned w ith the kind

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& quality o f the things m ade. It is no longer per m issible to design things w ith no reference but to our o w n pleasure, leaving it to engineers to design m achines capable o f m aking th em ; our business is n o w to design things w h ich are suitable for machines to m ake. And this is not to say that w e accept the lim itations o f m achines as they are to-day, but that w e accept the lim itations o f m achinery as such. M oreover, and this is even m ore im portant, w e are not saying that the m achine is the arbiter in design: the m ind is alw ays that. The shape o f A cannot be changed at the bidding o f any m achine that is or could be made. But, taking the shape o f A to be that w h ich the judgem ent o f the m ind lays dow n, w e have to conform it to the nature o f the m achine, and not attem pt to im pose upon m echanical pro duction either those ornam ental exuberances w hich are natural and proper enough to human beings w ork in g w ith their hands or those peculiarities o f detail w h ich are proper to the pen, the chisel, and the graver. But w h ile it is clear that the determ ining principle o f an industrial w o rld (w h at the theologians call its soul) is such as w e have described — the perfec tion o f m echanical m anufacture, the obliteration

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o f all intellectual responsibility in the w orkm an, the relegation o f all hum ane interests to non w orking hours & the consequent effort to reduce w orking hours to a m inim um — it is equally clear that the outw ard appearance o f our w orld show s at present very little o f the principle w h ich inspires it. The merest glance at the Fleet Street o f 19 31 shows h o w little w e have y et put on the garb o f an industrialism shorn o f pre-industrial enthusi asms. W e can still endure, th o ’ w ith an increasing sense o f their ridiculousness, the im itation gothic Law Courts, the quasi-classical W est End branch o f the Bank o f England and all the gim crack stucco buildings o f the nineteenth century. Even the n ew building o f the new s paper called The D aily Tele graph, for all its air o f m odernity, is only an archi tectural essay in stone stuck on the front o f an iron fram ew ork; and the sculptures & ornam ents w h ich adorn it sh o w h o w far w e are y et from a com plete expression o f our b elief in m echanical perfection and its functional beauty. It is certain, m oreover, that w e shall never achieve a com plete expression,for, quite apart from our notorious readiness to compromise, the essential inhum anity o f indus trial m ethods acts as a tonic to the forces w h ich

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oppose it. H ow ever nearly com plete the victory o f m echanised industry m ay be, it can never ob literate the fact o f hum an responsibility, & there w ill alw ays be m any w h o w ill choose to be mas ters o f their o w n w o rk & in their o w n workshops rather than masters o f other men w orking under sub-human conditions, that is to say conditions w h ich deny them intellectual responsibility. T h ere are, then, tw o w orlds & these tw ain can never be one flesh. Th ey are not com plem entary to one another; they are, in the liveliest sense o f the w ords, m ortal enemies. On the one hand is the w o rld o f m echanised industry claiming to be able to give happiness to men and all the delights o f hum an life — provided w e are content to have them in our spare tim e and do not dem and such things in the w o rk b y w h ich w e earn our livings; a w orld regulated b y the factory w histle and the m echanical tim e-keeper; a w o rld w herein no man m akes the w h o le o f anything, w herein the product is standardised and the man sim ply a tool, a tooth on a w heel. On the other is the languishing but indestructible w orld o f the small shopkeeper, the small w orkshop, the studio and the consulting room — a w o rld in w h ich the notion o f spare time

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hardly exists, for the thing is hardly k n o w n and very little desired; a w orld w herein the w o rk is the life & love accom panies it.

T hese tw o w orlds

are n ow here perfectly exem plified, but both w orlds strive to perfect them selves. N o w h ere is industrial ism com plete, but all industrialists and m illions o f their hum an tools have the am bition to com plete it. N ow here is there a perfectly hum ane civilisation, but all w h o are not enthralled b y industrialism de sire its perfection. O n the one hand is the dream o f those w h o im agine a p erfectly organised system o f mass production; every article o f use m ade to a good standard pattern; a perfected system o f m arketing and transport, w h eth er Com m unist or Capitalist; the hours o f labour, both for masters & men, reduced to a few hours a day, & a long leisure time devoted to am usem ent & love-m aking, even to the pursuit o f the thing w hich th ey call Art — it w ill be encouraged b y the state, & doubtless prizes w ill be offered; m oreover, to sit on excellent steel furniture in an equally excellent operating-theatre house and do 'fret' w o rk or m odelling in clay or ■water colour painting' w ith m ass-produced w ater colours w ill give m uch am usem ent to m any. Then w ill be seen the truth o f the saying that: Industrial-

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ism has released the artist from the necessity o f m aking anything useful. On the other hand is the norm al life o f m en, scarred, it is true, b y every hu m an w eakness and m alice, but securely founded upon the responsibility o f w orkm en, w h eth er ar tists or labourers. In such a w o rld there is plenty o f tim e but none to spare. There is less w ater colour painting but plen ty o f love-m aking. There are no m odern conveniences but m any babies. There w ou ld be no one to build the Forth Bridge but plenty to build h ouses; and the printing o f books w ould be done slo w ly & painfully b y hand.

A ll these things

are said in am ity & not in bitterness. An industrial ism w h ich really com pletes itself w ill have m any adm irable and noble features. The architecture o f our streets and hom es w ill be plain, but it w ill not therefore be ugly. There is nothing ugly about an operating-theatre strictly designed for its purpose, and a house or flat designed on the same lines need be neither u gly nor uncom fortable. Cushions and colour are the c h ie f ingredients in the recipe for com fort; and rationality, even though lim ited to a field w h ich excludes all that is sacred, remains the c h ie f ingredient in the recipe for the m aking o f things o f beauty. M oreover, from the Pyramid o f

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Cheops to the bare interior o f W estm inster C athe dral (before it w as spoilt w ith m arbles and m osaics) ornament has never been a necessity o f noble ar chitecture; and plain lettering, w h en properly chosen and rationally proportioned, has all the nobility o f plain w ords. Nevertheless, this w orld, this industrialist w orld, will never com plete itself or achieve its perfection. The good that it offers is a positive good, but it e x cludes too much. The soul o f the ordinary m an and woman is full o f good w ill; but good sense, logical intelligence, is too rare. H ow ever logical, how ever beautiful plain things are or m ight be, th ey w ill not satisfy the appetites o f norm al m en and w om en, f Nor, on the other hand, w ill the hum ane w o rld ever be perfected; the tem ptation to save tim e and money is too strong. M an’s good w ill is underm ined by laziness as w e ll as stupidity; b y his appetite for amusement no less than his love o f p ow er; b y his aggressiveness no less than his acquisitiveness. He is thus an easy prey to the allurem ents o f a scientific ally organised industrialism w hich offers him the whole w orld to play w ith and dopes him w ith the idea that in serving it he is serving his fellow -m en. ^[Therefore industrialism w ill com prom ise w ith

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the Humane, and the H um ane w ill dally w ith in dustrialism. W e shall have m achine-m ade orna m ent (tho’ in the near future there w ill m ercifully be less than in the im m ediate past) and w e shall have motor-buses tearing along country roads. W e shall have im itation handicrafts in London shops, & cow s m ilked by m achinery even on small farm s, and w e shall have cottage larders stocked w ith canned foods. N evertheless, the positive good & the positive dignity o f industrialism w ill undoubtedly achieve an alm ost com plete ascendancy in m en’s minds to-m orrow , and this ascendancy w ill purge even the H um ane o f its foibles. The tw o w orlds w ill grow m ore distinct and w ill recognise each other w ith ou t the present confusion. The hard and logical develop m ent o f industrialism w ill impose, even upon its enem ies, a very salutary hardness and logicality. Fancy lettering w ill be as distasteful to the artist as it w ill be to the engineer — in fact it is m ore than probable that it w ill be the artists w h o w ill give the lead. It has alw ays been so. It is not the artist w h o is sen tim en tal— it is the men o f business and the m an o f science. Even n o w there are very fe w really logical & relentless alphabets

Time and Place

21

o f plain letters in com m on com m ercial use in this country, and they w ere designed b y artists. And even in that age, six hundred years ago, w h en the responsibility o f w orkm en w as m ost w id e ly dis tributed, & builders, in the absence o f m echanical appliances, & designers, in the absence o f unlim ited and cheap draw ing paper, w ere dependent on the good sense as m uch as the good w ill o f the w o rk man, there w as a restraint, a science, a logic, w h ich m odern architecture does not rival & w h ich even modern engineering does not surpass. The parish church o f S. Pierre at Chartres, for exam ple, is the purest engineering; it is as free from sentim ental ism & frivolity as any iron-girder bridge o f to-day, but it is the engineering o f men raised above them selves b y a spiritual enthusiasm, w hereas the best m odern egineering is but the w o rk o f men sub human in their irresponsibility and m oved b y no enthusiasm but that o f m aterial achievem ent. Nevertheless, as w e have said, the restraint im posed on m odern m anufacture and building b y modern industrial conditions im poses itself also on the w o rk o f those w h o stand outside industri alism. Artists no less than engineers are forced to question the very roots o f w orkm anship, to

22


discover the first w ord , the w ord that w as at the beginning. And w e can only pray that those w h o em p loy industrial m ethods o f m anufacture w ill pursue those m ethods to a logical and stern con clusion — thus o n ly can our age leave a m onum ent w o rth y o f its profane genius and m echanical trium ph — and that those w h o refuse the bland ishm ents o f p ow er or the ease o f irresponsibility w ill discover that in its ultim ate analysis the only justification for hum an w o rk is an intrinsic sanctity.

2.

LETTERING

Letters are signs for sounds. Signs for numbers and other things (like the sign for a dollar) m ay in practice be included, though they are n ot strictly letters (except as in Roman or G reek num erals & the letter signs used in Algebra).

Letters are not

pictures or representations. Picture w riting and hieroglyphics are not letters from our p oint o f view ; and th o ’ our letters, our signs for sounds, m ay be show n to be derived from picture w riting, such derivation is so m uch o f the dim and distant past as to concern us no longer.

Letters are n ot

pictures or representations. T h ey are m ore or less abstract forms. H ence their special and peculiar attraction for the ‘m ystical m ug’ called man. M ore than m ost things, letters allo w him to consider beauty w ith o u t fear o f w h a t the H om e Secretary m ay think or do. Art and m orals are inextricably mixed, but the art o f lettering is freer from adul teration than most arts; hence am ong a h igh ly cul tured & rational people like the Chinese the high place o f calligraphy and inscription. Am ong the Chinese, good w riting is m ore highly honoured

24


than painting is w ith us, as highly perhaps as w e honour a successful contraption for boiling soap. It is a m atter o f satisfaction, therefore, that, in spite o f our preoccupation w ith m erely physical convenience, w e have inherited an alphabet o f such pre-em inent rationality and dignity as the Roman. A good exam ple is the inscription on Tra jan ’s Colum n at Rome, o f w h ich a plaster cast is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Lettering

is for us the Roman alphabet and the Roman alpha bet is lettering. W hatever the Greeks or the Ger mans or the Russians or the Czecho-Slovaks or other people m ay do, the English language is done in Rom an letters, and these letters m ay be said to have reached a perm anent type about the first cen tury A. D. f Th ou gh in the course o f the centuries innum erable variations in detail have been made, Rom an letters have not changed essentially. Four teen hundred years after the cutting o f the Trajan inscription the tablet in H enry VII’s chapel w as in scribed, and no Roman w o u ld have found any diffi culty in reading the letters. Eighteen hundred years after the tim e o f Trajan & four hundred years after H enry VII, Roman letters are still made, and in

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23

almost the same w a y (e. g. the Artillery M onum ent, Hyde Park C orner). But, although the Roman alphabet has rem ained essentially unchanged through the centuries, cus toms & habits o f w o rk have changed a great deal. In the tim e o f the Romans, say A. D. 100, w h en a man said the w ord ‘letters' it is probable that he im m ediately thought o f the kind o f letters he w as accustomed to seeing on public inscriptions. A lth o’ all sorts o f other kinds o f lettering existed (on w a x tablets, on papyrus, &c.) the m ost com m on kind o f formal lettering w as the inscription in stone. The consequence w as that w h en he made letters ‘as w ell as he could’ it w as the stone inscription letter that he took as his model. H e did not say: Such & such a tool or m aterial naturally m akes or lends itself to the m aking o f such and such forms. On the contrary, he said: Letters are such and such forms; therefore, w hatever tools & m aterials w e have to use, w e must m ake these forms as w ell as the tools and material w ill allow . This order o f procedure has alw ays been the one follow ed. The mind is the arbiter in letter forms, not the tool or the material. This is not to deny that tools and

(Figure i shows brush strokes and pen strokes. An ordinary pointed brush held vertically to the paper will of its nature make the strokes shown in the upper part of the figure. The lower part shows the strokes naturally produced by a broad pen, that is thick strokes, thin strokes, and gradations from thick to thin. The engraving is facsimile, & is given to show not good forms or bad, good letters or bad, but simply the forms characteristic of the brush and pen.) m aterials have had a very great influence on letter forms. But that influence has been secondary, and

