AN ESSAY

ON TYPOGRAPHY

ERIC GILL
ERIC GILL
AN ESSAY
ON TYPOGRAPHY

DESIGN BY: MARKO JOVIĆ

LETTERING

  Letters are signs for sounds. Signs for numbers and other
things (like the sign for a dollar) may in practice be included,
though they are not strictly letters (except as in Roman or
Greek numerals & the letter signs used in Algebra).
  Letters are not pictures or representations. Picture writing
and hieroglyphics are not letters from our point of view; and
tho’ our letters, our signs for sounds, may be shown to be
derived from picture writing, such derivation is so much of
the dim and distant past as to concern us no longer.
  Letters are not pictures or representations. They are more
or less abstract forms. Hence their special and peculiar
attraction for the ‘mystical mug’ called man. More than most
things, letters allow him to consider beauty without fear of
what the Home Secretary may think or do. Art and morals Figure 1 shows brush strokes and pen strokes. An ordinary pointed brush held vertically to the paper will

are inextricably mixed, but the art of lettering is freer from of its nature make the strokes shown in the upper part of the figure. The lower part shows the strokes

adulteration than most arts; hence among a highly cultured & naturally produced by a broad pen, that is thick strokes, thin strokes, and gradations from thick to thin.

rational people like the Chinese the high place of calligraphy The engraving is facsimile, & is given to show not good forms or bad, good letters or bad, but simply the

and inscription. Among the Chinese, good writing is more forms characteristic of the brush and pen.

highly honoured than painting is with us, as highly perhaps as

we honour a successful contraption for boiling soap.
  It is a matter of satisfaction, therefore, that, in spite of our
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preoccupation with merely physical convenience, we have
inherited an alphabet of such pre—eminent rationality and
dignity as the Roman. A good example is the inscription on
Trajan’s Column at Rome, of which a plaster cast is in the
Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
  Lettering is for us the Roman alphabet and the Roman
alphabet is lettering. Whatever the Greeks or the Germans
or the Russians or the Czecho—Slovaks or other people may
do, the English language is done in Roman letters, and these
letters may be said to have reached a permanent type about
the first century A. D.
  Though in the course of the centuries innumerable
variations in detail have been made, Roman letters have not
changed essentially. Fourteen hundred years after the cutting
of the Trajan inscription the tablet in Henry VII’s chapel was
inscribed, and no Roman would have found any difficulty in Figure 2, reading in the customary order, shows (1) the essential form of A; (2) the same with the

reading the letters. Eighteen hundred years after the time of customary thick and thin strokes and serifs as made with a brush; (3) the same as incised with a chisel;

Trajan & four hundred years after Henry VII, Roman letters (4) the same made with a broad pen, three strokes; (4—7) the two—stroke A, as developed between

are still made, and in almost the same way (e. g. the Artillery the fourth and fifteenth centuries; (8—10) sixteenth century writing; (11—13) modern forms of the same,

Monument, Hyde Park Corner). suitable for type.

  But, although the Roman alphabet has remained

essentially unchanged through the centuries, customs &
habits of work have changed a great deal. In the time of the
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Romans, say A. D. 100, when a man said the word ‘letters’ it
is probable that he immediately thought of the kind of letters
he was accustomed to seeing on public inscriptions. Altho’ all
sorts of other kinds of lettering existed (on wax tablets, on
papyrus, &c.) the most common kind of formal lettering was
the inscription in stone. The consequence was that when he
made letters ‘as well as he could’ it was the stone inscription
letter that he took as his model. He did not say: Such &
such a tool or material naturally makes or lends itself to the
making of such and such forms. On the contrary, he said:
Letters are such and such forms; therefore, whatever tools &
materials we have to use, we must make these forms as well
as the tools and material will allow. This order of procedure
has always been the one followed. The mind is the arbiter in
letter forms, not the tool or the material. This is not to deny
that tools and materials have had a very great influence on Figure 3 (1—8) shows the evolution of the lower—case g from the Roman original. 9—11 are comic modern

letter forms. But that influence has been secondary, and for varieties having more relation to pairs of spectacles than to lettering—as though the designer had said: A

the most part it has been exerted without the craftsman’s pair of spectacles is rather like a g; I will make a g rather like a pair of spectacles.

