James Watt's improvements to the steam engine, and its subsequent application to manufacturing in the late 18th and early 19th century, resulted in a major societal shift. Traditionally manual laborers learned their trade by progressing through stages of apprenticeship under a master craftsman. The new steam engine driven machines replaced the craftsmen system with faster and cheaper production but often greatly inferior results. The critical eye and artistry of the craftsman was sacrificed for speed. The worker now served the machine, feeding it raw materials and allowing it to determine the final product.
The Arts and Crafts Movement was an international design movement that reacted against mass production, both the low quality of design and the demeaning conditions under which products were produced. The movement began in England in the late 1800s, and spread to the United States in the early decades of the 20th century.
The arts and crafts movement idealistically tried to rejoin art and industry together but the economies of scale worked against their goal of bringing good design to the masses. In the graphic arts field small private presses, forming under a model created by William Morris, reawakened fine printing and revivals of classic typefaces.
After unsuccessful attempts in Germany and Russia, Frederich Koenig (1774—1833) traveled to England and partnered with Andreas F. Bauer (1783 – 1860) to construct the first printing machine powered by steam. He replaced the flat platen with a revolving impression cylinder (above top) which carried the paper as well as applied the necessary pressure. Steam powered presses increased the quantity of impressions by 500%. In 1814 The London Times, the first to use the new press, decimated its printing staff by replacing them with the new press capable of printing 1,100 sheets per hour. The Times averted threats of violence by paying the printers until they found new employment.
You can read the long and sad story of Mr. Koenig's press invention in Men of Invention and Industry, Samuel Smiles, 1884.
In 1846 Richard Hoe installed the first rotary press (above bottom) for the Philadelphia Ledger. In his configuration the type was held onto the cylinder rather than the flat bed. By 1861 the hand-set type was replaced by curved plates called stereotypes. The plates were cast from molds taken from set type. Numerous identical plates could be taken from one set of type and then distributed to several presses.
William Bullock introduced web printing, or printing on continuous sheets of paper, in 1865.
American typeface designer Linn Boyd Benton created the Benton Pantograph, an engraving machine capable not only of scaling font design patterns to a variety of sizes, but also condensing, extending and slanting the design. Mathematically, the pantograph works in affine transformation which is the fundamental geometric operation of most systems of digital typography today, including PostScript.
In an interview by Mark Solsburg, Mathew Carter remarked on the repercussions of the pantograph on the typographic community. “A Milwaukee engineer named Linn Boyd Benton put the first 'nail in the coffin' of local foundries in 1884 when he invented a pantographic punchcutter, a router-like engraving machine for cutting the steel punches for type. That was the most important technical development in typography since Gutenberg´s invention of variable-width type molds in the 15th century.”
Above, a woman typesetter. Suggested Reading for graphic design insomniacs, History of Composing Machines, John Thompson, 1904.
Linotype, 1886
The final graphic arts processes to be mechanized were typecasting and setting. Triumphing where others had failed, the first successful typesetting device was invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886. Unlike his competitors who created systems that circulated pieces of type, Mergentahaler circulated the molds. The name linotype refers to the output of the machine, a complete line of cast type. Monotype, 1887
Tolbert Lanston of Washington, D.C., invented the Monotype, which mechanically cast individual letters.
You can see these machines working in videos on Typeculture, a digital type foundry and academic resource. Link here to Typeculture.
American Type Founders, 1892
To survive the competition by Linotype and Monotype, 23 type foundries united to form the ATF. They supplied pre-cast metal type nationwide. By 1903 the ATF established headquarters in New Jersey and hired Morris Fuller Benton (son of
Linn Boyd Benton.) as director. Read more...
Negative Impact of Industrialization
In the graphic arts field punchcutters, type casters, type setters and printers were losing their jobs as the result of mechanization. The exit of the professional craftsman had a detrimental effect on print design.
