AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF PRINTING TYPES

He said: 'The Perpetua type ... was cut (in a 13 point size) by The Lanston
Monotype Corporation from drawings of alphabets made by me.These draw¬
ings were not made with special reference to typography—they were simply
letters, drawn with brush and ink. For the typographical quality of the fount,
as also for the remarkably fine and precise cutting of the punches,The Mono¬
type Corporation is to be praised. In my opinion Perpetua is commendable
in that, in spite of many distinctive characters, it retains that commonplace-
ness & normality which is essential to a good book-type'. By that time ( 1929)
the italic, originally called Felicity had also 'undergone considerable modifi¬
cation from its first version'.

In the Encyclopedia of Type Faces by Berry, Johnson and Jaspert, 1958, the
outstanding characteristics of Perpetua are named as: Serifs, small, sharply
cut and horizontal. The stress and gradation of colour are akin to old face
though the stress of О о appears vertical. A has a flat top ; M is slighdy splayed ;
there are two R's, one with a more extended tad, both ending in a serif on
the line.There are two U's, one with the lower-case design. In the lower-case
the only slighdy abnormal letters are the a with the top arc tapering and the
g with a long link.The figures are old face. Stephenson Blake have cut their
version of the design.

The italic is slighdy inclined and is much as theroman.The ais one-storeyed
but has a roman foot serif; g has a calligraphic tad.

The quotation in this example is from Eric Gill's An Essay on Typography
J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 1954. [102]

61. A design'created by and for the ti mes'newspaper under the supervision
of Stanley Morison, and called the first'twentieth century'newspaper type.
Based initially on experiments with a specially cut 9 point size of Monotype
Perpetua (at the time designated, No 3 ) 'it was only after exhaustive trials and
comparisons that it was resolved to design a new face' .The new face was first
used to print the issue of the times dated October 3,1932/rhe paper re¬
served for itself the use of the new face for a period of one year & then released
it for general use. Since October 1933 it has been used widely, for an ever
increasing variety ofbook and ephemeral printing.The design had, of course,
to be adapted for the Linotype machine before the first issue of the times
could be printed in its new dress. In 1954 it was also made available by Inter-
type and a year later by Stephenson Blake.

Times New Roman has short ascenders and descenders.The serifs are small
and sharply cut (to counteract the effect of stereotyping) .The type is rather
strong in colour. Capitals same height as short ascenders—stress appears ver-

238

Twentieth-Century Types

tical. Stress or shading of lower-case is biased. Head serifs on b, d, h, i, j, k, 1,
m, n, p, r, are oblique and fine bracketed.The g has a wide tad.The g, j, p, q,
y have been cut as long-descendered sorts also. Figures are ranging.The italic
is 'regular, of a moderate inclination'. It has oblique and fine bracketed head
serifs.

The quotation is from AJournal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. [104]

62. Calendarium. Johann Regiomontanus. Printed by Pictor, Loslein and Ratdolt,
Venice, 1476. We show the nearly complete tide-page of this interesting
book : printed in black & red it bears 'a verse panegyric on the book instead
of a title'. The type used for the verse is used for the text also. There are some
beautiful open floriated initials in this book. [10^]

239