conscious intention.
  If we admit, as it seems we must admit, that in Roman
times the public inscription in stone was the chief model for
all forms of letters, we shall expect to find that when they
began to make lettering with a pen, on paper or skin, the
10 11
forms of letters would be imitations of inscription forms; and
this is precisely what we do find. A good example is the Vergil
in the library of St. Gall, Switzerland. A facsimile may be seen
in the Palaeographical Society’s Publications, Series 1, vol. 2,
Pi. 208.
  Pen writing, even as late as the fourth century, shows very
clearly that the scribe had no idea of inventing ‘pen’ forms of
letters, but was simply making as well as he could with a pen
what he conceived to be ordinary lettering. Whether he held Figure 4: Caslon’s Black Letter. This type, like that of Gutenberg, Caxton, &c., was cut in imitation of

the pen one way or the other (so that the thick strokes came fifteenth century northern European handwriting. But though the original was handwriting it was for the

vertically or horizontally) makes no difference to the primary first printers simply lettering—the only lettering with which they were familiar, book—lettering.

intention of the scribe. He was not inventing letters; he was

writing forms already invented.
  But the influence of the tool employed was very great
(see figure 1), & in the course of time, owing to the greatly
increased use of writings and the relative decrease in
inscriptions, and owing to the increase of speed in writing
and the prevalence of hastily scribbled writing, people
became familiar with forms of letters which, tho’ meant to be
ordinary Roman letters, were considerably different.
  Thus in the letter A (see figure 2), to make three separate
strokes of the pen was too much for a man in a hurry, &
two—stroke A’s became familiar. By the seventh century this
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form was well established, and was as much recognisable as
A as the original three—stroke Roman form.
  In the same way, the form of serif which was easy to make
in stone (which is, in fact, the natural way to finish an incised
line neatly) was less natural & less easy with a pen. Penmen
took naturally to leaving them out whenever their presence
seemed unnecessary.
  The influence of the tool is perhaps less obvious in stone
inscriptions. Inscription cutting is a slow job anyway. But
certain forms are more difficult to cut than others, e. g.
a thick line meeting another at an angle, as in the K. The
letter—cutter naturally avoids such things.
  Again, take the letter G. The evolution of our modern
small g is seen to be chiefly due to the prevalence of & Figure 5: the Subiaco type. This modern version, cut for the Ashendene Press, London, of the type of

consequent familiarity with hastily scribbled forms (see fig. Sweynheim and Pannartz, 1463, shows the change in style caused by Italian influence.

3). Nevertheless, in no case does the scribe imagine he is

inventing a new form; he is only concerned to make well or ill
the form with which he is familiar.
  By the sixth century a form of writing obviously more
natural to penmanship (see British Museum Harl. MS. 1
773) had been evolved. And the process continued until all
resemblance to the Roman original was hidden (see B. M.
Add. MS. 24383).
14 15
I am not concerned to describe in detail the history of the
process in its technical and economic significance. The point
that chiefly concerns me is that, with whatever tools or
materials or economic circumstance (that is hurry & expense),
the artist, the letter—maker, has always thought of himself as
making existing forms, & not inventing new ones. Thus, the
Lombards of the fourteenth century did not sit down and
invent Lombardic lettering. The Siennese inscription in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 1 309, is simply a stone
version of the pen letters with which the letter—cutter was
familiar. The letter—cutters of the fifteenth century did not
invent ‘gothic’. They had the job of cutting stone inscriptions,
and they did it in the ordinary letters of their time. The
forms of their letters were what we call ‘pen’ forms. But
they cared nothing about that. To them they were simply
letters. And just as we saw that in Roman times the Roman Figure 6: Jenson’s type. This modern version, cut for the Cranach Press, Weimar, of the type of Nicolas

scribe imitated the stone inscription forms because, for him, Jenson, c. 1490, shows the emancipation achieved both from the gothic of northern Europe and from

nothing else was letters; so, in the fifteenth century, when handwriting generally. Henceforth the designing of type was primarily the work of punch—cutters,

the written was the most common and influential form of that is of engravers. Letters were still reminiscent but no longer an imitation of handwriting.