(Also known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition) Awash with pride and profits from the Industrial Revolution the English upper class, spearheaded by Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) organized a showcase for modern industrial technology and design. England and a number of invited countries displayed their achievements in four categories: Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufacturers and Fine Arts.
The exhibition was a popular success but the critical reviews were not complementary of the exhibitors. Critics found the work created by industrialized methods to be shoddy and poorly designed, full of superfluous ornaments that did not enhance the product. The Victorian propensity for over-decoration with a hodgepodge of unrelated styles was ridiculed as symptomatic of a tasteless and over-capitalistic society.
Owen Jones, 1856, See it here
In response to the call for better understanding of design and ornamentation, Owen Jones published an exhaustive inventory of international and historical decorative styles. Printed in colorful lithographs, the book includes 20 sections of illustrated motifs and Jones's 37 Propositions on what makes good design. “Modern, scientific and devoid of deliberate historicism, operating by principles to create an ornament for every kind of decoration.” (Jespersen, 2008)
Proposition 5
Construction should be decorated. Decoration should never be purposely constructed. That which is beautiful is true; that which is true must be beautiful.
Proposition 37
No improvement can take place in the Art of the present generation until all classes, Artists, Manufacturers, and the Public, are better educated in Art, and the existence of general principles is more fully recognized.
Jones' books... “pioneered new standards in chromolithography. Jones used his printing press to enter the lucrative market for illustrated and illuminated gift books ... He developed innovative new binding techniques ..., papier mâché and terracotta ...much of which could trace its aesthetic lineage back to sumptuous medieval illuminated manuscripts and religious bindings.”
Read more..
56
Born to wealth, John Ruskin was an author, poet and art critic whose socialist convictions caused him to reject his fortune to fulfill his ideologies. Ruskin's theorized that the Industrial Revolution's division of labor induced monotony and was the main cause of the unhappiness of the poor. He looked backward to an idealized medieval period as a paradigm of the union of art and labor in service to society. He romanticized “The organic relationship ...between the worker and his guild, the worker and his community, between the worker and his natural environment, and between the worker and his God.”
Ruskin's writings influenced many important social advocates including Mahatma Gandhi. His anti-capitalist essay, Unto This Last, 1862, criticized the destructive effects of industrialization on the natural world, a foreshadowing of today's Green Movement. Ruskin's critical art reviews could make or break the careers of contemporary painters. This explains why Ruskin's critical review of James Whistler's paintings engendered a law suit. (See entry # 11 in Books)
Ruskin's initial support of the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of artists who rejected the 'decadence' of the established Royal Academy, gave the group the credibility they needed to be accepted as serious artists. Ruskin admired the group's commitment to nature and the belief that art should communicate truth. (Things went south after Ruskin's wife left him for one of the Pre-Raphaelites).
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Toward the middle of the 19th century, a small group of young painters formed a secret society in reaction against what they felt was “the frivolous art of the day." They deeply admired the simplicities of the early 15th century and wanted to bring English art back to a greater “truth to nature," something they felt had been lost in the grand manner of Raphael.
“Although the official Brotherhood lasted only a few years, their work and objectives influenced a second wave of English painters and artisans, including Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, who came down to London from Oxford University to begin their careers in 1856. They met Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whom they greatly admired, and even moved into his old rooms. Morris and Rossetti set about designing a suite of furniture based on medieval models. These furnishings were an early foray into decorative arts. Within a few years, Morris founded Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, a firm devoted to producing artist-designed, hand-crafted household objects.”
Morris and his Pre-Raphaelite associates deeply believed that beautiful objects would improve individual lives adversely affected by the harsh industrial world.” Quote Source Delaware Art Museum site.
Morris is widely credited as the founder of the arts and crafts movement. As David Raizman writes, “The spiritualization of craft, its link to social reform and skepticism toward the widely held view that industrialization and progress went hand in hand, characterize Morris's attitude and became the basis for a number of organizations and other initiatives that were generally known as the Arts and Crafts Movement.”