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27

for the most part it has been exerted w ith o u t the craftsm an’s conscious intention. If w e admit, as it seems w e must admit, that in Roman times the public inscription in stone w as the ch ief m odel for all form s o f letters, w e shall expect to find that w hen th ey began to m ake let tering w ith a pen, on paper or skin, the form s o f letters w o u ld be im itations o f inscription forms; and this is precisely w h a t w e do find. A good e x am ple is the Vergil in the library o f St. Gall, S w itz erland. A facsim ile m ay be seen in the Palaeographical Society’s Publications, Series 1, vol. 2, Pi. 208. Pen w riting, even as late as the fourth century, show s very clearly that the scribe had no idea o f inventing ‘p en ’ forms o f letters, but w as sim ply m aking as w ell as he could w ith a pen w h a t he conceived to be ordinary lettering. W h ether he held the pen one w a y or the other (so that the thick strokes cam e vertically or h orizon tally) makes no difference to the prim ary intention o f the scribe. He w as not inventing letters; he w as w riting forms already invented. But the influence o f the tool em ployed w as very great (see figure 1), & in the course o f time, o w in g to the greatly increased use o f w ritings and the

relative decrease in inscriptions, and ow in g to the increase o f speed in w ritin g and the prevalence o f hastily scribbled w riting, people becam e familiar

Lettering

29

w ith forms o f letters w hich, th o ’ m eant to be ordi nary Roman letters, w ere considerably different. Thus in the letter A (see figure 2), to m ake three separate strokes o f the pen w as too m uch for a man in a hurry, & tw o-stroke A ’s becam e familiar. (Figure 2, reading in the customary order, shows (1) the essential form of A; (2) the same with the customary thick and thin strokes and serifs as made with a brush; (3) the same as incised with a chisel; (4) the same made with a broad pen, three strokes; (4 -7 ) the two-stroke A, as deve loped between the fourth and fifteenth centuries; (8 -10 ) sixteenth century writing; ( 1 1 - 1 3 ) modern forms of the same, suitable for type.) By the seventh century this form w as w ell estab lished, and w as as much recognisable as A as the original three-stroke Roman form.

In the same

w ay, the form o f serif w h ich w as easy to m ake in stone (w hich is, in fact, the natural w a y to finish an incised line neatly) w as less natural & less easy w ith a pen. Penmen took naturally to leaving them out w henever their presence seemed unnecessary. T h e influence o f the tool is perhaps less obvious in stone inscriptions. Inscription cutting is a slow job anyw ay. But certain forms are m ore difficult to cut than others, e. g. a thick line m eeting another

30


at an angle, as in the K. The letter-cutter naturally avoids such things.

Again, take the letter G. The

evolution o f our m odern small g is seen to be chiefly due to the prevalence o f & consequent fam iliarity w ith hastily scribbled forms (see fig. 3). N everthe less, in no case does the scribe im agine he is invent ing a n ew form; he is only concerned to m ake w ell or ill the form w ith w hich he is familiar. B y the sixth century a form o f w riting obviously m ore natural to penm anship (see British Museum Harl. MS. 1 773) had been evolved. And the pro cess continued until all resem blance to the Roman original w as hidden (see B. M. Add. MS. 24383). I am not concerned to describe in detail the his tory o f the process in its technical and econom ic significance. The point that chiefly concerns me is that, w ith w h atever tools or m aterials or econom ic circum stance (that is hurry & expense), the artist, the letter-m aker, has alw ays thought o f him self as m aking existing forms, & not inventing new ones. Thus, the Lombards o f the fourteenth century did not sit do w n and invent Lombardic lettering. The Siennese inscription in the Victoria and Albert Mu seum, dated 1 309, is sim ply a stone version o f the pen letters w ith w hich the letter-cutter w as fami-

(Figure 3 ( i - 8) shows the evolution of the lower-case g from the Roman original. 9 - 11 are comic modern varieties having more relation to pairs of spectacles than to lettering — as though the designer had said: A pair of spectacles is rather like a g; I will make a g rather like a pair of spectacles.) liar. The letter-cutters o f the fifteenth century did not invent ‘go th ic’ . They had the job o f cutting stone inscriptions, and they did it in the ordinary letters o f their time. The form s o f their letters w ere w h at w e call ‘p en ’ forms. But th ey cared nothing about that. To them th ey w ere sim ply letters. And just as w e saw that in Roman tim es the Roman scribe im itated the stone inscription form s be-

32


cause, for him, nothing else w as letters; so, in the fifteenth century, w hen the w ritten w as the most com m on and influential form o f lettering, the posi tion is reversed, & the letter-cutter copies the scribe — the stone inscription is im itation pen-writing (w ith such inevitable small modifications as, in stone, cannot be avoided), w hereas in the fourth century the w ritten b ook w as an im itation o f the stone inscription (w ith such small modifications as the pen m akes inevitable). A p art from technical and econom ic influences the m atter is com plicated b y the differences o f in dividual tem peram ents and m entalities. M oreover, the physical and spiritual ferm ent w hich closed the fifteenth century w as accom panied b y a revival o f interest in and enthusiasm for the things o f ancient G reece and Rome, and for the earlier rounder and m ore legible w riting o f the ninth & tenth centuries. N evertheless the first printers w ere no m ore the in ventors o f n ew letter forms than any other crafts m en had been. The first printed books w ere sim ply typographic im itations o f pen w riting, just as w ere fifteenth century inscriptions in stone (see fig. 4). Letters are letters — A is A and B is B — and w h a t w e call a gothic A w as for Pynson sim ply A. Print-

Lettering

33

ing started in northern Europe, w h ere the gothic forms w ere the norm. But the centre o f culture w as

afctiefgbtjMmnop (Figure 4: Caslon’s Black Letter. This type, like that of Gutenberg, Caxton, &c., was cut in imitation of fifteenth century northern European handwriting. But though the original was handwriting it was for the first printers simply lettering — the only lettering with which they were familiar, book-lettering.)

A B C D E F G H 1 J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g b t j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z (Figure 3: the Subiaco type. This modern version, cut for the Ashendene Press, London, of the type of Sweynheim and Pannartz, 1463, shows the change in style caused by Italian influence.) not in the North. Germ an printers m oved to the South. The influence o f Italian letter forms m ay be

34


seen in the ‘sem i-gothic’ or ‘semi-humanistic’ type o f Sw eynheim and Pannartz (see figure 3). Except in G erm any, the gothic forms o f letters w ere gener ally abandoned. The Italian printers set about the designing o f typographic form s o f the round, open Italian penm anship (see figure 6). Again th ey did not invent n ew forms, but form alised and adapted existing forms to the exigencies o f typefounding and printing.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b cd efgh ijklm n op q rstuvwxyz (Figure 6: Jenson’s type. This modern version, cut for the Cranach Press, Weimar, of the type of Nicolas Jenson, c. 1490, shows the emancipation achieved both from the gothic of northern Europe and from handwriting generally. Henceforth the designing of type was primarily the work of punch-cutters, that is of engravers. Letters were still reminiscent but no longer an imitation of handwriting.) T h e m ain w o rk having been done b y the early It alian printers, the succeeding centuries saw no great changes in the form s o f Roman typ e letters. Such

Lettering

33

changes as occurred w ere no longer due to the in fluence o f hand-driven tools like the chisel or the pen, but w ere due to the varieties o f national tern-

ABCDEFGHIJ KLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstu vwxyz Figure 7: Caslon’s Old Face, 1 734

ABCDEFGHIJKLMN OP QRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstu vwxyz Figure 8: ‘Monotype’ Bodoni per & com m erce. For instance, it is said that there is something peculiarly English about C aslon’s typ e (figure 7); and, though there is nothing peculiarly

36


Italian about Bodoni’s typ e (fig. 8), it is clear that b y calling it the first o f the m odern typ e faces w e are noting the change o f character w hich w e asso ciate w ith the w o rd ‘m odernity’ . Type faces like C aslon’s, Baskerville’s (fig. 9) or M iller & Richard’s O ld Style (figure 1 o) w ere not assertive enough for nineteenth century com m ercial printing. The heavi ness, i.e. the absence o f m uch contrast in thick and thin, o f typ e faces like Jenson’s or Aldus’s m ake them illegible for hurried reading. The needs o f com m erce & especially o f new spaper printers gave a great im petus to the ‘m odern’ type faces. ‘Modern face’ be cam e the ordinary face, and everything conform ed to it. The nineteenth century letter-cutter, as m ay be seen b y nineteenth century tom bstones, did his best to do ‘m odern face’ in stone. Engravers & even the w riters o f illum inated addresses did the same. T h e tw en tieth century is w itnessing a reaction. It is a m ultifold reaction, p artly intellectual, partly m oral, p artly anti-com m ercial, though com m erce is not behind itself in its effort to extract profit even from anti-com mercialism . The nineteenth century developed m achinery, & machine-makers are now able to supply accurate, though m echanical, im ita tions o f the ty p e faces o f the pre-commercial era.

Lettering

37

Letters are letters, w h eth er made b y hand or by machine. It is, how ever, desirable that m odern m achinery should be em ployed to m ake letters whose virtue is com patible w ith their m echanical

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO PQRSTUVWXYZ

abcdefghijklmnopqrstu vwxyz Figure 9: ‘Monotype’ Baskerville

ABCDEFGHIJKLMN OPQRSTUVWXY&Z abcdefghijklmnopqrstu

vwxyz Figure 1 o: Miller & Richard’s Old Style

38


m anufacture, rather than exact and scholarly resuscitations o f letters w h o se virtue is bound up w ith their derivation from hum ane craftsmanship. W h ile the m ain stream o f lettering has run in ty pographic channels for the last four hundred years, there has, o f course, continued the need o f lettering in m any other things than books and newspapers. Even handw riting has m aintained its existence, & the style o f letter called italic still preserves its ‘cursive’ character. M ost italic typ e faces, how ever, (see figure 1 1 , 3 ) are too sloping and too cursive. There is a great need o f a narrow and less sloping letter, w hich, w h ile giving emphasis and difference, shall be o f the same noncursive character as the up right letters th ey are used w ith. Both the Perpetua (fig. 1 1 , 3) and the Joanna italics (figure 1 1 , 4) are so designed, and the latter having only a very slight slope is used w ith the upright capitals. The Joanna ‘italic’ w as designed prim arily to be used b y itself, i. e. as a book face and not sim ply as a letter to be used for emphasis. T h e same excessively cursive quality as afflicts Italic has a lw ays afflicted G reek types (fig. 11 , 7). For som e reason or other, probably the com pa rative rareness o f G reek printing, the leaders o f

Lettering

39

typographic design in the fifteenth century never achieved for G reek w h a t th ey did for Latin & m od ern languages. That the thing is possible is sh ow n ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU VW XYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz abcdcfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

abcdefgh ijk ImnopqrstWWfxyz ABrAEZH0IKAMNHOnPSTTd>X^Pfi

a / 3 y S e t,rj 61 k X / a v f o n p 17, and 21, normal forms; the remainder shows various exaggerations; 8 is a common form of vulgarity; 10 & 11 are common misconceptions; 22 and 24 are copies of figures actually seen in advertisements.)

Apart from printing, the lettering of the world is very small in quantity, and therefore such tools as the graver, the brush and the pen and the chisel are negligible, regarded as powers for influencing the forms of letters. The copybook of to-day is the printed page. But this is not to say that one craft should laboriously imitate the technicalities of an other, or that small & inessential details which are appropriate in one material should be copied in an-

Figure 19

36


other for w hich, m ay be, th ey are not at all appro priate. It is sim ply to say that in considering w h at form s constitute this or that letter the mind, not the tool, is the arbiter; and the mind, as regards let tering, is inform ed b y the printed page. In spite o f this w e have a tradition o f handw rit ing w h ich seems to pay little or no attention to either printed or painted letters, & w e have copper plate engraving o f visiting cards and such-like in a style o f lettering on ly rem otely related to typ ogra p h y and apparently quite independent. In all the various lettering trades there is little or no conscious reference to printing, & at all times there have been subsidiary traditions carrying on apparently inde pendently o f the m ain stream. Court hands, la w yers’ hands, ecclesiastical hands and so forth, have gone on in their o w n sw eet w a y w ith o u t any ap parent sign o f being influenced b y w hatever w as the m ain stream o f their time. But this independence is o n ly apparent. These various by-paths either w an der a w a y & are lost, the trades w ith w hich they are connected die out, or the force o f the main stream drags them back. M odern handw riting & copper plate printing are both in this predicam ent. Modern handw riting, i f it is to be reform ed at all, must be

(Figure 20: 1, normal; 2, a possible variety; 3 & 4, Egypt ian elephantiasis, commonly seen but uncommonly bad — except in this diagram.)

(Figure 21 shows various possible varieties of tails.)

38


reform ed b y the application o f a good know ledge o f the technique o f penm anship to a know ledge o f good printing, & not b y the resuscitation o f medi eval calligraphy.