lettering, the position is reversed, & the letter—cutter copies

the scribe—the stone inscription is imitation pen—writing
(with such inevitable small modifications as, in stone, cannot
be avoided), whereas in the fourth century the written book
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was an imitation of the stone inscription (with such small
modifications as the pen makes inevitable).
  Apart from technical and economic influences the matter
is complicated by the differences of individual temperaments
and mentalities. Moreover, the physical and spiritual ferment
which closed the fifteenth century was accompanied by a
revival of interest in and enthusiasm for the things of ancient
Greece and Rome, and for the earlier rounder and more
legible writing of the ninth & tenth centuries. Nevertheless
the first printers were no more the inventors of new letter Figure 7: Caslon’s Old Face, 1734

forms than any other craftsmen had been. The first printed
books were simply typographic imitations of pen writing, just
as were fifteenth century inscriptions in stone (see fig. 4).
  Letters are letters—A is A and B is B—and what we call
a gothic A was for Pynson simply A. Printing started in
northern Europe, where the gothic forms were the norm. But
the centre of culture was not in the North. German printers
moved to the South. The influence of Italian letter forms may
be seen in the ‘semi—gothic’ or ‘semi—humanistic’ type of
Sweynheim and Pannartz (see figure 3). Except in Germany,
the gothic forms of letters were generally abandoned. The
Italian printers set about the designing of typographic forms Figure 8: ‘Monotype’ Bodoni

of the round, open Italian penmanship (see figure 6). Again

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they did not invent new forms, but formalised and adapted
existing forms to the exigencies of typefounding and printing. 
  The main work having been done by the early Italian
printers, the succeeding centuries saw no great changes in
the forms of Roman type letters. Such changes as occurred
were no longer due to the influence of hand—driven tools
like the chisel or the pen, but were due to the varieties of
national temper & commerce. For instance, it is said that
there is something peculiarly English about Caslon’s type
(figure 7); and, though there is nothing peculiarly Italian about Figure 9: ‘Monotype’ Baskerville

Bodoni’s type (fig. 8), it is clear that by calling it the first of

the modern type faces we are noting the change of character
which we associate with the word ‘modernity’. Type faces
like Caslon’s, Baskerville’s (fig. 9) or Miller & Richard’s Old
Style (figure 10) were not assertive enough for nineteenth
century commercial printing. The heaviness, i.e. the absence
of much contrast in thick and thin, of type faces like Jenson’s
or Aldus’s make them illegible for hurried reading. The needs
of commerce & especially of newspaper printers gave a
great impetus to the ‘modern’ type faces. ‘Modern face’
became the ordinary face, and everything conformed to it.
The nineteenth century letter—cutter, as may be seen by Figure 10: Miller & Richard’s Old Style

nineteenth century tombstones, did his best to do ‘modern

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face’ in stone. Engravers & even the writers of illuminated
addresses did the same.
  The twentieth century is witnessing a reaction. It is a
multifold reaction, partly intellectual, partly moral, partly
anti—commercial, though commerce is not behind itself in
its effort to extract profit even from anti—commercialism.
The nineteenth century developed machinery, & machine—
makers are now able to supply accurate, though mechanical,
imitations of the type faces of the pre—commercial era.
Letters are letters, whether made by hand or by machine.
It is, however, desirable that modern machinery should
be employed to make letters whose virtue is compatible
with their mechanical manufacture, rather than exact and
scholarly resuscitations of letters whose virtue is bound up
with their derivation from humane craftsmanship.
  While the main stream of lettering has run in typographic Figure 11; 1 and 2, Perpetua Roman capitals and lowercase; 3, Perpetua italic; 4, Joanna italic; 3, Caslon

channels for the last four hundred years, there has, of course, Old Face italic; 6 & 7, Porson Greek capitals & lower—case; 8 & 9, Perpetua Greek capitals and

continued the need of lettering in many other things than lower—case.