Morris originally trained for the clergy but his admiration for Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites led him to pursue a career as an artist and craftsman. A true Renaissance man, Morris was an author, artist, poet, publisher, socialist and public speaker.
Morris married the Pre-Raphaelite muse, Jane Burden, and commissioned a new residence, the Red House. Unhappy with the quality of products available for furnishings, Morris worked along with friends to create wallpaper, tapestries and furniture demonstrating good craftsmanship and design. At the project's end, in 1861, they joined together to form a business, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. By 1875, after some partnership disputes, Morris reorganized the partnership into Morris & Co.
Morris's designs were were influenced by the truth to nature credo of the Pre-Raphaelites. He gathered his imagery from nature and used natural and traditional methods, for example using natural vegetable dye for printing on material and printing wallpaper and textiles with wood blocks. Morris's concept of the house as a total work of art, with all of the interior objects designed by the architect, emerged from this studio and remained a central theme throughout the Arts and Crafts movement and extended into later design movements.
Morris was a practicing Socialist but his ideals did not mesh with the realities of his business. His refusal to use modern production methods meant that his products were expensive and only afforded by the rich—not exactly the customer base that he wanted to serve. He hated “spending ... life ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich.”
During the final phase of his life Morris combined his love for medieval literature with his craftsman workshop ethic into the Kelmscott press, the first and most famous of the private press movement. Joined by fellow socialist and typographic expert, Emery Walker, Morris studied incunabulum from which he drew inspiration for manufacturing his own paper, ink and type design.
Morris admired and studied the letterforms of Nicholas Jenson. He had Jenson's letters photographed and enlarged, and used them as the basis for his own Jenson adaptation, Golden Type.
Troy, shown above, was based upon studies of manuscript blackletter. Please note that the versions shown here are digital recreations of Morris's type. In seven years of operation the Kelmscott hand-operated press published 53 books in 18,000 copies. The Kelmscott Chaucer, Morris's masterpiece, took several years to complete the 556 pages and 87 illustrations. In total 425 copies of the book were completed by a total of 11 master printers
The Kelmscott Colophon Device
Kelmscott books re-awakened the lost ideals of book design and inspired higher standards of production at a time when the printed page was at its poorest.
Morris was fascinated not only with the design of books but wrote a number his own. His fantasy stories were a direct inspiration for C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia and influenced Tolkein's,The Lord of the Rings. Read more
Some contemporary critics deride the typefaces of Morris and his followers as artsy, not refined enough to be considered serious typography.None can dispute however, that the private press movement increased appreciation for fine printing as well as revived the field of typographic design.
Poster by Phil Abel and Nick Gill of Hand & Eye Letterpress
After Morris died, fine press printers looked beyond the medieval era, seeking the clarity of the Venetian Renaissance printers. They designed sparser text pages dependent upon good typography and well designed type faces— encouraging a new generation of type design. Historical type faces were studied, revived and used as the basis for new iterations. New punches were cut, new types were cast. Some designers, working between the worlds of the private press and the commercial press, were able to bring the better quality to the mass market. Important typographic figures who emerged from the private press include Eric Gill, Bruce Rogers and Frederick Goudy.
Morris inspired numerous fine presses in England starting with Charles Ricketts' Vale Press, followed by Essex House Press, the Doves Press, Lucien and Esther Pissarro's Eragny Press. The movement spread internationally through Europe and the United States.
Charles Ricketts (1863-1931) book designer, wood engraver, illustrator and printer started the Vale press to publish work by both classical and contemporary authors. Initially he emulated Morris's border engravings and elaborate initial capitals but later scaled back the decoration. The press closed after producing its masterpiece, the Vale Shakespeare. (Shown above)
Three type designs were produced for the press; Vale, based upon Jenson, Avon and the King's Fount. Ricketts destroyed the matrices and type of all three by tossing them into the Thames or melting back into metal. Read Rickett's Defense of the Revival of Printing, 1899.
