Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/108

104 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. Condensed forms going out of use. Difficulties of composing title-pages. chapters. Their slender, graceful shapes were then a pleas- ing contrast to the squat and stubby faces of the rude old capital. Publishers preferred them : for many years no title was regarded as in good form if not composed in the grace- ful condensed letter. They have been cut by many founders, FRANCOIS AMBROISE DIDOT WAS A FAMOUS TYPE-FOUNDER AND AN ACCURATE PRINTER OF CLASSIC TEXTS. BORN 1730, DIED 1804. Two-line Pearl Condensed No. 121, from the foundry of George Bruce's Son & Co. for all the useful sizes, and of every degree of width, but they are declining in favor. There are publishers- and printers who prohibit them entirely in titles. The composition of title-pages is more of a task now than it was fifty years ago. As a rule, the more words there are in a title, the more ineffective is the composition. Difficulties seem to increase with the increase in styles of types. The reader reasonably wants a title that shall fairly set forth the subject; the author wants this too, but he also wants prominence given to some words and lines. Trying to please the author, the printer has to make, or thinks he has to make, a painfully nice balancing of long lines and short lines, of big and little types, of broad and narrow blanks, and to put in, here and there, a sprinkling of Italic and Black Letter, to break up the monotony of upright capitals. The effect of composition done in this manner is