books and newspapers. Even handwriting has maintained its

existence, & the style of letter called italic still preserves its
‘cursive’ character. Most italic type faces, however, (see figure
11,3) are too sloping and too cursive. There is a great need of
a narrow and less sloping letter, which, while giving emphasis
22 23
and difference, shall be of the same noncursive character
as the upright letters they are used with. Both the Perpetua
(fig. 11,3) and the Joanna italics (figure 11,4) are so designed,
and the latter having only a very slight slope is used with the
upright capitals. The Joanna ‘italic’ was designed primarily to
be used by itself, i. e. as a book face and not simply as a letter
to be used for emphasis.
  The same excessively cursive quality as afflicts Italic has
always afflicted Greek types (fig. 11,7). For some reason or
other, probably the comparative rareness of Greek printing,
the leaders of typographic design in the fifteenth century
never achieved for Greek what they did for Latin & modern
languages. That the thing is possible is shown by what the
Emperor Peter the Great did in the case of Russian writing.
The Russian alphabet is closely related to the Greek. The
formalisation of Russian script was achieved very successfully Figure 12 is a reduced copy of a ‘John Bull’ poster. It shows how the desire to arrest attention by making

by the Dutch typographers employed by Peter the Great; & the letters as black as possible defeats the object of the poster, i. e. quick legibility. For from a very short

the same thing could be done for Greek. distance the letters are indistinguishable.

  Many varieties of Greek types exist, but for the most part
they are more italic than the Italics. In recent years attempts
have been made at improvement, but no attempt has been
made to take advantage of the fact that Greek capitals have
always been made in the same way as Roman capitals.
24 25
Instead of keeping the capitals as they are and designing a
lowercase to match, reformers have always proceeded in the
opposite way and altered the capitals to match an improved
and less cursive lower—case. The Perpetua Greek (fig. 11, 8
and 9) is the first example of an attempt to do for Greek
what Peter the Great did for Russian and Jenson and others
did for Latin. Just as the capitals of the Perpetua Greek are
of precisely the same family as Perpetua Roman, so the
Perpetua Greek lower—case is of the same family as the
Perpetua Roman lower—case. The letter & serif formation is
uniform throughout.
  Letters are letters. A is A, and B is B. The letter—maker of
the twentieth century has not got to be an inventor of letter
forms but simply a man of intelligence & good will.
  Whether in stone, wood, paint or metal
Figure 13 shows a poster letter designed to give the maximum blackness compatible with quick legibility

The common problem, yours, mine, everyone’s. and a rational differentiation between the letters, e. g. the D & O.

Is—not to fancy what were fair in life

Provided it could be—but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair

& the word fair can be taken in both senses—it means both
beautiful and just.
26 27
As the Roman, when he thought of lettering, thought of
inscription letters; as the medieval man thought of written
letters; so in the twentieth century, when we write a letter
carefully we call it ‘printing’. The printed letter is lettering for
us.
  But there are many forms of printed letter which do not
seem entirely satisfactory. One of the commonest forms of
unsatisfactoriness is due to the unnecessary and therefore
unreasonable mixing of many different sorts of letters on the
same page or in the same book. It is a safe rule not to mix
different styles of letters on the same page, or different faces
of type in the same book. A book printed in an inferior type
will be better if that inferior type be strictly kept to than if
other and even better types be mixed in with it.
  The business of poster letters (see figure 12) has not
yet been extricated from the degradations imposed upon Figure 14: 1 & 2 show the engineers’ O & D, hardly distinguishable from one another; 3 & 4 show forms

it by an insubordinate commercialism. Mere weight and equally black, no wider, but more legible, which are suitable where the space required for the normal, 3 &

heaviness of letter ceases to be effective in assisting the 6, is not available.

