Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 Excerpt: ... is no occasion for inventing strange types. There are more varieties that may truthfully claim direct descent from the two ancestors of the race of legitimate type faces than any designer will ever be able to employ, if he lives to be a century old, and The secondary display line here should have been one full line, like the line under the signature, and the text all should have been in the same type as the first four lines, without spaces between the paragraphs. has more business than all designers combined now have. The only reason for going outside the legitimate lines of type would be the paucity of the designer's invention, or the rare exceptional emergency. We do see, now and then, a piece of advertising done in type for which there is no good excuse, and we are persuaded that it has an excuse for being. But the more we see of it the less it impresses us, until at the last we realize that it is truly the discredited supposed exception that proves the soundness of the rule. There is in this matter nothing arbitrary, except the arbitrary nature of our eyes and our education in art. It is futile for advertisers to try to kick against these pricks. It is worse than futile, it is an economic offense, a mistake that is certain to prove costly for the advertiser who is paying the bills. Those "families" of type that come within the limits here suggested are shown, by sample lines, on the succeeding pages. These samples are, in a general way, quite comprehensive. The sample books of type foundries would show some faces that are entitled to be called original, and different from these. They show a great many styles which might be substituted for some that are here shown, and designers have the privilege of substituting them if they find it convenien...
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