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Appropriate for all Occasions of Ceremony Festival, Church & High-class Typography

18 POINT

8A 25 a $3 25

The taste of the advanced Typographer is once more inclined toward the classic style of lettering, which for centuries satisfied lovers of the genuine in Art-Such a letter is the Bradley

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American Cype Founders Company

For Sale at its Eighteen Branches

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American Type Founders Co.

For Sale at its Eighteen Branches

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Striking

ALL the Type
Ornaments Dainty
Borders

Used by The Typographical Journal

Beautiful

In its new form were supplied by the American Type Founders' Company. This puts The Typographical Journal right in line with the Century, Scribner, Munsey's, Cosmopolitan, Newspaperdom, Engraver and Printer, Paper and Press, and other models of typographic effect-all using our type.

REMEMBER?

We Lead the Fashions in Type

The Best is the Cheapest, especially so

TWO THINGS when it costs no more than Second Best

American Type Founders' Co.

BOSTON, 150 Congress St.

NEW YORK, Rose and Duane Sts.
PHILADELPHIA, 606-614 Sansom St.
BALTIMORE, Frederick and Water Sts.
BUFFALO, 83 Ellicott St.
PITTSBURGH, 323|Third Ave.
CHICAGO, 139-141 Monroe St.
CLEVELAND, 239 St. Clair St.
CINCINNATI, 7-13 Longworth St.
MILWAUKEE, 89 Huron St.

ST. LOUIS, Fourth and Elm Sts.

MINNEAPOLIS, 24-26 First St., South.
KANSAS CITY, 533 Delaware St.
OMAHA, III8 Howard St.
DENVER, 1616 Blake St.

PORTLAND, Second and Stark Sts.
SAN FRANCISCO, 405 Sansome St.
ATLANTA, 23 E. Mitchell St.]
DALLAS, 256 Commerce St.

The Best of Everything for the Printer

BEAOREAORTAORGAON

THIS PAGE SET IN QUENTELL, WITH COLLINS BAND, 24 PT. No, 209, 20 IN., $1.50.

When you write, please mention this Journal.

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A Few Hints on the Use and Abuse of Ornaments and the Possibilities of Tasty and Effective Work.

BY LOUIS F. FUCHS.

YING before me are several numbers of the once fin de siecle American Model Printer, of the vintage of '81-'82. They are reminiscent, carrying me back to the days when

the Eastlake style of ornamentation was in its heyday, when glyptics were reckoned the proper thing, and when the artist who couldn't conceal the English sought to be conveyed in a luxuriant jungle of palm trees, interspersed with Chinese deities like so many fortuitous events, was considered sadly lagging the times. How I did long for the appearance of these same numbers, and how envied were the architects who builded the fearful and wonderful specimens of the colored supplement sheet! Not then did I know, but now, that amid much that was noteworthy in all that step building and tree planting there was much more that was unworthy. As I look at them now I wonder how some ever gained that honored place. One example particularly-an atrocious card in red, yellow and gold-I remember as a then paragon of beauty, a thing to be peeped at with envy;'yet I dare say the local gentleman who evolved it is heartily ashamed of it

now.

So much for what was held excellent in days gone by. For the rest, it must

be said, they were brighter than these days-in some respects at any rate. The apprentice was sure of tuition, and printing was not so nearly all business; and if the material then known did imperfectly suffice to express the somewhat tortuous ideas contemporary thereto, it at least served to scatter abroad with the names of divers devotees at the mystical shrine of the Eastlake some stray gleams of what was even then evolving itself out of mere floridness-that is, rule work proper.

Our rule workers are more modest, being content with rule work, per se; and rarely now do we see a really good piece of such work burdened with meaningless persiflage. Thus has modesty of design lifted the work of today to a dignity heretofore unknown. The latter characteristic dominates the art of today. It has outgrown the meaningless ambuscades of ornaments in which our predecessors entrapped the too trusting customer. Conscienceless robbery of space is now replaced by an equivalent for the money spent by the advertiser.

With the advent of the blacker faces of distinguished cut and the relegation to the uttermost shades of oblivion of the whole wretched tribe of shaded and rimmed types, the possibilities of tasty and effective work, with or without ornamentation, has become manifest. Not only

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has this new class of letters revolutionized the old custom of covering every possible spot of the paper, and abrogated the less ancient fallacy of light and shade, once considered absolute, but it has given rise to a whole host of grotesqueries, which, rightly used, play such an important part in our daily work. The pointer, that quick dart of the brain, has evolved itself from its prototype, the black sharpened letter. No ornament.was ever devised in printing which did better service, or which could be had so cheaply. It is made in a moment, whether slender or chubby, and requires only a scrap of rule and a steady, firm stroke of the file. It is never out of place and always embellishes.

The artist printer nowadays forbears to ransack the house for flub-dubs of antediluvian descent; he makes his ornamentation to order-by which I mean that his grace work has meaning and plays a distinctly secondary part. He never lets it overcrop or obscure the intent of the subject-matter, nor does he feel it necessary to advertise the office ornaments. No matter what ornamentation is used, whether much or little, the first desideratum is a readable text; all else is exuber

ance.

In discussing at all the question of ornamentation on ordinary job work, this principle should be carried in mind as paramount to all others; that is, that ornament is exuberance, no more necessary to artistic typesetting than is at gilded and frescoed ceiling in a theater necessary to a proper presentation of a Shakesperian drama. Too many, especially young, printers believe artistic and fancy synonymous. It is an old, old fallacy that has led many to worship false gods in vain. Much better it is to woo a tangible, attainable reality than an elusive will-o-the-wisp. A fancy job poorly executed is worse than a plain job poorly executed. The former is irrevocable, a monument to unskill, while the latter can be remedied in a moment. And good, first-class work is done without a trace of

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ornament further than a modicum of grace in the shape of a pointer or two, or perhaps one of the many grotesqueries now so prevalent. First-class fancy work, on the other hand, is rarely met with, and more rarely still leaves a lasting impression for good.

It is not my intention to decry or discourage fancy work. courage fancy work. At the right time. and in the proper subjection such work is ennobling. It marks one of the amenities of what is otherwise too frequently merely ten hours of toil. In success it adds dignity and self-respect to the creator of such work; in failure it is a thing to be deplored. It is rather the avoidance of failure I want to discuss.

Fancy work (rule work) should never be attempted hap-hazard. A job important enough to be given time for ornamental work should be important enough to wait to be done right. And if it must be done, there is no quicker or more effective way than to put it on paper first with pencil. Take a sheet of paper, mark the size you want to cover, and then carefully sketch the skeleton of your type sizes. Make your drawing as near to the display you mean to give the job as you can; then draw your rule work. That finished, get your type. Don't set your rule work first and then tumble from your seventh heaven of self-approbation because your job don't look as well as you fondly hoped it would. It is not the rule work that will make your job look well, but the type work. It comes back to the primary fact of good or bad display, and if the latter, all the rule-twisting in the world wont make your finished (?) product look otherwise than bob-tailed. Another point: in making your drawing take great pains to place your display lines. just where they should be, and when you cut your rules, cut them the same in length as shown by the drawing; if curved, curve them the same. In setting the job, follow the spacing shown by the drawing, it being taken for granted it pleases you. If it does, the job as set up will also.

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