nineteenth century and the Industrial Revolution. Commerce was
expanding its boundaries. A primitive form of print advertising replaced
the tradesman as the primary hawker of goods. In Printing Types: An
Introduction(Beacon Press, 1971 ) Alexander Lawson wrote: “Early in the
nineteenth century English type founders produced a variety of embellished
types designed to emphasize their unique characteristics for the single
purpose of attracting attention. Fat faces, grotesques, and Egyptians—
decorative types when compared to the romans that had undergone but
minor changes since fifteenth-century Italy—were not flamboyant enough
for the new requirements of advertising display.”
Type founders discovered that virtually any unusual design would
be purchased by job printers for advertising, broadsides, and packages.
Initially the ornamented types were inline or outline versions of the Didot
and Egyptian styles, but designers soon switched from altering existing
faces to creating more unique and outlandish inventions. Letterforms
mimicked the appearance of Gothic architecture, and were intricately
designed with filigree like that applied to cast-iron machinery. Type echoed
the Victorian’s penchant for extravagant decoration.
Some of these alphabets were reproduced from letters in ancient
manuscripts, but most were conceived by artists and produced at great
expense. A somewhat arcane, but nevertheless important, distinction must
be made between ornamented typefaces and the so-called fancy faces. Since
designers of the latter were prone to derive inspiration more from common
sign painters than from monastic scripts, fancy faces did not resemble book
illumination, but rather vernacular lettering.
Concerning fashions in typefaces, an 1879 issue of the Typographic
Advertiseroffered the following: “We change, tastes change, fashions
change. The special furor is now for bric-a-brac—antique pots and platters,
Japanese oddities, and Chinese monstrosities. But fashion’s rule is despotic,
and so, yielding to her commands, we have prepared and show in this
number some oddities to meet the taste of the times.... As printers no
doubt desire to be in fashion, we trust they will approve our course by
sending in orders for them, that their patrons also may catch the
infection... ”
The infection eventually disappeared. As the Victorian era came to
an end the passion for extreme ornament faded. A renewed interest in
typography of classic origin contributed to the demise. In The Practice of
Typography( 1900 ), Theodore Low De Vinne offered this eulogy: “Printers
have been surfeited with ornamented letters that did not ornament and did
degrade composition, and that have been found, after many years of use,
frail, expensive, and not attractive to buyers.” However, De Vinne further
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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