M odern signwriting & engrav

ing m ust toe the same line; & in inscription carving, w h ile w e m ay rem em ber Trajan lovingly in the mu seum, w e must forget all about him in the workshop,

(Figure 22 illustrates the contention that slope in either direction does not deprive capitals, lower-case or italics of their essential differences.)

3. T Y P O G R A P H Y O n e o f the m ost alluring enthusiasm s that can occupy the m ind o f the letterer is that o f invent ing a really logical and consistent alphabet having a distinct sign for every distinct sound. This is espe cially the case for English speaking people; for the letters w e use only inadequately sym bolise the sounds o f our language. W e need m any n ew letters and a revaluation o f existing ones. But this enthusi asm has no practical value for the typographer; w e must take the alphabets w e have got, and w e m ust take these alphabets in all essentials as w e have in herited them. First o f all, then, w e have the ROM AN ALPHABET o f CAPITAL letters (upper-case), and second the al phabet w hich printers call ROM AN LOWER-CASE. The latter, th o ’ derived from the capitals, is a dis tinct alphabet. Third w e have the alphabet called ITALIC, also derived from the capitals but through different channels. These are the three alphabets in com m on use for the English people. A re there no others? It m ight be held th at there are several; there are, for exam ple, the alphabet called Black Letter, and that called Lombardic. But

60


these are o n ly partial survivals, & very few people could, w ith o u t reference to ancient books, w rite dow n even a com plete alphabet o f either. As far

(Figure 23: the upper line of letters is essentially ‘Roman lower-case’ ; the lower essentially ‘italic’ .) as w e are concerned in m odern England, Roman capitals, lower-case and italics are three different alphabets, and all are current ‘co in ’ . But how ever fam iliar w e are w ith them , their essential differ ences are not alw ays easily discovered. It is not a

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61

matter o f slope or o f serifs or o f thickness or thin ness. These qualities, though one or other o f them m ay be com m only associated w ith one alphabet more than another, are not essential marks o f dif ference. A Roman capital A does not cease to be a Roman capital A because it is sloped backw ards or forwards, because it is m ade thicker or thinner, or because serifs are added or om itted; and the same applies to lower-case and italics (see figure 22). T h e essential differences are obviously betw een the forms o f the letters. The fo llo w in g letters, a b d e f g h k l m n q r t u and y, are not Roman capitals, & that is all about it. The letters show n in the lo w er line o f fig. 23 are neither capitals nor lower-case. The conclusion is obvious; there is a com plete alpha bet o f capital letters, but the low er-case takes 1 o letters from the capital alphabet, & the italic takes 1 o from the capitals and 1 2 from the lower-case. Figure 24 show s the three alphabets com pleted, & it w ill be seen that C I J O P S V W X and Z are com m on to all three, that b d h k l m n q r t u and y are com m on to lower-case and italics; that A B D E F G H K L M N Q R T U and Y are a lw a ys capitals; & that a e f and g are alw ays lower-case.

But th o ’

this is a true account o f the essential differences

62


b etw een the three alphabets, there are custom ary differences w h ich seem alm ost as im portant. It is custom ary to m ake Roman capitals upright. It is custom ary to m ake lower-case smaller than capi tals w h en the tw o are used together; and it is cus-

(Figure 24 shows the differences and similiarities between the three ‘current’ alphabets. Note: the curve of the italic y ’s tail is due to exuberance, and not to necessity.)

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tom ary to m ake italics narrow er than lower-case, sloping tow ards the right and w ith certain details reminiscent o f the cursive handw riting from w h ich they are derived. Fig. 23 show s the three alphabets

(Figure 23 shows the capitals, Roman lower-case and italics with their customary as well as their essential differences.) w ith their custom ary as w e ll as their essential dif ferences.

Properly speaking there is no such thing

as an alphabet o f italic capitals, and w h ere upright or nearly upright italics are used ordinary upright

64


Rom an capitals go perfectly w ell w ith them. But as italics are com m only m ade w ith a considerable slope & cursive freedom, various sorts o f sloping & quasi-cursive Roman capitals have been designed to m atch. This practice has, how ever, been carried to excess; the slope o f italics and their cursiveness have been m uch overdone. In the absence o f punchcutters w ith any personal sensibility as letter de signers, w ith punch-cutting alm ost entirely done b y m achine, the obvious rem edy is a m uch more nearly upright & noncursive italic, & for capitals the ordinary upright Roman. Even w ith a nearly upright italic, the m ere presence o f the italic a e f and g alters the w h o le character o f a page, & w ith a slight narrowness as w ell as a slight slope, the effect is quite different from that o f a page o f lo w er-case.

The com m on practice o f using italics to

em phasise single w ords m ight be abandoned in favour o f the use o f the ordinary lower-case w ith spaces b etw een the letters ( le t t e r - s p a c e d ) . The proper use o f italics is for quotations & foot-notes, & for books in w h ich it is or seems desirable to use a lighter & less form al style o f letter. In a book print ed in italics upright capitals m ay w ell be used, but if sloping capitals be used they should only be used

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as initials — th ey go w ell enough w ith italic lo w er case, but they do not go w ith one another. | W e have, then, the three alphabets, & these are the printer’s main outfit; all other sorts o f letters are in the nature o f fan cy letters, useful in inverse proportion to the im portance and quantity o f his output. The m ore serious the class o f books he prints, the w ider the public to w h o m he appeals, so m uch the m ore solemn and im personal and norm al w ill be & should be his typography. But he w ill not call that book serious w h ich is m erely w id e ly bought, & he w ill not call that a w id e appeal w h ich is made simply to a m ob o f forcibly educated proletarians. A serious book is one w h ich is good in itself accord ing to standards o f goodness set by infallible author ity, and a w id e appeal is one m ade to intelligent people o f all times and nations. T h e invention o f printing and the breakdow n o f the m edieval w o rld happened at the same tim e : and that breakdow n, tho' hastened b y corruption in the Church, w as chiefly caused b y the recrud escence o f a comm ercialism w h ich had not had a proper chance since the tim e o f the Romans. The invention o f double-entry book-keeping also hap pened about the same time, and though, as w ith

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m odern m echanical invention, the w o rk w as done b y m en o f brains rather than men o f business, it w as the latter w h o gained the ch ie f advantage. Printing, a cheaper m ethod o f reproducing books th an handw riting, cam e therefore just at the right m om ent. Since its first fine careless rapture, and in spite o f the genuinely disinterested efforts o f eccle siastical presses. U niversity presses & the w o rk o f m any notable individual printers & type-founders, the history o f printing has been the history o f its com m ercial exploitation. As is natural w ith men o f business, the w orse appears the better reason. Financial success is, rightly, their only aim, and technical perfection the only criterion th ey kn o w h o w to ap ply to their w orks. TYPO GR APH Y (the reproduction o f lettering by means o f m ovable letter types) w as originally done by pressing the inked surface or ‘face' o f a letter m ade o f w o o d or m etal against a surface o f paper or vellum . The unevenness and hardness o f paper, the irregularities o f types (both in respect o f their printing faces and the dim ensions o f their ‘bodies’) and the m echanical im perfections o f presses and printing m ethods m ade the w o rk o f early printers n otable for corresponding unevennesses, irregular-

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ities & m echanical im perfections. T o ensure that every letter left its m ark m ore or less com p letely & evenly, considerable and noticeable im pression w as m ade in the paper. The printed letter w as a coloured letter at the b ottom o f a ditch. The subsequent developm ent o f typ ograp hy w as m ore accurately cast types, sm oother paper, m e chanically perfect presses. Apart from the history o f its com m ercial exploitation, the history o f print ing has been the history o f the abolition o f the im pression . A print is properly a dent m ade b y pressing; the history o f letterpress printing has been the his tory o f the abolition o f that dent. But the very sm ooth paper and the m echanically very perfect presses required for printing w h ich shall show no ‘im pression’ can o n ly be produced in a w orld w hich cares for such things, and such a w orld is o f its nature inhum an. The industrial w orld o f to-day is such, and it has the printing it desires and deserves. In the industrial w o rld T y p o graphy, like house building & sanitary engineering, is one o f the necessary arts — a thing to be done in w orking hours, those during w h ich one is buoyed up b y the kn ow ledge that one is serving o n e’s fe llo w

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men, and neither enjoying o n eself like an artist nor praising G od like a m an o f prudence. In such a w orld the o n ly excuse for anything is that it is o f service. Printing w hich m akes any claim on its ow n account, printers w h o give them selves the status o f poets or painters, are to be condem ned; th ey are not serving; th ey are shirking. Such is the tone o f the more ro m antic am ong men o f com m erce; and the conse quence is a pseudo-asceticism & a bastard aesthetic. The asceticism is on ly a sham because the test o f service is the profits show n in the accounts; and the aesthetic is bastard because it is not founded upon the reasonable pleasure o f the mind o f the w orkm an and o f his custom er, but upon the snob bery o f museum students em ployed by men o f com m erce to give a saleable appearance to articles too dull o th erw ise to please even the readers o f the D aily Mail.

N evertheless, as w e have already

show n, com m ercial printing, m achine printing, in dustrial printing, w ould have its o w n proper good ness if it w ere studiously plain and starkly efficient. Our quarrel is not w ith such a thing but only w ith the thing that is neither one nor the other — neither really m echanically perfect and physically service able, nor really a w o rk o f art, i.e. a thing made b y a

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man w ho, h ow ever laughable it m ay seem to men o f business, loves G od and does w h a t he likes, w h o serves his fellow men because he is w rap p ed up in serving God — to w ho m the service o f God is so com m onplace that it is as much bad form to m ention it as among men o f business it is bad form to m ention profits. There are, then, tw o typographies, as there are tw o w orlds; &, apart from God or profits, the test o f one is m echanical perfection, and o f the other sanctity — the com m ercial article at its best is sim ply physically serviceable and, per accidens, beautiful in its efficiency; the w o rk o f art at its best is beautiful in its very substance and, per accidens, as serviceable as an article o f com m erce.

T h e typ ograp hy o f in

dustrialism, w hen it is not deliberately diabolical & designed to deceive, w ill be p la in ; and in spite o f the w ealth o f its resources — a thousand varieties o f inks, papers, presses, and m echanical processes for the re production o f the designs o f tam e designers — it w ill be entirely free from exuberance and fancy. Every sort o f ornam ent w ill be om itted; for printers’ flo w ers w ill not spring in such a soil, and fancy lettering is nauseating w hen it is not the fancy o f typefounders and printers but sim ply o f those w h o desire to m ake

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AnEssay on Typography

som ething appear better than it is. Paradoxical tho it be, the greater the w ealth o f appliances, the less is the p o w er o f using it. All the w h ile that the technical and m echanical good quality is increasing, the de hum anising o f the w orkm en is also increasing. As w e becom e m ore and m ore able to print finer and m ore elaborate & delicate types o f letter it becom es m ore & m ore intellectually im perative to standard ise all form s and obliterate all elaborations and fan cifulness. It becom es easier and easier to print any kind o f thing, but m ore and m ore im perative to print o n ly one kind.

O n the other hand, those

w h o use hum ane m ethods can never achieve me chanical perfection, because the slaveries and stan dardisations o f industrialism are incom patible w ith the nature o f men. Hum ane Typography w ill often be com paratively rough & even uncouth; but w hile a certain uncouthness does not seriously m atter in hum ane w orks, uncouthness has no excuse w h a t ever in the productions o f the machine. So w hile in an industrialist society it is technically easy to print any kind o f thing, in a hum ane society o nly one kind o f thing is easy to print, but there is every scope for variety and experim ent in the w o rk it self. The m ore elaborate and fanciful the industrial

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article becomes, the m ore nauseating it becom es — elaboration and fancifulness in such things are in excusable. But there is every excuse for elaboration and fancy in the w orks o f hum an beings, provided that they w o rk and live according to reason; and it is instructive to note that in early days o f printing, w hen humane exuberance had full scope, printing w as characterised b y sim plicity and decency; but that now , w h en such exuberance no longer exists in the w orkm an (except w hen he is not at w ork), printing is characterised b y every kind o f vulgarity o f display and com plicated indecency. But, alas for hum anity, there is the thing called com prom ise; and the m an o f business w h o is also the man o f taste, and he o f taste w h o is also m an o f business w ill, in their blam eless efforts to earn a living (for using o n e’s w its is blam eless, and earning a living is necessary) find m any w ays o f giving a hum ane look to m achine-m ade things or o f using m achinery & the factory to turn out, m ore q uickly and cheaply, things w ho se proper nature is derived from human labour. Thus w e have im itation ‘period’ furniture in W ardour Street, and w e have im itation ■arts & crafts’ in Tottenham Court Road. The-manof-business-who-is-also-man-of-taste w ill tend to

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the ‘p erio d ’ w ork, the-man-of-taste-who-is-also-manof- business w ill tend to the im itation handicrafts. And, in the printing w orld, there are business houses w h o se reputation is founded on their resuscitations o f the eighteenth century, & private presses w hose speed o f output is increased b y machine-setting & gas engines. These things are m ore deplorable than b lam ew orthy. Their ch ie f objectionableness lies in the fact that th ey confuse the issue for the ordinary uncritical person, and they turn out w o rk w hich is neither very good nor very bad. ‘Period’ printing looks better than the usual vulgar products o f un restrained comm ercialism, and there is no visible difference, except to the expert, b etw een machinesetting and hand-setting, or betw een sheets w orked on a hand press and those turned out on a powerdriven platen.