comprehension of the reader when every poster plays the

same shouting game.
  A man at whom twenty brick manufacturers throw
bricks from every side at once is quite unable to distinguish
the qualities in which ‘Blue Staffordshires’ are superior to
28 29
‘London Stocks’. A return to mere legibility (see fig. 13) seems
desirable even if the effect be less striking. To this end it is
necessary to study the principles of legibility—the characters
which distinguish one letter from another, the proportions of
light and dark in letters and spacing.
  A square or oblong with its corners rounded off may, by
itself, be more like an O (see fig. 14) than anything else, but
in conjunction with a D made on the same principles there is
not much by which to recognise which is which, and from a
distance the two are indistinguishable. Many engineers affect
this style of letter, believing it to be devoid of that ‘art—
nonsense’ on the absence of which they pride themselves.
That newspaper—vendors should use the same style of
letter is even more surprising. If the aims of engineers and
newsagents were purely decorative, we could more easily
appreciate their efforts, even though, to our more rational Figure 15: Monotype sans—serif

minds, names on locomotives and advertisements of the

contents of more or less untrustworthy journals seem alike
unnecessary.
  Legibility, in practice, amounts simply to what one is
accustomed to. But this is not to say that because we have
got used to something demonstrably less legible than
something else would be if we could get used to it, we should
30 31
make no effort to scrap the existing thing. This was done
by the Florentines and Romans of the fifteenth century; it
requires simply good sense in the originators & good will in
the rest of us.
Good will seems to be the common possession of mankind,
but its complement, good sense, i.e. intelligence, critical
ability, and that intense concentration upon precise
perfection which is a kind of genius. is not so common. Good
will comes from below & occasionally penetrates into studios
and cabinets. Good sense comes from above & percolates
thro’ the mass of people. Everybody thinks that he knows
an A when he sees it (fig. 16); but only the few extraordinary
rational minds can distinguish between a good one & a bad
one, or can demonstrate precisely what constitutes A—ness.
When is an A not an A? Or when is an R not an R (fig. 17)?
It is clear that for any letter there is some sort of norm. To Fig. 16 : 1, essential form; 2, too narrow; 3 & 4, absurd misconceptions; 3 & 6, normal; 7, overbold; 8,

discover this norm is obviously the first thing to be done. suitable for advertisements of ‘Bovril’; 9, normal sans—serif; 1 o, sans bold; 11, sans overbold; 12, hardly

  The first notable attempt to work out the norm for plain recognisable; 1 3 & 14, thick and thin unusually disposed; 13, A undecided as to whether it is an A or an

letters was made by Mr Edward Johnston when he designed aitch; 16 and 17, normal; 18, top—heavy; 19, a decent variation; 20, a poor thing but might be worse; 21,

the sans—serif letter for the London Underground Railways. a fancy possibility; 22, essential form of lowercase a; 23, normal typeform; 24, Victorian vulgarity; 23,

Some of these letters are not entirely satisfactory, especially comic variety ,• 26—29, A’s that are not A’s.

when it is remembered that, for such a purpose, an alphabet

should be as near as possible ‘fool—proof’, i.e. the forms
32 33
should be measurable, patient of dialectical exposition, as
the philosophers would say—nothing should be left to the
imagination of the signwriter or the enamel plate maker.
In this quality of ‘foolproofness’ the Monotype sans—serif
face (figure 13) is perhaps an improvement. The letters are
more strictly normal—freer from forms depending upon
appreciation and critical ability in the workman who has to
reproduce them.
  But, as there is a norm of letter form—the bare body so to
say, of letters—there is also a norm of letter clothes; or rather
there are many norms according as letters are used for this
place or purpose or that. Between the occasion wherein the
pure sans—serif or mono—line (block) letter is appropriate
& that in which nothing is more appropriate than pure
fancifulness (see fig. 17, 9, 13,13 & 16), there are innumerable
occasions. Figure 17: 1, normal sans-serif; 2—3, unseemly abnormalities & exaggerations; 6, normal with serifs;