Encouraged by Morris and wife Jane, T. J. Coben-Sanderson (1840–1922) quit an unhappy law career to become a book binder. His successful bindery engaged a number of craftsmen who produced over 1,000 of Coben-Sanderson designs. In 1900 he founded a press in partnership with Emery Walker (who had previously worked with Morris.) The books of the Dove's press were the polar opposite of Morris— the Kelmscott's ornate style was rejected for clean, elegant pages that emphasized fine typography.
In the five volume Dove's Bible, 1903, set metal typography was harmonized with large calligraphic initial letters drawn by Edward Johnston. Read more about Johnston at the bottom of the handwriting page or on the Edward Johnston Foundation site. The press's typeface was based upon the design of Nicholas Jenson, cut by punchcutter, Edward Prince and cast at Miller & Richard type foundry. Under Coben-Sanderson's direction the result was considerably lighter than the Kelmscott Jenson. Sadly, the punches and matrices were lost forever when the volatile Coben-Sanderson chucked them into the Thames River after a disagreement with Walker. Today you can see a similar digital revival by Torbjörn Olsson.
Edward Prince (1846–1923)
One of the few remaining punch-cutters in the 19th century, Edward Prince, cut many of the private press faces including all three of the Kelmscott Press, the Vale and Doves fonts, Brook for the Eragny Press, Subiaco for the Ashendene Press, and Endeavor for the Essex House Press. Prince also
cut Edward Johnston's designs for the Cranach Press. Prince taught punch-cutting at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1914 to 1918.
Taken over in 1924 by Robert Gibbings, The Golden Cockerel Press distinguished itself not only for its high quality of printing but for the rich wood cuts by various artists including Eric Gill. The masterpiece of the press is the Four Gospels, which used Gill's wood cut illustrations as well as his type face design.
13. Nonesuch Press, 1922
Francis and Vera Meynell and partner David Garnett started the Nonesuch Press in London. A more hybrid approach was taken— to retain the quality of a hand made book but to avoid the high expense of the traditional labor and materials, an Albion handpress was used create the design and the final printing was carried out at a commercial press and bindery. The Nonesuch formula was successfully used to publish 140 titles which sold for slightly above the cost of a conventionally produced book.
Eric Gill had talents in many areas: letter carving, wood block engraving, calligraphy, printing, type design and sculpture. Embracing the arts and crafts communal life and the rejection of industrialization, he added his own mixture of eccentric clothing, sexual obsessions, devout Catholicism and familial devotion. A quote by Abbot Ford in Gill's diary seems to sum up Gill's philosophy, "Ideals are more important than morals."
Gill launched his type career after studying under Edward Johnston who significantly influenced both Gill's style and dogma. Despite his dislike for mechanical typesetting in 1923 Gill was persuaded to create type commercially by Stanley Morison, type adviser to the Monotype Corporation. Under Morison's direction Gill designed a number of successful typefaces. The book font, Perpetua (1929), used the Trajan Column inscription as the model for the upper case. Gill did not cut punches, declaring “it is not my country,” hence Parisian typesetter Charles Malin executed the masters for monotype production.
His famous Gill Sans, quite similar to Johnston's Underground design, was developed to compete with sans serifs, such as Kabel and Futura, that were coming out of Germany. With an intense aversion to photo mechanical scaling, Gill preferred to draw each size and weight individually to avoid distortion.
Joanna, designed for Gill's private press, Hague and Gill, was modeled after the work of Robert Granjon. It was used for setting Gill's An Essay on Typography, 1931, which can be partially read on-line on google books. Included in his manual are some of his thoughts about the evils of industrialization and history of letterforms until 1930.
“I have tried in all waysTo be a perfect printer
I have never been swayed
By thoughts of fame or dinner
I have used white paper
And I have used black ink
I have never catered
To what other people think”.