Nevertheless, even if these things

be difficult to decide in individual instances, there can be no sort o f doubt but that as industrialism requires a different sort o f w orkm an so it also turns out a different kind o f w o rk — a w orkm an sub-human in his irresponsibility, and Work inhuman in its m e chanical perfection. The im itation o f the w o rk o f pre-industrial periods cannot m ake any im portant ultim ate difference; the introduction o f industrial

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methods and appliances into small w orkshops can not m ake such w orkshops capable o f com petition w ith ‘big business’. But w h ile false standards o f good taste m ay be set up b y ‘period’ w ork, this ‘good taste’ is entirely that o f the m an o f business & his customers; it is not at all that o f the hands — th ey are in no w ay responsible for it or affected b y it; on the other hand, the introduction o f m echanical m ethods into small w orkshops has an im m ediate effect on the w orkm en. Inevitably th ey tend to take more interest in the m achine and less in the w ork, to becom e machine-minders and to regard w ages as the only reward. And good taste ceases to be the result o f the restraint put upon his conscience b y the w orkm an him self; it becom es a thing im posed upon him by his em ployer. You cannot see the dif ference b etw een a m achine-set page and one set b y hand. No, but you can see the difference betw een Cornwall before and after it becam e ‘the English Riviera’ ; you can see the difference b etw een riding in a hansom & in a m otor-cab — b etw een a ‘cab b y’ & a ‘taxi-m an’ ; you can see the difference b etw een the ordinary issue o f ‘The Tim es’ to-day and its o r dinary issue a hundred years ago; you can see the difference betw een an ordinary m odern b o o k and

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an ordinary book o f the sixteenth century. And it is not a question o f better or w orse; it is a question o f difference sim ply. Our argum ent here is not that industrialism has m ade things w orse, but that it has inevitably m ade them different; and that w hereas before industrialism there w as one world, now there are tw o . The nineteenth century attem pt to com bine industrialism w ith the Humane w as ne cessarily doom ed, and the failure is n ow evident. T o get the best out o f the situation w e must admit the im possibility o f com prom ise; w e must, in as m uch as w e are industrialists, glory in industrial ism and its p ow ers o f m ass-production, seeing that good taste in its products depends upon their abso lute plainness and serviceableness; and in so much as w e rem ain outside industrialism, as doctors, la w yers, priests and poets o f all kinds must necessarily be, w e m ay glory in the fact that w e are responsible w orkm en & can produce only one thing at a time. That i f you look after goodness and truth beauty w ill take care o f itself, is true in both w orlds. The beauty that industrialism p roperly produces is the beauty o f bones; the beauty that radiates from the w o rk o f men is the beauty o f holiness.

4. P U N C H - C U T T I N G There are two ways of cutting punches —by hand and by machine. C utting a punch by hand means cutting on steel, w ith the appropriate gravers, chisels, or other tools, an exact m odel o f the letter or other sym bol in the mind o f the punch-cutter or the designer for w h o m he is w orking. In addition to the ‘face’ o f the letter (i.e. the actual printing surface o f the punch), the punch-cutter is responsible for the right shaping o f the punch seen in section. The ‘b evel’ m ust be right both from the point o f vie w o f the printing im pression and the strength and quality o f the typem etal in w h ich the typ e w ill be cast. W ith these lim itations and considerations in mind, the punchcutter is at liberty to cut letters o f any shape that pleases him or the designer; and i f the punch-cutter and the designer are the same person, so m uch the better. The technical exigencies o f punch-cutting being understood, the problem s confronting the punch-cutter are lettering problem s and typ ograp h ical problem s — w h at are good letters, and w h a t are good kinds o f letters for books, for newspapers, for advertisements . . . ?

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U n til recent years all letter punches w ere hand cut, and the printing types derived from them, es pecially the faces cut before the industrial era, i.e. before the divorce o f the designer from the w o rk man, before the w orkm an had becom e intellec tually irresponsible and the designer technically incapable, sh ow a liveliness and variety otherw ise unattainable. M oreover, pantographic enlargem ent or reduction is w ith hand cutting impossible, and each size o f typ e has to be cut as though it w ere a n ew design. Punch-cutting b y m achine involves substantially the follow in g p ro ced u re: the designer, according to his experience and skill, draws the letters to be cut to an enlarged size (say one to tw o inches high). The draw ing is then again enlarged, b y reflecting it through a lens on to a sheet o f paper, to about tw elv e inches high. A draughtsman traces round the enlarged reflection, and the draw ing made is laid flat & the line refined according to the draughts m an ’s discretion, or that o f his overseer, w ith the h elp o f ‘french’ curves. The refined draw ing is then placed under a pantograph, and w hile the same draughtsm an or another traces the pencil end o f the pantograph round the draw ing the other end

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is cutting a sharp groove in a thin layer o f w a x laid on a m etal bed. W hen the tracing is com plete the w a x slab is taken out and the w a x rem oved, b y the same or yet another draughtsman, from betw een the cut grooves, leaving a w a x letter lying in relief on the m etal bed. This w a x letter is then placed in an electric bath & copper is electrically deposited on it. The electrotyping is o f course in charge o f another specialist. The w a x is then m elted out and a copper m atrix o f the letter rem ain s; from this a ■positive’ is made, & this is the ‘p attern’ : it is usually about four or five inches high. The pattern is then placed in the punch-cutting m achine. This w orks on the same pantographic principle. The operator in charge o f it traces round the pattern w ith the pencil end o f the m achine, & the cutting end cuts the punch to w hatever size is required — large or small from the same pattern. The cutter is designed to cut the punch w ith a suitable bevel, m ore or less as the hand cutter w o u ld do it. If a slight alteration is required in the punch after it com es out o f the machine, this can be done b y hand provided it only involves cutting a w a y from and not adding to the punch, & provided that there is som eone available w ith the required skill. After the punch is cut the

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m aking o f the m atrix & the casting o f the type are the same w h eth er for hand cut punches or those cut b y the m achine, th o ’ either o f these processes can be done w ith or w ith o u t m achinery. M echan ical casting appliances offer a higher average o f accuracy, and this is considered o f param ount im portance b y some printers and publishers. O b viously the great if not the o n ly advantage o f m echanical punch-cutting is that once the pattern has been m ade you can cut punches m uch m ore rapidly than it can be done b y hand, & that a w h o le series o f types, from 3 or 6 point up to 72 point, can be cut from the same pattern. Thus n ew designs and all the different sizes can be placed on the m arket m uch m ore rapidly &, it is hoped, m ore profitably. O n the face o f it, o f course, there seems to be no lim it to the pow ers o f the punch-cutting m ach in e; anything for w h ich a ‘pattern’ can be m ade can be c u t ; & a pattern can be m ade from anything w hich can be draw n b y the designer. So the scope o f the m achine appears unlim ited, at least to its owners. There are, how ever, very serious though ill-defined lim its ; for the m ultiple processes through w hich the design has to go in the course o f the production o f the punch w ou ld be a serious hindrance to the

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accurate reproduction o f the design, even if all the young ladies & all the young men em ployed w ere themselves in full intellectual sym pathy w ith the designer. But this is necessarily far from being the case. Enlargement operators, pantograph oper ators, pattern makers, electrotypers and m achine operators are all necessarily com pletely tam e and dependent upon their overseers. Such interest as they have in the business, apart from the fact that it serves to bring in an honest living, necessarily tends to be that o f conscientious machine-minders, interested m ore in the good w orking o f their m a chine than in the intellectual quality o f the product. It is difficult enough for the designer to d raw a let ter ten or tw en ty times as large as the actual type w ill be and at the same tim e in right p ro p o rtio n ; it

It is quite impossible for a set of more or less tame employees, even if the local art school has done its poor best for them, to know what a letter enlarged a hundred times will look like when reduced to the size of the intended type. And when the design is in the least degree fanciful or subtle these difficulties are infinitely increased. It is abundantly clear, therefore, that w h ile the

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apparent pow ers o f the m achine punch-cutting process are unlimited, its actual pow ers are lim it ed to the production o f only the m ost simple and dem onstrably m easurable kinds o f letters. There is, h ow ever, a large field for the simple & measur able, and it w ill soon be clear, even to the ow ners o f punch-cutting m achinery, still m ore to book publishers and designers o f letters, that, as in archi tecture, furniture m aking and the m aking o f all m echanically m anufactured articles, an absolute sim plicity is the only legitim ate, because the only respectable, quality to be looked for in the products o f industrialism.

3. O F

PAPER

AND

INK

As to paper, it seems to be generally adm itted that the kind called, and to some extent p roperly called, ‘hand m ade’ is the best, if on ly because the most durable. O f this there are, according to the sort o f m ould used in the making, tw o kinds, the ■laid’ (made in a m ould form ed o f fine m etal w ires running longitudinally, w ith stronger transverse wires at considerably greater intervals), and the ■wove’ (made in a m ould o f w o ven m etal fabric). In this distinction there are tw o things to be n o te d ; first, that a hand m ade w o ve paper can be m anu factured only in a society w h ich is also equipped for the production o f the fabric o f w hich the m ould is made (and hence its appearance com paratively late in the history o f paper m akin g); and secondly that the distinction applies as a real distinction o n ly to hand m ade papers. Your m achine m ade paper is naturally w ove, & the im itation o f the wire-lines is simply b y w a y o f extra adornm ent. H and made paper is m ade in various standard sizes; it is best to use that w h ich naturally folds to the size o f book required w ith o u t cutting (though, o f course, the natural rough edge o f the sheet m ay

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be trim m ed off. The leaves o f books so trimmed are m ore easily turned over, & dust does not so easily get in b etw een them — th o ’ this m ay equally w ell be considered as so m uch nonsense); for a sheet o f good paper is in a certain w a y ven erable; it is na tural to fold i t ; to cut it unnecessarily is shameful. T h ere are innum erable sorts o f m achine made papers. The m ost durable are those anom alously called ‘m ould m ade’, for these, like the hand made papers, are m ade from rag. But m ould m ade papers are not so durable as the hand made, as their fibre is not so intricately crossed.

Paper is to the printer

as stone is to the sculptor, one o f the raw materials o f his trade. The handicraftsm an w ill naturally pre fer the hand made, as the sculptor w ill naturally prefer the natural to the artificial stone. Birds o f a feather flock together, & handicraftsmen naturally consort w ith their o w n kind. Similarly the indus trialist w ill naturally prefer m achine m ade paper as being m ore consonant w ith the rest o f his outfit. And m achine m ade paper is perfectly good material so long as it is not m ade to im itate the appearance o f the hand m ade. M achine m ade paper should be as sm ooth as possible, and may, o f course, be cut & trim m ed ad libitum , as it is not in any w a y venerable

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in itself. It should be sm ooth because there is no reason w h y it should be rough, & sm oother paper enables the best results to be obtained from p o w er press printing. It is not giving the m achine or th e machine-minder a fair chance i f rough papers and imitation hand made papers be used. Even the hand press printer prefers sm ooth paper (unless he be that kind o f dam-fool w h o thinks that all smooth hand made things are im m oral), just as the sculptor prefers stone free from natural vents and shells and flints; but unless he enters the foreign w orld o f industrialism, and that involves him in other & countless troubles, he w ill prefer the hand made in spite o f its com parative roughness. M ore over, the roughness o f hand m ade paper, though it increases the difficulty o f perfectly even printing, requires m ore impression, and must norm ally be dam ped before use, has a certain virtue to the touch and the eye, just as shells and flints in natural Port land stone, though annoying to the sculptor in as much as th ey m ake carving difficult, give a certain virtue to the stone w hich the dead evenness o f cem ent has not. T he printer cannot m ake his o w n press or his ow n paper. The m aking o f printing presses and

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paper m aking are necessarily separate trades. But the hand press printer should m ake his ow n ink, as the painter should m ake his o w n paints. Ink is not a raw m aterial. Oils and pigm ents are the raw material o f in k ; patience in grinding is the o n ly virtue requir ed in the craftsman. O f patience there is this to be said. To be patient is to suffer. By their fruits men k n o w one another, but b y their sufferings they are w h a t th ey are. And suffering is not m erely the en durance o f physical or m ental anguish, but o f joy also. A rabbit caught in a trap m ay be supposed to suffer physical anguish : but it suffers nothing else. The m an crucified m ay be supposed to suffer p hy sical & m ental anguish, but he suffers also intense happiness and joy. The industrialist w orkm an is often sim ply as a rabbit in a trap; the artist is often as a man nailed to a cross. In patience souls are pos sessed. N o lo w er v ie w o f the m atter w ill suffice. But the question o f colour m ust be considered. Even b lack can be m ade in a variety o f tints, & the use o f red and blue and other colours is not a quite sim ple m atter. Traditional uses are safe guides, but fan cy intelligently curbed has also its legitim ate places. H ere again the question is vastly m ore com plicated for those w h o b y inclination or necessity

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em ploy industrial m ethods and the products o f in dustrialism. The factory is able to supply coloured inks in an enorm ous variety, good & b a d ; the pub lisher and the printer m ay w e ll be bew ildered and be under the necessity o f giving m uch tim e to the study o f the chem ical properties o f pigm ents and oils in relation to the innum erable kinds & qualities o f m achine made papers. The im p w h o presides over the minds o f those w h o invent ‘labour-saving’ devices & m achinery m ay w ell smile to see the com plications and w o rry such inventions bring in their train.

