Page:The practice of typography - a treatise on the processes of type-making, the point system, the names, sizes, styles and prices of plain printing types by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/18

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12

Methods in Designing of Letters

times approved, in the letters of a good penman, or in engraving, or in the types of job printers, is not-tolerated in the text-types of books, which must be precise.^[1]

The assortment of characters known to printers as a font of roman book-type requires the engraving of 150 punches: 29 large capitals, including &, Æ, and Œ; 29 small capitals, including &, æ, and œ; 33 lower-case characters, including ﬁ, ﬂ, ﬀ, ﬃ, ﬄ, æ, and œ; 19 figures and fractions; 22 points, references, and signs; 18 other characters. Accents and the special signs required for some books are not furnished in the regular assortment.

These characters are divided into six classes of irregular heights of face: (1) Full-bodied letters, like Q and j—that occupy the entire body of the

↑ Dürer's rules and diagrams for the formation of letters, in his "Unterweysung der Messung" of 1524, are reprinted in "Die Initialen der Renaissance," by Camillo Sitte and Josef Salb (folio, Vienna, 1882). Geoffrey Tory of Paris, in his "Champfleury" of 1529; Ycair of Saragossa, in his "Orthographia Practica" of 1548; and Paccioli of Venice, in his "De Divina Proportione" of 1509, have also devised geometrical formulas for letters. Moxon's scheme for the plotting out of each letter in little squares 42 wide and 42 high is illustrated in the text (p. 13), and detailed explanations of it are given in his "Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum" of 1676. The extreme of scientific precision was attempted by a commission of the "Académie des Sciences" of Paris, appointed in 1694, of which M. Jaugeon was the chief. He recommended the projection of every roman capital on a framework of 2304 little squares, and on a congeries of squares and rhomboids and curves for lower-case and italic letters. These rules and diagrams no doubt are of some use to designers of letters, but they have never been fully adopted by any punch-cutter.

[1] Dürer's rules and diagrams for the formation of letters, in his "Unterweysung der Messung" of 1524, are reprinted in "Die Initialen der Renaissance," by Camillo Sitte and Josef Salb (folio, Vienna, 1882). Geoffrey Tory of Paris, in his "Champfleury" of 1529; Ycair of Saragossa, in his "Orthographia Practica" of 1548; and Paccioli of Venice, in his "De Divina Proportione" of 1509, have also devised geometrical formulas for letters. Moxon's scheme for the plotting out of each letter in little squares 42 wide and 42 high is illustrated in the text (p. 13), and detailed explanations of it are given in his "Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum" of 1676. The extreme of scientific precision was attempted by a commission of the "Académie des Sciences" of Paris, appointed in 1694, of which M. Jaugeon was the chief. He recommended the projection of every roman capital on a framework of 2304 little squares, and on a congeries of squares and rhomboids and curves for lower-case and italic letters. These rules and diagrams no doubt are of some use to designers of letters, but they have never been fully adopted by any punch-cutter.

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