Weimar, Germany, 1913
Count Harry Kessler, (1868–1937) although not an artist himself, established his Cranach Press by assembling a stable of the best talent money could buy including Eric Gill and William Morris's former punchcutter, Edward Prince. (Although Prince had some problems link). The Cranach Press produced three masterpieces including the "Eclogues of Virgil," 1926, illustrated by Aristide Maillol and Hamlet, 1930, featuring wood-engravings by Edward Gordon Craig. (Shown above)
16. Insel Verlag (1899)
Symbol by Peter Behrens.
Started as a monthly magazine, the Island Press turned book publisher and printed millions of inexpensive yet well designed, well printed pocket books. Of note was a 1913 facsimile of Gutenberg's Bible. A gallery of Insel Verlag covers can be seen here.
Both van Krimpen and de Roos remained committed to traditional book typography while their contemporaries experimented in avant garde directions. (see Avant -garde lecture for DeStijl). De Roos, dedicated to the revival of Dutch book design completed the first Dutch typeface in 150 years, Hollandsche Mediæval, in 1912. Influenced by the Art and Crafts movement, he was a pioneer in bridging the gap between the Arts and Crafts movement and the reality of modern book production.
De Roos was employed at the Amsterdam Type Foundry as both graphic designer and type face designer. He produced numerous typefaces for both commercial and private press. His produced an uncial face, Libra, for J. F. van Royen's Zilverdistal Press.
The Netherlands
Van Krimpen started his career as a bookbinder but taught himself calligraphy using Anna Simons’ German translation of Edward Johnston's Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering. (See more about Anna in the Writing Lecture, #20) In 1925, he began working as a professional type designer at Joh. Enschedé and Sons in Haarlem. His early type design, Lutetia, used as the official Dutch font at the Exposition International des Artes Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1927, was critically praised.
At Enschedé he worked with P.H. Rädisch, one of the last punchcutters in the Netherlands. Van Krimpen's designs included Romanée, Romulus, Haarlemmer, and Spectrum. Romulus was a early 'super family' with roman, cursive, chancery italic, sans serif and Greek in a range of weights. You can read his thoughts on type in his On Designing and Devising Types.
(Recommended Reading and van Krimpen content source: Sjaak Hubregtse:The Aesthetic World of Jan van Krimpen.
mer
A communal synergy, echoing that of the husbands and wives who worked together at the family press during the earliest centuries of printing, was rekindled during the arts and crafts period. Some women entered as writers—such as English author, Virginia Wolf, who started the Hogarth Press with her husband in 1917.
Victor Hammer (1882–1967) Austrian born Hammer established his press, the Stamperia del Santuccio, in Italy in 1929. He brought his knowledge of 15th century printing to the US as a teacher at Wells College where he designed the typeface American Unical. In 1943, Carolyn Reading, first Hammer's student and then his wife, organized the Bur Press with printer, Amelia Buckley. They printed books thematically centered on Kentucky. In 1956, Carolyn Hammer founded the King Library Press, printing on Victor Hammer's reconstructed Florentine wooden hand press. An interview with Carolyn Hammer.
Jane Grabhorn (1911–1973) worked at the Grabhorn Press. Like her husband Bob and brother-in-law Ed, she did a bit of everything at the press, from writing copy to editing, typography, composition, and binding. Quote Source: Unseen Hands Archives
Caricature of Goudy par Cyril Lowe
20.
Bruce Rogers
The Riverside Press, 1896–1912
Bruce Rogers, an illustrator, turned to printing after his exposure to William Morris's book designs. In 1895 Rogers was appointed as successor to Daniel Berkley Updike at Houghton Mifflin's Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1900 he was appointed head of the production of the Riverside's limited-edition books. Free of budget and time constraints Rogers printed fine press books with hand set text and handmade paper. A number of fonts were created under his direction including Montaigne, Riverside Modern and Brimmer.