For the handicraftsm an, w h o does not con

cern him self m uch w ith saving labour (except in so far as the avoidance o f w aste m ay be called savin g; and every m an w ill have his personal gadgets b y w hich he helps h im self in his job), life is m uch sim pler. For him there are not innum erable sorts o f pa per, type and ink. There is possibly o n ly one sort o f paper, one fount o f type and, as he m akes his ink himself, there is only one sort o f ink & tw o or three different colours. And, paradoxical though it m ay seem, his legitim ate personal fancy has therefore even greater scope than is the case w ith those w h o are surrounded to the p oint o f bew ilderm ent b y a com plicated variety o f possible choices. W h en you

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say ‘black’ to a printer in ‘big business’ the w ord is alm ost m eaningless, so innum erable are its m ean ings. To the craftsman, on the other hand, black is sim ply the black he m akes — the w ord is crammed w ith m eaning; he k n o w s the stuff as w ell as he k n ow s his o w n hand. And it is the same w ith his red and blue. Therefore he can p lay w ith colour — as a child can play w ith a few w oo d en soldiers and y e t w ou ld be unable to m ake up even the simplest gam es i f his nursery floor w ere com pletely covered w ith the leaden armies o f G am age’s emporium. N evertheless, fancy plays a much less im portant part in w o rk than reason. The good m an is a reason able m an, and the good w o rk is a reasonable w ork. In typ ograp h y the use o f colour is a reasonable and not a fancy m atter, & as every extra colour involves an extra printing, the expense alone places a curb upon the exuberance o f the craftsman, f T h e tra ditional use o f red for the com m entary and ritual directions in ecclesiastical books and for the initial letters o f m ore im portant passages is a reliable pre cedent w h ere the custom er is able to pay for it. At the present tim e o n ly a few rich enthusiasts are prepared for such expense, w ith the consequence that such rubricating is only done in books printed

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for w h a t m ay be called a luxury m arket. Rubricat ing has therefore lost its basis in reason and has become enfeebled fancy w ork.

Such considera

tions do not, o f course, concern the producers o f books in masses, but they are o f im portance o ut side the industrial w orld, and it m ight be w ell to consider w hether the reasonable use o f colour is not as attractive as the often unreasonable use o f engraved illustrations and decorations, and, m ore over, no m ore expensive. Reasonableness is the first necessity, the basis o f all g o o d ; and if this is true o f plain printing, m uch m ore is it true w h en the print er’s aim is to produce not the useful only but that w hich is delightful also.

6 T H E P R O C R U S T E A N BED It is obvious that, w ith letters o f different w idths and w ord s o f different lengths, it is not possible to get a uniform length in all the lines o f w ords on a page. But by sacrificing even spacing betw een let ters and w ord s short lines can be made to fill out to the same length as long ones. W hen the measure, i.e. the w id th o f a page, is very w id e in proportion to the size o f type to be used, the sacrifice o f even spacing is not noticeable; on the other hand w hen the m easure is very narrow unevenness o f spacing becom es obvious. N o w uneven spacing is in itself objectionable — m ore objectionable than uneven length o f lines, w h ich is not in itself objectionable. W e m ake no objection to uneven length o f lines in blank verse or in a handw ritten or typ ew ritten let ter. O n the other hand, uneven length o f line in a page o f prose is not in itself desirable.

A very wide measure is objectionable because it involves too much movement of the eye & head in reading, & also because unless the lines be separated by wide spaces (leads), there is danger of doubling, i.e. reading the same line twice or even three times. A very narrow measure, i.e. narrow in relation

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to the type, is objectionable because the phrases and w ords are too cut up. Practised readers do not read letter b y letter or even w ord b y w ord, but phrase b y phrase. It seems that the consensus o f opinion fa vours an average o f 1 o - 1 2 w ords per line. But a tenw ord line is a short one from the point o f v ie w o f the com positor, i.e. w ith such a short lineeven spac ing is impossible unless equality o f length be sacri ficed— or, vice versa, equality o f length cannot be obtained w ithou t the sacrifice o f even spacing. But even spacing is o f m ore im portance typographically than equal length. Even spacing is a great assistance to easy reading; hence its pleasantness, for the eye is not vexed by the roughness, jerkiness, restlessness and spottiness w hich uneven spacing entails, even i f such things be reduced to a m inim um b y careful setting. It m ay be laid d o w n that even spacing is in itself desirable, that uneven length o f lines is not in itself desirable, that both apparently even spacing and equal length o f lines m ay be obtained w h en the measure allow s o f over fifteen w ords to the line, but that the best length for reading is not m ore than 12 words, & that therefore it is better to sacrifice actual equality o f length rather than evenness o f spacing, though a measure o f com prom ise is possible so that

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apparent evenness o f spacing be obtained w ithout unpleasant raggedness o f the right-hand edge. In other w ords, w o rk in g w ith the 1 0 - 1 2 w ord line you can have absolute even spacing if you sacrifice equal length, but as this w ill generally entail a very ragged right-hand edge, the com positor m ay com prom ise and, w ith o u t m aking his spacing visibly uneven, he can so vary the spaces betw een w ords in different lines as to m ake the right-hand edge not unpleasantly uneven. In any case it is clear that the 1 0 - 1 2 w o rd line and even spacing betw een w ords are in them selves o f real & param ount importance, w h ile the equality o f length o f lines is not o f the same im portance, and can be obtained in a page o f 1 0 - 1 2 w o rd lines only b y the sacrifice o f m ore im portant things. In fact, equal length o f lines is o f its nature not a sine qua n o n ; it is simply one o f those things you get i f you c a n : it satisfies our appetite for neat appearance, a laudable appetite, but has becom e som ew hat o f a superstition; and it is ge nerally obtained at too great a sacrifice. A book is prim arily a thing to be read, and the m erely neat appearance o f a page o f type o f w hich all the lines are equal in length is a thing o f no very great value in its e lf; it partakes too m uch o f the ideas o f those

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w h o regard books as things to be looked at rather than read. It is the same sort o f superstition as that according to w hich all Christian churches should be ‘gothic’ ; it is a medievalism. But w hereas the medieval scribe obtained his neat square page by the use o f a large num ber o f contractions (by this means w ords w ere m ade on the average very m uch sh orter; and obviously short w ords are m ore easily fitted in than long ones) & b y the frank use o f linefillings — i.e. he boldly filled up a short line w ith an ornamental flourish or illum inated device — the modern printer obtains his square page o n ly b y the sacrifice o f one o f the m ost im portant constituents o f readableness, even spacing b etw een w ords. Moreover, h o w ever neat and square the m edieval page looked, it w as not actually s o ; the scribe al w ays allow ed a slight give & t a k e ; in fact his m ethods w ere both hum ane and rational. The m odern print er’s m ethods are, o f course, not expected to be h u mane ; his irrationality is the m ore to be deplored, A ppeal to the precedent o f the first printed books is not relevant in this m atter o f even spacing b etw een w ords, or o f equality in length o f lin e s ; for the early printers adm ittedly did no m ore than im itate w h a t seemed to them to be the m ore im portant parts o f

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m edieval practice w ith o u t criticism, & w ere m ore concerned w ith their m arvellous n ew p ow er o f m ul tiplying books than w ith questions o f typographic rationality. M oreover, the com m on practice o f con traction, also inherited from the m edieval scribe, helped still fu rth er; & it w o u ld be a good thing ty p ographically if, w ith o u t any reliance upon medi eval or incunabulist precedent, m odern printers a llow ed a m ore frequent use o f contractions. The absurd rule that the am persand (&) should only be used in ‘business titles’ must be rescinded, & there are m any other contractions w h ich a sane typogra p h y should encourage. A n oth er m atter, closely connected w ith even spac ing & com plem entary to it, is the question o f close spacing. W e have becom e accustom ed to w ide gaps b etw een w ords, not so much because w id e spacing makes for legibility as because the Procrustean Bed called the C om positor’s Stick has made w ide spacing the easiest w a y out o f the difficulty caused by the tyrannical insistence upon equal length o f lines. But reasonably close spacing is in itself a desirable thing. Provided that w ords are really distinct from one an other, th ey should be set as close as possible. Dis tinctness assumed, closeness makes for that conti-

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nuous flow w hich is essential to pleasant read in g; and pleasant reading is the com positor’s main o b ject.

Here, o f course, it is obvious that b y coupling

the w ord ‘pleasant’ w ith the w o rd ‘reading’ w e are inviting m uch controversy. The readable m ay seem to be a measurable quality, verifiable b y eyesight tests & rational exp osition; and this m ay be s o ; but the pleasantly readable is obviously a m uch m ore difficult matter, and involves consideration o f the w hole business o f hum an loves and hates. This can not be altogether escaped, and the printer must sim ply do his best to steer a good course am ong conflicting tem ptations. On the other hand, the in dustrialist w ill sim ply do w h a t his custom ers de mand. His w o rk w ill reflect their quality even m ore than his, and that quality, at its best, w ill be w h a t strict utility compels, and, at its w orst, w h a t the foolish sensuality o f undisciplined m inds w ill sw al low. On the other hand the responsible artist, the printer w h o elects to stand outside industrialism, w h o regards the job o f printing as a sculptor regards the job o f stone-carving, or a village blacksm ith the job o f w orking iron, regards h im self & his custom er as sharing a joint enterprise, nam ely, the production o f good books; and the terms good, lovely, pleasant,

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beautiful, m ean for them not m erely w h a t w ill sell, or w h a t can, b y cunning advertisement, be made to sell, but w h a t the w idest culture & the strictest dis cipline can m ake them m ean. The discovery, then, o f w h a t is m eant b y ‘pleasantly readable’ involves m ore than questions o f eye-strain, im portant th o ’ that question is; it involves first and last a consider ation o f w h a t is holy. Here indeed w e are outside the bounds o f the industrial w orld and all its adver tised hum ility. Outside that w orld the term holy loses its exclusively m oral significance; it ceases to mean sim ply ecclesiastical legality or devotion to social ‘u plift’ ; it means w h a t is reasonable no less than w h a t is desirable, the true no less than the good. T o discover the ‘pleasantly readable’ the printer & his custom er must discover the bounds o f the virtue o f haste (h o w far is m ere quickness o f reading de sirable?), the bounds o f the virtue o f fancifulness (w h at are the lim its beyond w hich legitim ate selfexpression becom es indecent self-advertisement?) and oth er such lesser things. Above all they must collaborate to discover w h a t is really pleasant in hum an life.