  A typically moral and conscientious Englishman finds 7, normal bold; 8, overbold and fatuous; 9—13, 13 and 16, seemly •fancy’ varieties of the normal; 14 & 1 7,

it exceedingly difficult to keep morals out of art talk; he R’s with normal bows but tails badly attached.

finds himself inclined to think, e.g. that R ought to have a

bow more or less semi—circular and of a diameter about
half the height of the stem, & a strongly outstanding tail;
that an R with a very large bow and hardly any tail at all is
wrong. But such moral notions as the word ‘ought’ implies,
34 35
& such words as ‘right’ & ‘wrong’—taken as having a moral
connotation—are obviously absurd in such a discussion,
and we should be ready to admit that any old shape will do
to make a letter with. Nevertheless, special circumstances
demand special treatment, and as a ‘confirmed drunkard’
may be well advised to ‘take the pledge’ & deck himself out
with blue ribands, so, seeing the whirl of eccentricity into
which modern advertising is driving us (fig. 18), it seems
good and reasonable to return to some idea of normality,
without denying ourselves the pleasure and amusement of
designing all sorts of fancy letters whenever the occasion
for such arises. Moreover, it seems clear that as a firm and
hearty belief in Christian marriage enables one not only
to make the best jokes about it but even to break the rules
with greater assurance (just as a man who knows his road
can occasionally jump off it, whereas a man who does not Figure 18

know his road can only be on it by accident), so a good clear

training in the making of normal letters will enable a man to
indulge more efficiently in fancy and impudence.
  But under an industrial system, such as we have in England
to—day, the majority of workmen are deprived, not by
cruel masters, but by the necessary conditions of machine
production, of the ability to exercise any fancy or impudence
36 37
at all, & are even deprived of any appetite so to do.
Fancifulness is therefore within the competence of a smaller
and smaller number of workmen. We shall shortly have a
situation wherein all jokes and eccentricities are the work of
‘designers’—and machine—made jokes reproduced by the
million tend to be boring.
  The kind of figure 2 shown in fig. 19, or the r’s in fig. 20,
with violently contrasted thick & thin forms & enormous
blobs might be amusing to meet if they were the unaided
efforts of some sportive letter designer. But having become
common forms they are about as dull as ‘Robots’ would be if
they all had red noses.
  As machinery & standardised production can only
decently turn out the plainest of plain things, we shall have
to steel our minds to a very ascetical and mortified future.
This will be quite satisfactory to ‘highbrows’ like ourselves, Figure 19: 1,3,9, 13, 17, and 21, normal forms; the remainder shows various exaggerations; 8 is a common

but it is certain that the masses of the people will not stand form of vulgarity; 10 & 11 are common misconceptions; 22 and 24 are copies of figures actually seen in

it; & designers, who for inscrutable reasons ‘must live’, will advertisements.

continue to fall over one another in their efforts to design

fancy forms which, like a certain kind of figure 9, are all tail
and no body (see figure 19, 24).
  However, in spite of industrialism, letter designing is still
an occupation worthy of the enthusiasm of rational beings,
38 39
and, though a Q which were all queue & no Q would be ‘past
a joke’, it is difficult to say exactly where a tail should end
(see figure 21). The only thing to do is to make ourselves
into such thoroughly and completely rational beings that
our instinctive or intuitive reactions and responses and
sympathies are more or less bound to be rational also. And
just as we revolt from smells which are bad for our bodies Figure 20: 1, normal; 2, a possible variety; 3 & 4, Egyptian elephantiasis, commonly seen but

without reasoning about it, so shall we revolt against the uncommonly bad—except in this diagram