Rogers successfully carried his fine press sensibilities over to his many trade editions designed during his 17 years with Houghton Mifflin.
In 1915 Rogers produced a translation of Maurice de Geurin’s The Centaur in his own type design, (based on his earlier Montaigne) and named the font after the title of the book. Similar to so many other private press fonts, Centaur was based on a design cut by Nicolas Jenson for Eusebius, 1470. The entire edition was hand-set by his wife, Anna Rogers (d. 1931) and printed in a limited edition of 135 copies at the Montague Press in Massachusetts. The typeface, originally commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was in need of a matching italic—italics had not been part of Jenson's original design. Rogers hired Frederic Warde to design the accompanying italic based upon the work of 16th century Italian calligrapher, Ludovico degli Arrighi.
(Above) Rogers contribution to a type sample book entitled Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation, for Mergenthaler Linotype Co. Brooklyn, 1936. Fulltable.co
Rogers worked as printing adviser for both the Cambridge University Press in England and the Harvard University Press in the US. From 1929 through 1931 he worked with Emery Walker at the Oxford University Press. During his time in Britain Rogers produced some of his finest books including his Bible and The Odyssey of Homer, 1932.
In 1935 Roger's masterpiece, The Bible for Oxford University Press, was completed in lectern-sized format with pages that measured 12 x 16 inches. The type is a special version of Centaur, 22 points, set on a 19 point body to save space. The type was set using the Monotype typecasting machine, in a pioneering demonstration that proved that beautiful, well-designed books could be produced using modern methods. A copy of the Bible was donated to the Library of Congress who honored Rogers by placing his emblem on its bronze doors.
After returning to the States, Rogers settled in his home in New Fairfield, Connecticut. He designed books for the Limited Editions Club of New York, notably an illustrated, thirty-seven-volume folio of Shakespeare. A history of the Limited Editions Club.
In an 1939 interview in the New York Times, Rogers is described, “Fond of bright clothing, Italian cooking, puns and typographical horseplay, Bruce Rogers particularly likes lying abed mornings.” In his light-hearted manner Rogers referred to himself as a 'tramp printer.'
See Bruce Rogers' books at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
21. Frederic Goudy
The Village Press, 1903–1939
Frederic Goudy (1865–1947), worked as a printer, book designer, and author. Notably he was the first American to make the designing of type a dedicated profession. His career as a type designer was both successful and prolific, designing 124 different typefaces. With a full command of typographic processes he executing many of these from the drawing stage to the casting. Printing and type design for Goudy were activities that required “all of the skills of fine craftsmanship while still operating in the framework of the Machine Age.” Quote source
Goudy designed fonts for American and British foundries. He sold eight to the Caslon Foundry in London and several for Lanston Monotype Co. Dissatisfied with some interpretations of his designs, Goudy opened his own type foundry in 1925. Some of Goudy's most well known fonts are Copperplate Gothic and Goudy Old Style.
Follow this link to a specimen of Goudy's Monotype Kennerley font from the Progressive Composition Company of Philadelphia. The font was created for a H. G. Wells anthology published by M. Kennerley.
Here you can watch a charming silent movie of Goudy drawing and cutting type using a pantograph.
Typologia: studies in type design and type making, Berkeley, 1940.
Goudy's wife, Bertha M. Sprinks Goudy, cut the 24-point italic of the press' Deepdene font. She set the type for much of the output of the Village Press which the Goudys founded together with Will Ransom in 1903. (Source: Unseen hands, Women Printers, Binders and Book Designers)
Their first book was Printing, an Essay by William Morris & Emery Walker. Link to a digital copy. Unfortunately the Village Press was twice struck by devastating fires, destroying many of Goudy's type designs. Deciding not to build his press a third time, Goudy spent the later part of his career lecturing and teaching type design.
This and more Goudy images http://tipografos.net/designers/goudy.html
Private Library: An excellent link to information about private press and rare books
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