7. T H E

IN ST R U M E N T

T h e printing press w as invented, w e are told, in order that books m ight be m ultiplied m ore quickly and cheaply than could be done b y handw riting. Further, w e are asked to believe, the early printers w ere so obsessed b y the desire to serve their fello w men b y the spread o f literature that th ey had no thought to spare for the business o f printing as a good kind o f w o rk in itself. And further, it is sug gested, the invention o f the printing press w as in spired b y precisely the same ideas and m otives as inspire the invention o f 20th century m achinery; that the 'hand' press is in essence the same kind o f m achine as the ‘p o w e r’ press, and that printing in the fifteenth century w as as much ‘m ass’ production as it is in the tw entieth. W h atever m ay be said as to the m otives o f our forefathers (and w e must bew are o f the com m on fault o f historians o f seeing the past in terms o f the present), it is certainly true that printing is quicker than handw riting, and that the w orld is served by the spread o f literature — though it is not at all cer tain that it is served w ell. But, on the other hand, it is not in the least probable that the early printers

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had no eye for good printing or thought o f printing as an inferior w a y o f reproducing lettering. It is not true that a hand operated printing press is essentially the same as one autom atically fed and operated by w h a t th ey call ‘p o w e r’, any m ore than it is true to say that a hand loom is essentially the same kind o f m achine as a p ow er loom. It is not a proper use o f w ords to call the w o rk o f C axton ‘mass’ production; and least o f all is it true to say that the early printers w ere sim ply m en o f business. H ere w e m ay content ourselves w ith the fo llo w ing affirm ations: i . The printing press is a tool for m aking prints better, as w ell as quicker, than it can be done by pressing w ith the unaided hand. The press, w hether the pressure be applied by means o f levers, screw s or rollers, is not sim ply suitable but indispensable. 2 . W riting m ay be all that calligra phers say o f it, & printed lettering is neither better nor w o rs e ; it is sim ply a different kind o f thing. Good printing has its o w n kind o f goodness; the m otives o f its inventors do not concern us. 3. The service ren dered to the w o rld b y printers is best talked about by those w h o are served. The printer had better confine his attention to the w ell doing o f w h at he w ants to do or is asked to do, nam ely to print. W hen the ser-

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vant brags about his services it is probable that he is stealing the spoons. Just as some young men w an t to be engine driv ers, others to be stone carvers, & others ‘som ething in the c ity ’, so some w an t to be printers. W h at kind o f press should such be advised to procure? Assum ing that b y printing th ey m ean letterpress printing, and by printer they m ean the man doing the actual job o f setting type and taking prints therefrom (i.e. assuming that they do not m ean sim ply em ploying men to produce printing under their direction), then there is no sort o f doubt that the best sort o f tool for the purpose is one operated b y a hand lever. This tool gives the m axim um o f control w ith the m inim um o f distraction. It is m ost im portant that the w orkm an should not have to w atch his instrum ent, that his w h o le attention should be given to the w ork. A sculp tor does not see his ham m er and chisel w h en he is carving, but only the stone in front o f him. Similar ly the hand press printer can give his w h o le atten tion to inking & printing, and hardly see his press. It is far otherw ise w ith the autom atically fed p o w er press. Here the printer becom es little m ore than a w atcher o f his instrument, a machine-m inder. If he be conscientious he w ill from tim e to tim e take a

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print from the accum ulating pile and see w hether it is up to the standard set b y his o verseer; but his main attention must be given to the m achine to see th at it is running sm oothly. Thus w ith pow er print ing the printer is inevitably a different kind o f man from the hand press printer, and the w o rk done is also o f a different kind. It is not a question w hether m achine w o rk be better or w orse than hand w o rk — both have their proper goodness — it is sim ply a m atter o f difference. There are some w h o aver that b etw een good m achine printing and good hand printing there is no visible difference, and certain ly none w o rth m entioning. This m ay very w ell be so in particular cases; for the craftsm an and the m echanic often im itate one another. Such & such a hand press printer m ay be able to produce w o rk o f such dead accuracy that you w o u ld think that it had been done b y m echanics. Such and such a firm o f m achine printers m ay, b y careful study o f the best m useum exam ples, be able to produce w orks w hich, though printed in the 20th century, have all the ap pearance o f having been printed in the 18 th. Never theless, it remains obvious that the general style o f m echanically produced w o rk is different & violent ly different from the style o f that produced b y hand;

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that the proper and characteristic w o rk o f the 20th century bears little likeness to that o f the 1 3 th; that industrialism demands different men and produces different things. In spite o f occasional jibes & sneers our argument, then, is not at all that things m ade b y m achinery are bad things, or that the handicraftsm an is the on ly kind o f man that merits salvation. The industrialist is very w elcom e to all the credit he can get as a ser vant o f hum anity. The tim e has com e w h en the handicraftsman should cease altogether either to rail at him or envy him. Let each go his o w n road. The handicraftsman must see that if a m illion people w an t the D aily Mail on their breakfast tables it is no affair o f his, for he cannot possibly supply them . On the other hand the man o f business should be the first to adm it that if handicraftsm en can still m ake a living b y printing, th ey are w elco m e to do so. The industrialist m akes no claim to produce w orks o f a r t ; he does so n evertheless— w h en he is not im itating the art w orks o f the past. The artist makes no claim to serve his fello w m en; neverthe less he does s o — w h en he is not w h o lly led astray b y the notion that art is self-expression or the e x pression o f em otion. The man o f business w ill rightly

i oo


and properly em ploy industrial m ethods (so long as men w ill subm it to them) and m achinery (so long as he can procure it). The artist w ill naturally con fine h im self to such tools as he can control w ith his hands. A s the m achine dem ands in the operative a virtue o f the w ill (conscientiousness & good w ill) or a sharp eye in the overseer, before the m echanical product can secure the technical perfection w hich is not only proper to the m achine but its ch ie f reason for exist ence, so the response o f the craftsm an’s tool to the control o f his hands demands in him a correspond ing virtue. But this virtue is one o f the mind, judge m ent. Those are in error, accordingly, w h o suppose that w h en the craftsm an strives after technical e x cellence he is em ulating the m achine standard. And those are even m ore grievously m istaken w h o sup pose that if the craftsm an neglect his responsibility to exercise good judgem ent and skill in the actual perform ance o f his w ork, the consequent lack o f uni form ity (in the colour o f his pages or the w eigh t o f his impression) w ill give to his w o rk the vitality or liveliness w h ich is characteristic o f hand work. It m ay be said o f all printers that their job is to re produce on paper the exact face o f the letters w hich

The Instrument

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they have set into pages. This face is o f a definite, constant and m easurable size and sh ap e; w ith any one press and any one paper there is a right & exact quantity o f ink & pressure necessary to reproduce that face w ithou t either exaggeration or dim inution. W hen the p o w er printer has found this he has sim ply to let the m achine run on, & ‘m ind’ it to ensure that it run regularly. W hen the hand printer has found his ink and pressure com bination he has constantly to exercise his judgem ent and m anual skill lest his sheets becom e either too pale or too black. Both sorts o f printers aim at evenness, & both are to be blam ed if they fail to achieve it. But there is this to be observed: that, in the event, th ey w ill be found to have produced different qualities o f evenness. The press & m ethod o f inking, & som etim es the paper, w hich the craftsm an uses are such that the colour o f his w ork, at its best, is balanced on the very razor edge o f accuracy. On either side his tools force on him a very slight margin, so that he is as a tight-rope w alker w hose deliberate balance gives a different delight from that o f the m echanical gyroscope. On the other hand, the p ow er printer, w h o has not to consider the trifling inconstancies w hich are inse parable from any hand-operated tool, can achieve

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a dead level o f uniform ity in w h ich there is not the sm allest apparent variation. N or is it unreasonable that this perfection should be barren & motionless. W h ile good w ork, accordingly, from either w orld should be praised w ith different praise, it is unrea sonable for the craftsm an to m istake the shame o f vague press-work for the glory o f his m ore humane and livelier m ethod o f w ork.

7. T H E B O O K The w orld o f 19 31 reads daily news-sheets like that one called the D aily M ail; it is brought up on them; it both produces them & is form ed b y them. W e m ay take it that the D aily Mail represents the kind o f mind that w e have got, and in all kinds o f subtle w ays books are expected to conform to the Daily Mail standard. Legibility is w h a t the D aily Mail reader finds readable; good style is w h a t he finds good; the beautiful is w h at pleases him. M akers o f books, therefore, w h o refuse this rather low standard are com pelled to efface personal idio syncrasy & to discover, if it be possible, the real roots o f good book-m aking, just as St. Benedict in the 6th century, confronted b y the decayed Roman society, w as com pelled to discover the roots o f good living. Good book-making, good living — that is to say not w hat you or I fancy, but w h a t the nature o f books and the nature o f life really demand. It is all very w ell for the men o f com m erce, the commercial people, to brag about them selves as servants o f hum anity & o f the hum an mind. They say grandly enough that a book is a thing to be read, im plying that a book is not a picture to hang on a

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nail. But this grand air o f serving one's fellow men, putting aside a modicum o f hypocrisy, does not car ry us very far unless w e kn ow by w ho m books are to be read. The standard o f readableness is depend ent upon the standard o f the reader, & the standard o f book-m aking upon the standards o f those w h o m ake them and o f those for w hom they are made. Books m ade b y & for unreasoning people m ay w ell be expected to conform to unreasonable standards. It is necessary to point out these facts because m any w h o w rite typographical criticism seem to think that the business o f m aking books has pro ceeded steadily from w orse to better ever since the invention o f printing; they take no account o f the steadily increasing pressure o f commercialism. W hether w e approve or disapprove o f the methods o f m odern com m ercialism (& w e have never denied that many great pow ers & innum erable small con veniences have been conferred upon us by the w e d ding o f experim ental science and capitalist b ook k ee p in g — the abolition o f ‘double-entry’ w ould paralyse m odern trade as much as the abolition o f paper w o u ld paralyse m odern architecture) w e can not deny that the character o f those m odern things w hich are not curbed b y the strictest utilitarianism

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is that o f m aterialist trium ph tem pered b y fanciful ness and sloppiness, & that they are altogether w ith out grace either in the physical or spiritual senses o f the w ord. A book is a thing to be read — w e all start w ith that — and w e w ill assume that the reader is a sen sitive as w ell as a sensible person. N ow , the first thing to be noticed is that it is the act o f reading & the circumstances o f that act w hich determ ine the size o f the book and the kind o f typ e u se d ; the read ing, not w h at is read. A good type is suitable for any and every book, and the size o f a book is regulated not by w h at is in it but b y the fact that it is read held in the hand (e.g. a novel), or at a table (e.g. books o f history or reference w ith maps or other necessarily large illustrations), or at a desk or lectern (e.g. a m is sal or a choir book), or kept in the pocket (e.g. a prayer book or a travellers’ dictionary).

O n the

contrary some hold that size o f book and style o f type sh’ld be specially chosen for every book; that such & such a size is suitable for Shakespeare; such and such for Mr. W ells’s novels, such and such for Mr. Eliot’s poems; that the type suitable for one is not suitable for a n o th er; that elegant p oetry should have elegant type, & the rough hacked style o f W alt

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W hitm an a rough hacked style o f letter; that reprints o f M alory should be printed in -Black Letter’ and books o f tech nology in ‘Sans-serif’ . There is a cer tain plausibility in all this, & even a certain reason ableness. The undignified typography o f the Daily Mail Year Book is certainly unsuitable for the Bible; a fine italic m ight be suitable for M ilton but unsuit able for ‘Tono-Bungay’ ; sans-serif m ay be suitable for a translation o f Jean Cocteau but m ight be un suitable for a pocket prayer book. And as to s iz e : it is im possible to print the Bible on too grand a scale, but third-rate verse m ight look and be absurd in a book requiring a lectern to hold it. Nevertheless, the reasonable producer o f books starts w ith the principle that it is the reading, not the reading m at ter, w h ich determ ines the size o f book and style o f type; the other considerations com e in only as m odi fying influences. In planning a book the first ques tions a r e : w h o is going to read this, and under w hat circum stances? If, then, there are norm ally four sizes o f books, it w o u ld seem that there sh’ld be four sizes o f type. A p ocket book dem ands small type, say 8 point, for reasons o f space. A book held in the hand demands typ e o f about 1 o or 12 p oint on account o f the length

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o f the human arm and the normal p ow er o f hum an eyesight, assuming a norm ally legible type. Table books & lectern books, norm ally read further from the eye, dem and types o f still larger sizes, say 14 or 18 point or over. But the sizes o f types nam ed here are not binding on anybody; it is only the principle w e are concerned w ith.

T h e proportions o f books

w ere form erly determ ined b y the sizes o f printing papers. These w ere alw ays oblong in shape (proba b ly because this w as the shape m ost easily handled b y the makers, or, perhaps, because the skins o f animals used for w riting on in m edieval times are o f this shape, and so books fo llo w ed suit) & w h en folded in h a lf and in h a lf again and so on, m ade a narrow folio, a w id e quarto, a narrow octavo, & c. But w ith the m achine m ade papers n ow alm ost universally used these proportions are o n ly retained b y custom, the w idth o f the w eb o f paper and the direction o f the grain being the only determ ining factors. Books printed on m achine m ade paper can, these factors understood, be o f any shape that pleases you. And thus the com m ercial b ook designer is, to a greater degree than his predecessor, released from the thraldom o f any considerations but that o f w h a t w ill sell.