mentally defective.
  A final word may be said about the influence of tools in
letter designing. The main stream of lettering to—day is
undoubtedly the printed sheet or book. But whatever may be
said about the derivation of our letters from the chisel—made
or pen—made letters of the past, there is no doubt whatever
that neither the chisel nor the pen has now any influence at
all. Even the influence of the tools of the punch—cutter is
now practically negligible. But a very considerable influence
is exerted by the natures of type—metal and type—setting.
The short—tailed Q is obviously the result of such influences.
Paper also exerts a big influence. The very even & smooth
surfaces of modern machine—made papers have given a
spur to the designing of type—faces with very finely cut and
finished serifs. Influences such as these are obvious, but they
40 41
are of a very different kind from those exerted by the shapes
and usages of chisels and pens.
  Apart from printing, the lettering of the world is very small
in quantity, and therefore such tools as the graver, the brush
and the pen and the chisel are negligible, regarded as powers
for influencing the forms of letters. The copybook of to—day
is the printed page. But this is not to say that one craft should
laboriously imitate the technicalities of another, or that small
& inessential details which are appropriate in one material
should be copied in another for which, may be, they are not
at all appropriate. It is simply to say that in considering what
forms constitute this or that letter the mind, not the tool, is
the arbiter; and the mind, as regards lettering, is informed by
the printed page.
  In spite of this we have a tradition of handwriting which
seems to pay little or no attention to either printed or
painted letters, & we have copperplate engraving of visiting Figure 21 shows various possible varieties of tails.

cards and such—like in a style of lettering only remotely

related to typography and apparently quite independent. In
all the various lettering trades there is little or no conscious
reference to printing, & at all times there have been
subsidiary traditions carrying on apparently independently of
the main stream. Court hands, lawyers’ hands, ecclesiastical
42 43
hands and so forth, have gone on in their own sweet way
without any apparent sign of being influenced by whatever
was the main stream of their time. But this independence is
only apparent. These various by—paths either wander away &
are lost, the trades with which they are connected die out, or
the force of the main stream drags them back.
  Modern handwriting & copperplate printing are both in
this predicament. Modern handwriting, if it is to be reformed
at all, must be reformed by the application of a good
knowledge of the technique of penmanship to a knowledge
of good printing, & not by the resuscitation of medieval
calligraphy. Modern signwriting & engraving must toe the
same line; & in inscription carving, while we may remember
Trajan lovingly in the museum, we must forget all about him
in the workshop.
Figure 22 illustrates the contention that slope in either direction does not deprive capitals, lower—case or

italics of their essential differences.

44 45
Temeljna svrha ovog projekta je redizajniranje postojećih publikacije i stvaranje
ujednačene cjeline. Cjelokupni koncept projekta primarno se temelji na različitoj
upotrebi praznina, prostora, veličina te tipografskih pisama.
  Prva publikacija, Modern typography: an essay in critical history (Robin Kinross),
bazirana je na kontrastu između praznina u proredu teksta i margina. Sami tekst
nije oblikovan radikalnijim odnosno slobodnijim metodama nego je više fokusiran
na školski pristup.
  Ideja redizajna druge publikacije, Elemental typography 1925 (Jan Tschichold),
zasniva se na međusobnom praćenju tekstova. Kada glavni tekst koji se nalazi na
lijevoj strani završava, tada popratni tekst koji se nalazi na desnoj strani počinje i
obrnuto. Ovim konceptom stvorena je određena kontinuiranost cijelog teksta te
određena količina praznog prostora između tekstova.
  Osim upotrebe različitih razmaka između tekstova u redizajnu treće publikacije,
Bacanje kocki nikad neće ukinuti slučaj (Stéphane Mallarmé), kroz lijevo i desno
poravnanje također se dobiva određena manipulacija praznim prostorom
publikacije. Koncept publikacije zasniva se na čitanju onog teksta koji dolazi prvi,
bez obzira na kojoj se on strani nalazio. Ovaj redizajn također predstavlja drugačiji
pristup ne skladu, koji se javlja i u originalnom dizajnu knjige.
  Redizajn četvrte publikacije, An essay on typography (Eric Gill), predstavlja
stvaranje reda između slikovnog i tekstualnog sadržaja. Glavni tekst se nalazi
na lijevoj strani, dok su slike i opisni tekstovi slika smještene na desnu stranu.
Manipulacija prazninama dobivena je pozicioniranjem i veličinom sadržaja te
određenim razmakom između proreda teksta .