Punch-cutting in the First Process
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Punch-cutting is the first process
who are expert in two or three of these departments, but the ordinary workman has knowledge and practice in one department only. Punch-cutting is the first process, which must be preceded by a careful drawing of the characters. No operation in typography requires more skill than this, and in none is error more disastrous.[1] The modern punch-cutter is not fettered by arbitrary rules: he does not conform to the models devised by Albert Dürer, nor those subsequently made by French theorists in type-founding. He is at liberty to design characters that may be taller or broader, thicker or thinner, than any heretofore made, but he is required to make all the characters of a full font uniform as to style, so as to show perfect correlation.Types must be drawn accurately The characters must seem uniform as to height, line, stroke, serif, curve, and angle; they should be in proper relative proportion as to size, and as to nearness and distance in all combinations. The beauty of text-types is in their precision. That freedom of drawing which is permitted, and some-- ↑ Type-founding is not like other arts, in which imperfect workmanship may find a use proportionate to its relative value. Printing should tolerate nothing that is bad, nor even that which is mediocre, since it costs as much to found and print bad types as it does to found and print perfect ones. If the punch-cutter has not the requisite ability for the work, the founder, who gives metal, and the printer, who gives paper, cannot retrieve his errors. They are obliged to perpetuate these evidences of his mean ability, and to dishonor typography. Fournier, "Manuel Typographique," vol. i, p. 3.