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A s to w h a t does or should sell, w e m ay say that the things w h ich should form the shape & propor tions o f the page are the hand and the eye; the hand because books o f w id e proportions are unw ieldy to h o ld ; and the eye because lines o f m ore than 1 0 - 1 2 w ords are a w k w ard to read. (W ith longer lines, set solid, i.e. w ith o u t leads betw een them, there is diffi cu lty in follow ing from one line to the next, &, even i f the typ e be leaded, a long line necessitates a dis tinctly felt m uscular m ovem ent o f the eye and, in extrem e cases, o f the head.) As to the height o f a page, this again is governed b y the needs o f hand & e y e ; a very tall page necessitates either a distinct m ovem ent o f the neck o f the reader or a changing o f the angle at w h ich the book is held in the hand, & such things are sim ply a nuisance. It m ay be that there are other considerations than those o f physical convenience w hich have helped to determ ine the norm al o ctavo p a g e ; it m ay be that such a propor tion is intrinsically pleasing to the hum an mind. It is, h ow ever, sufficient for us to see that there is a physical reasonableness in this proportion, and w e m ay safely leave the discovery o f other reasons to professional aestheticians. T h e shape o f the page being given, it remains to

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discover the best proportions for the lines & mass o f type printed upon it. Here again physical consi derations are a sufficient guide. T w o things are to be thought o f : the typ e & the margins. Let us con sider the margins first. The inner m argin exists sim ply to separate a page from the one opposite to it, and need be no w ider than is enough to keep the printed w ords clear o f the bend o f the paper w h ere it is sew n in binding. The top margin, again, needs only to be sufficiently w id e to isolate the typ e from the surrounding landscape o f furniture and carpets (just as a ‘m ount’ or fram e is used b y painters to isolate a picture from w all paper, & c.). O n the other hand, the outer and bottom margins need m ore w idth than is required for m ere isolation, for it is by these m argins that the book is held in the h a n d ; enough must be a llow ed for thumbs, and the b o t tom margins need m ore than the side or outer ones. These physical considerations being allo w ed for, w e m ay n o w consider the margins in relation to one another, & it w ill be seen at once that, taking one page at a time, i.e. h a lf the ‘op ening’, slightly more must be allow ed to the top m argin than is re quired for m ere iso la tio n ; for i f you m ake the top and inner margins equally narrow, the outer mar-

11 o


gin w id e and the bottom still wider, the text w ill appear to be being pushed off the top. W e m ay say then that the general rule should b e : a narrow in ner m argin, a slightly w id er top margin, an outer margin at least double the inner, and a bottom slightly w id er than the others; the exact propor tions being left to the judgem ent o f the printer. It is to be noted that unless the outer margin be at least double the inner the tw o inner margins, seen together w h en the book is opened, w ill appear to be pushing the text outw ards o ff the page. W ith a norm al octavo page o f 3 inches w ide and inches high, & supposing that w e a llo w margins as fo llo w s : inner, J inch; top, f ; outer 1; & bottom , 1£; w e shall get a typ e page 3 £ inches w id e b y 3§ inches high (i.e. 34 lines o f pica type, 12 p t„ set solid). This allow s for a line o f an average length o f 1 o - 12 w ords in pica, & pica is a good ordinary size for a book held in the hand. O bviously these dim ensions m ay be varied slightly w ith ou t destroy ing the rationality or norm ality o f the page, & type slightly larger or sm aller than pica (12 pt.) can be used w ith o u t extravagance or loss o f le gib ility ; though it is obvious that, for reasons o f physical convenience, a variation that entails a lengthening

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o f the line to m ore than 1 2 or 1 3 w ords is a variation in a direction less com m endable than one that entails a shortening o f the line. The dim ensions given m ay therefore be taken as a norm. T h e title page should be set in the same style o f type as the book and preferably in the same size. The unfortunate printers w h o regard the title page as the only source o f interest in an otherw ise dull job are the miserable descendants o f those scribes w h o kn ow in g and even appreciating the glory o f the books th ey w ro te out naturally gave a glorious beginning to them . The title o f a book is m erely the thing to k n o w it by; w e have m ade o f the title page a showing-off ground for the printers & publishers. A smart title page w ill not redeem a dully printed book any m ore than a smart cinem a w ill redeem a slum.

The title o f the b ook & its author’s name

must be given som ew here. Th ey m ay be placed at the top o f the first page o f the book, or at the top o f the contents page, if any, or on a blank page left for the purpose.

T h e addition o f the publisher’s

nam e & address has the sanction o f long establish m ent & the com pulsion o f the law ; but, apart from the needs o f advertisement, such things should, like the name & sign o f the printer, be placed at the end o f

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the book w here indeed they naturally come. In the industrial w orld, how ever, the necessity o f adver tisem ent is felt to be param ount, & the typographic exigencies have been com prom ised. It w ould be better to be frank about this &, to avoid the present confusion b etw een the needs o f the book & those o f the publisher, to place the publisher’s name & address & sign on a page b y them selves preceding the title or opening page o f the book proper. Thus on opening the book the first printed page w ould give the bare title & the advertisem ent o f the pub lisher, the next w o u ld give the title, sub-title i f any or list o f contents &, continuing on the same page or at the top o f the next, the beginning o f the book itself. By this arrangem ent the legitim ate demands o f both printer and publisher w ould be met. T h e bulk o f the book is also a thing to be consi dered. By increasing the m argins and leading the typ e the num ber o f pages w ill be increased, and this m ay be desirable on various grounds. For in stance w h ere great legibility is required the leading o f the typ e is h e lp fu l; or w here the text is short and the b oo k consequently a very thin one, the increase o f m argins and the use o f leads m ay give that bulk to the book w h ich habit has made pleasant. Even

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the business o f bookselling m akes its legitim ate de mands ; books com m end them selves to buyers by their w eight, bulk and size as w ell as b y their titles or their typography, and this is not entirely foolish. Books have got to be handled as w ell as read, and they have got to stand on shelves. N evertheless there is no occasion to go to extrem es in this matter, & it is as foolish to m ake a thick book o f a short story as it is, by small type and cram ped margins, to m ake one volum e o f a book w hich is properly tw o . A s to b in d in g : the continental practice o f issuing books in sheets, or sim ply sew n w ith a paper w ra p per, is much to be praised. The English b o o k b u yer’s insistence on a stiff cover, even for the cheapest books, has been m et b y the invention or d evelop ment o f the ‘case’, i.e. a stiff cover w hich m ay be applied after the sheets are sewn, and is designed for m aking in large quantities. The only objection to such cases it that th ey nearly alw ays retain cer tain conventional ornam entations w h ich are de rived from the ‘binding’ o f form er times and are not appropriate to m achine m ade things. For sixpenny novels the w o rk is done from end to end b y m achine — including the ornam ents on the sides and back. For more expensive books some parts o f the w o rk

ii4


are still done b y hand, e.g. the pasting o f the endsheets & the insertion o f head bands o f parti-coloured cloth. But except for individual private customers •binding’ , i.e. the sew ing o f the sheets & the lacing o f the w h o le thing to the cover so that book & cover are one thing, is not done at all. Doubtless the ordi nary products o f com m ercial printing are not suitable for any other treatm ent, & w h ile the cry is for cheap er & cheaper books anything but w h a t can be done b y m achine is out o f the question. Printing done by m achinery on m achine made paper m ay w ell be cased in m achine made casing, but printing done b y hum an beings on paper m ade b y hum an beings ought to be bound b y human beings. T h e question arises: h o w m any copies o f a book should be printed? There are several appropriate answ ers to this question. The first i s : as m any as can be s o ld ; and this is the only answ er w e shall consider here. But there are tw o prim ary consid erations in the selling o f a n y th in g : (a) the number o f people w h o can be supposed to desire a thing because it is desirable in its e lf; and (b) the number w h o can afford to buy it. If all those to w ho m a book is desirable can afford to buy it, then the ed ition is properly lim ited to ‘all those’ ; but if only a

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few can afford to buy it, the edition is properly lim ited to that few. W h at is this book? H o w ought it to be printed? These things being determ ined, the ground is clear for the consideration o f the problem o f the number o f possible buyers.

It is obvious

that the number o f possible buyers o f expensive books is com paratively small. This w ill alw ays be so. and rightly. That everybody should be ‘rich’ is, in the nature o f things, neither possible nor desir able. That everybody should be able to read or even wish to do so, is extrem ely doubtful. There is there fore no question o f the lim ited production o f e x pensive books involving any injustice, and, apart from the efforts o f a fe w earnest enthusiasts, the production o f cheap literature, w h eth er daily n ew s papers or books, is w ith o u t doubt the affair not o f those interested in books but o f men o f business in terested in m oney. They do not ask th em selves: h o w w ell can this thing be done? but; h o w large a m arket can w e ‘tap ’? And to this end they have brought into existence all the m anifold pow ers o f m achinery & advertisement — a vicious circle; for the m ore the human race is degraded b y industrialism, the larger is the m arket for inferior a rticles; in order to reach a larger and still larger number o f buyers you pro-

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duce a lo w er and still low er quality o f goods. But here w e are not concerned w ith such a prob lem. O bviously there is on ly one just cause for the lim itation o f an edition, and that is the size o f the m arket. Provided you are concerned to m ake books as w ell as they can be m ade — and this not so much in a spirit o f piety (though w e do not disdain the virtue o f Prudence) as in a spirit o f reasonableness, for ultim ately there is no happiness in a w orld in w h ich things are not as good as th ey can be — the size o f your edition w ill depend sim ply upon your judgem ent and experience as to the number o f pos sible buyers. And if, ow in g to the tim e factor, you cannot supply in a reasonable time all w h o w ould buy, then y o u can produce second & third editions. W e m ay here go into the question o f the artifi cial lim itation o f numbers in order to capture a ‘collectors’ m arket. Properly understood this is a p urely ‘business’ m atter, and the printer w hose first concern is quality is not a man o f business. Let us suppose that both the craftsm an and the indus trialist have produced as m any o f their respective products as th ey can sell. W h at further can either o f them do?

T h e craftsm an can introduce into his

w orkshop a bit o f m achinery, and, w ith o u t its be-

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ing noticeable to his custom ers, produce the same num ber o f books m ore cheaply & therefore m ore profitably. He w ill continue to produce the same number, but now , instead o f that num ber being the largest number he can sell, it w ill be the m ost pro fitable number.

T h e industrialist can introduce

into his factory a book designer w h o has studied in the museums w here th ey store pre-industrial productions, &, b y careful w atch ing o f the w o rk o f 'private' presses and o f the m arket supplied b y them, he m ay produce, at a very considerably high er price than they cost him to m ake, a ‘lim ited’ ed ition w hich w ill m ake alm ost as m uch appeal to collectors as the w o rk o f Cobden-Sanderson & his predecessors. This is sim ply a m atter o f business. T here are, then, tw o principles, as there are tw o worlds. There is the principle o f best possible qual ity, and the principle o f greatest possible profit. And there is every sort o f com prom ise b etw een the tw o . W hether, as seems probable, industrialism w in a com plete victory, or hum an nature so far reassert itself as to o verth row industrialism, is not here our concern. For the present w e hold sim ply to the con viction that the tw o principles and the tw o w orlds can exist side b y side, industrialism becom ing m ore

u 8


strictly and nobly utilitarian as it recognises its in herent lim itations, and the w o rld o f human labour, ceasing any longer to com pete w ith it, becom ing m ore strictly and soberly hum ane.

9. B U T

W H Y

LETTERING?

W e take lettering ‘for granted’. ‘Can you read?’ is almost the first question w e ask a child w h en w e m eet it, after its first term at the infants’ s c h o o l! Letters are signs for sounds, but h o w A, B, & C com e to be signs for the particular sounds th ey are supposed to signify w e seldom consider. Let us briefly go over the history o f the letters w e use. I don ’t m ean such a his tory as only the archseologians k n o w ; I m ean such a history as is obvious and guessable and com m on gossip. I think it is generally agreed that picture w riting was the beginning o f our lettering. You m ight w ish to com m unicate som ething to som eone at a dis tance. If you have no letters or none com m on both to you & your correspondent, w h a t else can you do but draw a picture? — the language o f pictures is comm on to all. After a time your pictures are used to signify words and not sim ply things, and as the sys tem develops and com m unications becom e m ore precise, the pictures becom e simpler and simpler, more & m ore conventional, and they com e to signify single sounds rather than w h o le w ords. And the pic tures, b y now, have ceased to be pictures. T h ey are,

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b y now , hardly recognisable as representations o f things; th ey are conventional signs, & their pictorial origin is forgotten. But after centuries o f this sort o f thing another com plication arises. I have o n ly to say the w ord spell ing & everyone w ill see again before him the spectre w h ich haunted our first schooldays, and w hich does not leave us in peace even in old age. Spelling is put ting letters together to m ake w o rd s; but these letters have b y n o w ceased to be purely sound symbols. It is no longer possible, even i f it ever w as, to say that such and such a letter alw ays and everyw h ere signifies such and such a sound; and, for exam ple, a com bi nation o f the four letters O U G H is used to signify at least seven distinctly and even w id ely different sounds — ‘Though the tough cough and hiccough plough m e through, m y thought remains clear’ and it is th is : that it is sim ply stupid to m ake pretence any longer that our letters are a reasonable means for rendering our speech in w riting or printing. But it is not only in the m atter o f spelling that let ters are ridiculous. There is another and equally im portant aspect o f the m atter. N ot only have letters largely ceased to signify the sounds o f our language, but the business o f w riting bears no relation to the

But W hy Lettering ?

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business o f speaking. There is no correspondence betw een talking & w riting it dow n. W riting is not w ritten ta lk ; it is a translation o f talk into a clum sy & difficult medium w hich has no relation w h atever to the time factor o f speech and very little relation to the sound. It is in fact an entirely ou tw orn , de cayed and corrupt convention w h o se c h ie f & m ost conspicuous character is its m onum ental w itness to the conservatism, laziness and irrationality o f m en and wom en. It w ill not be supposed that I am m oved in this m atter by any such absurd notion as that ‘tim e is m oney’ . Nor am I blind to the claims o f the pedants the value o f spelling as a w itness to the historical origins o f our w ords. Nor, least o f all, am I unaw are o f the pleasing nature o f letters as things to look at or the pleasing nature o f the w ritten or printed sheet o f Roman, or even m edieval lettering. His tory has a fascination for everyone and the history o f language is as interesting as any other. A w e ll printed page, a good inscription or a piece o f m e dieval handw riting are good things to see. Look, for instance, at that extraordinary and truly m ar vellous m anuscript bought recently at a fabulous

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and absurd figure o f m oney from our w o rth y and revered friends the Bolshevists — everyone can see it in the excellent co llo typ e reproduction sold at the British Museum for a few pence, & those o f you w h o are not satisfied w ith the collotype could just as w ell have gone to M oscow to see the original now that the Soviet steamers and railw ay trains are or ganised upon the best capitalist models. I say a good piece o f lettering is as beautiful a thing to see as any sculpture or painted picture. M oreover, although the saying ‘tim e is m oney’ is to o difficult for m e to understand (and for m illions o f our fello w countrym en, throw n out o f em ploy m ent b y im provem ents in m achinery, w ith too m uch tim e on their hands and practically no m oney at all, the saying is obviously absurd), all the same I see no reason for w asting tim e or taking longer on a job than is necessary to do it w ell. No, in spite o f the charm s o f history, in spite o f the allurem ents o f art istry and in spite o f the danger o f being thought to play into the hands o f m en o f business (and w ho, confronted b y the w o rld w hich men o f business have made, w o u ld w illin gly take that risk?), in spite o f these things the balance o f argument still seems to be strongly upon the side o f revolution.


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W h a t is the revolution dem anded? Reform ed spelling? No, the abolition of spelling — the abolition o f lettering as w e k n o w it altogether. And the thing is easy to accom plish — all that is required is the w ill to do it — the w ill inform ed b y the intelligent appre ciation o f its reasonableness. For w h a t is the remedy? It is plain before our eyes. N othing is required but that every child shall be taught ‘shorthand’ at school — not as an optional subject, not as a subject only suitable for those destined or com pelled to a co m mercial career (if indeed, rem em bering the origin o f the w o rd ‘career’, & its association w ith m edieval tournam ents and high adventures, w e can call the life o f a shorthand clerk a career at all). I say shorthand should be taught as a proper subject for all and one o f prim ary importance. But let us abolish the w o rd shorthand — let us call it phonography or even sim ply writing. The point o f m y contention is not that w e need a shorter sys tem but a m ore reasonable one. W e need a system in w hich there is a real correspondence betw een speech, that is to say the sounds o f language, & the means o f com m unication. W h y should I think the w ord thought and say the w ord thought and then have the intolerable pain o f w riting a thing so silly

1 24


as t h o u g h t ?

Those w h o have had the ex

perience o f teaching children to spell & especially those w h o have given serious consideration to the m atter w ill o f course im m ediately understand m y enthusiasm. It is a constant source o f exasperation to those w h o m erely teach, and still m ore to those w h o k n o w that m an is (in spite o f any appearance to the contrary) a rational animal, to have the hor rid job o f m arring the budding minds o f children by a set o f irrational rules and capricious exceptions. If w e w a n t to train children’s memories, let us put before them som ething w orth remem bering. If w e w a n t to teach them to use pens and pencils, let us teach them draw ing. If w e w an t to teach them phil ology, let us do it orally or b y phonography. And if am ong our pupils there are budding archaeologians, let them study Roman lettering as w e study hiero glyphics. A t any rate the first thing to do is to teach every one phonography. W hether it be b y Pitm an’s m e thod or another and better one does not m atter at the m om ent. It is not the absolutely quickest sys tem that w e require but, first o f all, the most reason able. Indeed m ere speed in shorthand has no longer even the com m ercial value it had. The dictaphone


1 23

is w ell on the w a y to m aking the use o f shorthand com m ercially unnecessary. Let us abolish from our minds any considerations o f m ere speed. There is no m ore reason w h y the speed o f w riting should be as great as that o f fast speech than there is that the speed o f speech should be as great as the speed o f fast thought. Think slow ly, speak slow ly, w rite s lo w ly ; but think the w ords, speak the sounds and w rite something w hich reasonably presents those sounds. I say again: first teach all the children. And that w o u ld be easy. M ost schools, especially those in tow ns, are already equipped w ith teachers capable o f doing the w ork. O ne generation o f children so brought up w ould give us a population fam iliar w ith w ords w ritten phonographically — a population w hich w ould see as m uch m eaning in a text w ritten phonographically as w e o f our generation do in texts w ritten in Roman lettering. In very fe w gen e rations phonography w o u ld be venerable and the shapes o f its signs end ow ed w ith loveliness for us. If anyone is so sentim ental as to w o rry about beauty, let him take com fort. There is no shape w hich is intrinsically ugly, no colour, no sound, no smell. A bad smell is sim ply one w h ich w e recognise

1 26


as harm ful or w hich w e associate with harmful things. So also w ith colours and sounds. The bad colours o f our aniline-dyed fabrics are on ly bad be cause the hum an eye is hurt b y unrelieved m ono ton y. The colour o f the neon light is a good colour in itself; it o n ly nauseates because it is m athem atic a lly uniform. M athem atical uniform ity is incom pa tible w ith the hum an sp irit; and it nauseates also because it reminds us o f the unrelieved acquisitive ness o f the unfortunate shopkeepers w h o in our absurd financial chaos cannot persuade us to buy their w retch ed w ares unless th ey blind and blast our eyes. The sound o f the klaxon hurts our ears — it is m eant to do so — lest w orse befall us. W ere it as rare as the screech o f the peacock w e should like it — at any rate its associations w ou ld be more delightful. f S o it is w ith the shapes o f th in g s: w h o w ould be so foolish as to say that the ‘p ot-h ook’ is less beauti ful than the ‘hanger’, that it is less pleasing w hen seen (for w h a t else but that w h ich pleases w hen seen can possibly be the beautiful?), and w h o w ould say that either ‘pot-hooks’ or ‘hangers’ are less beautiful than squares & circles? Such talk is pure nonsense. There are no such things as shapes except the shapes o f things, and if the things be good things only fools


12 7

could deem them ugly. It is not the shapes o f gables and lattice w in dow s w hich are ugly in sham Eliza bethan villas, but the dow nright silliness o f all such attem pts at putting back the clock — attem pts usually m ade b y those practical m en o f business w h o think them selves up-to-date. A section o f drain pipe is no more ugly than a circle m ade w ith com passes. W e only think it so because w e d o n ’t see the circle and only rem em ber the business o f drainage. So there is no earthly, still less any heavenly, rea son w h y phonography should be less beautiful, less pleasing to look at, than Roman inscriptions, m edi eval manuscripts or the best m odern printing. All that is necessary to m ake phonography beautiful is that men should love it, and if once it becam e a re cognised vehicle o f the com m on language w e should soon endow it w ith loveliness. And naturally it w ould soon occur that there w o u ld develop three or four or m any different form s or ad aptations o f phonographic sym bols. The engraver, the printer, the designer o f advertisem ents, even the tom bstone inscription cutter, w ill all m ake their characteristic contributions, and no one needs to bother about it beforehand. A nd there is one particularly strong argum ent in

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favour o f phonography as the com m on form o f w rit ing, and that is that no one w ill have to scribble as everyone does now . It is true that the shorthand clerk scribbles her shorthand as execrably as other people scribble their lo n gh an d — so that none but herself can read w h a t she has w ritten. But that is because she is professionally in a hurry — her living depends upon her ability to w rite as fast as anyone can speak. There is no such hurry w h en I w rite m y love letters or m y notes to the butcher. There is in fact plenty o f tim e to w rite shorthand slo w ly and therefore neatly and legibly. A s things are at present, handw riting has been ruined because everyone is forced to scribble. The on ly use o f handw riting to-day is for the m aking o f personal com m unications b etw een friends, and in spite o f every im provem ent & cheapening o f typ e w riting m achines there w ill alw ays be a necessity for people to com m unicate b y handw riting. Let such w riting be in p h o n o g ra p h y; then the w riting w ill be a logical presentation o f speech, there w ill be a real tim e correspondence b etw een speaking & w riting, and last o f all, but not least, there w ill be no excuse for bad w riting, illegible w riting, careless w riting, slovenly w riting.


1 29

It m ay be urged that in so far as people have to m ake use o f handw ritten com m unications there is a very good case for shorthand or phonography, but that for printed w o rk phonography w o u ld have no advantage over the traditional lettering, but this is not so. The printed w ord has to be set up or com posed letter b y letter as m uch as h andw ritten or typew ritten reading m atter. Phonographic signs are very considerably few er in num ber per w o rd than letters, and a corresponding econom y o f tim e and effort w ould be w on if books w ere printed phono graphically instead o f in letters. W h a t I w a n t therefore is, first, som e enterprising minister o f education w h o w ill institute phonogra phy as a com pulsory subject in all elem entary schools; and, second, some enterprising type-founder w h o w ill commission m e to design a fount o f phonogra phic symbols. Let us in conclusion consider the m atter on gene ral grounds. Let us consider this m atter o f reading and w riting & printing in relation to our civilisation. W hat has our civilisation in com m on w ith the civi lisation o f medieval England or that o f ancient Rome? Men and w om en are the same as th ey alw ays w ere. Physically and psychologically th ere’s nothing to

1 30


choose b etw een men and w om en o f to-day & those o f th e tim e o f H om er. N aturally w e suffer from nerves m ore than our ancestors— but then w e have so m uch m ore to w o rry us. N aturally w e have dis eases th ey k n e w not of, but then w e live so much less h e a lth ily — cooped up in tow ns & those row s o f boxes w e call railw a y train s— the Flying Scots m an is still a ro w o f boxes even though it is dolled up to look like the Strand Palace Hotel. Naturally w e are m uch m ore clever at m echanics than w ere our ancestors. But then w e have chosen to go in for physics instead o f m etaphysics. M etaphysics seems nonsense to us & physics seemed nonsense to them. But inside, underneath, men and w om en are still m ere m en and w om en . Sitting dow n and talking, eating and drinking, love-m aking and going to bed — w h a t possible difference is there in these activities to-day from yesterday or a thousand years ago? And our m ortal fram e! Is it n ot as m ortal as ever? & still it is b egotten as it alw ays w as and nourished on the same nourishm ent. A ll the same, this is a different civilisation from its predecessors — just as cricket is a different game from football. And as w e are n o w playing a different gam e from th at played b y our forefathers before they


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developed the m odern co-operative system w h ich w e call industrialism — I call it ‘co-operative’ because, as 1 am informed, it takes the co-operation o f 18 men to mind the m achine w h ich m akes a pin and the co-operation o f eighteen thousand m en to m ind the machines w hich m ake the pin-m aking m achine w hich the pin-makers mind, and, further, it takes the co-operation o f m any m ore m en and w o m en to pack, transport, advertise, keep the accounts and sell the pin w h en m ad e— so that n o w w e m ay say the m aking o f anything involves the co-operation o f practically everybody, and if that is not a co operative state, w h a t is?— I say as w e are n o w p la y ing a different gam e from that o f our forefathers w e should be annoyed to be com pelled to p lay it accord ing to obsolete rules and to use signs and sym bols w hich w ere developed and nourished according to the necessities o f a gam e w e have ceased to play. T h e w riting o f language in form er tim es w as the affair o f small and isolated scriptoria. Readers w ere few and leisured. The idea w as entirely absent that every man, w om an and child should be able to read & w rite. T h ey held it sufficient that everyone should m erely talk. N o w things are quite different. There is first o f all a national system o f com pulsory literary

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education paid for b y national taxation. G ood or bad, schools are neither small nor isolated. Nothing could be easier than for an enlightened minister in W hiteh all to com pel all children to learn Volapiik or Chinese. M oreover the business o f printed lettering has now , under the spur o f com m ercial com petition, got alto gether out o f hand and gone mad. There are now about as m any different varieties o f letters as there are different kinds o f fools. I m yself am responsible for designing five different sorts o f sans-serif letters — each one thicker and fatter than the last because every advertisem ent has to try and shout dow n its neighbours. And as there are a thousand different sorts o f fan cy lettering so there are m any too m any different sorts o f types for reading in b o o k s— all o f them copies and resuscitations and re-hashes and corruptions o f the printing types designed in pre industrial d a y s— none o f them designed for modern m achine p ro d u ctio n ; & the m achines themselves are com plicated b y every sort o f com plicated m echanism for producing the appearance o f pre-industrial things. Y ou cannot put back the c lo c k — no. But you can at least recognise that a certain am ount o f tim e has passed & not pretend that w e are still ancient Brit-


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ons. Lettering has had its day. Spelling, and p h ilo logy, and all such pedantries have no place in our world. The only w a y to reform m odern lettering is to abolish it.