1.
Industrial Revolution
First in England, later the world.
James Watt's improvements to the steam engine — and its subsequent application to manufacturing in the late 18th and early 19th century— resulted in a major societal shift. Traditionally manual laborers learned their trade by progressing through stages of apprenticeship under a master craftsman. The new steam engine driven machines replaced the craftsmen system with faster and cheaper production but often greatly inferior results. The critical eye and artistry of the craftsman was sacrificed for speed. The worker now served the machine, feeding it raw materials, allowing it to determine the final product.
Tradesmen and agricultural workers displaced by newly mechanized or improved farming methods flocked to cities to seek work in factories. The lives of the laborers declined as factory owners treated their workers as if they were commodities and not human beings. Lowly paid men, women and children worked 12 hour days in deplorable conditions. The new arrivals settled in cheaper areas of the city—often dangerous and disease-ridden slums.
Numerous critics of this new industrialized society advocated for the rights of workers and the return to a connection between the individual craftsman and their work.
2.
Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations 1851
London, England (Also known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition)
Awash with pride and profits from the Industrial Revolution the English upper class, spearheaded by Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) organized a showcase for modern industrial technology and design. England and a number of invited countries displayed their achievements in four categories: Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufacturers and Fine Arts.
The exhibition was a popular success but the critical reviews were not complementary of the exhibitors. Critics found the work created by industrialized methods to be shoddy and poorly designed, full of superfluous ornaments that did not enhance the product. The Victorian propensity for over-decoration and a hodgepodge of unrelated styles was seen as symptomatic of a tasteless and over-capitalistic society.
Ornamentation has fallen in and out of favor over time. To read an interesting article on ornamentation check Alice Twemlow's "The Decriminalization of Ornament" in which she discusses the recent surge of ornamentation in graphic design and the inevitable connection between form, content and ornament."
Looking Closer 5
3.
The Grammar of Ornament
Owen Jones, 1856, See it here
In response to the call for better quality design, Owen Jones published an exhaustive inventory of international and historical decorative styles. Printed in colorful lithographs, the book includes 20 sections of illustrated motifs and Jones's 37 Propositions on what makes good design." Modern, scientific and devoid of deliberate historicism, operating by principles to create an ornament for every kind of decoration." (Jespersen, 2008)
Proposition 5
Construction should be decorated. Decoration should never be purposely constructed." That which is beautiful is true; that which is true must be beautiful."
Proposition 37
No improvement can take place in the Art of the present generation until all classes, Artists, Manufacturers, and the Public, are better educated in Art, and the existence of general principles is more fully recognized.
Owens books... "pioneered new standards in chromolithography. Jones used his printing press to enter the lucrative market for illustrated and illuminated gift books ... He developed innovative new binding techniques ..., papier mâché and terracotta ...much of which could trace its aesthetic lineage back to sumptuous medieval illuminated manuscripts and religious bindings."
Read more...
4.
John Ruskin
England, 1819 —1900
Born to wealth, John Ruskin was an author, poet and art critic whose socialist convictions were strong enough to cause him to reject his fortune to fulfill his ideologies. Ruskin's theorized that the Industrial Revolution's division of labor made work monotonous and was the main cause of the unhappiness of the poor. He looked backward to an idealized medieval period, to him it was a paradigm of the “union of art in labor in service to society.” He romanticized "The organic relationship ... between the worker and his guild, the worker and his community, between the worker and his natural environment, and between the worker and his God."Read more...
Ruskin's writings greatly influenced the thinking of Victorian society in a large range of topics. His critical art reviews could make or break the careers of contemporary painters. His strong support of the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of artists who rejected the 'decadence' of the established Royal Academy, gave the group the credibility they needed to be accepted as serious artists. Both Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites believed that art should communicate truth not merely in a display of skill but also as expressed by the artist's whole moral outlook.
5.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Toward the middle of the 19th century, a small group of young painters in England reacted against what they felt was "the frivolous art of the day." They deeply admired the simplicities of the early 15th century and wanted to bring English art back to a greater "truth to nature."
While the academy and art historians worshiped Raphael as the great master of the Renaissance, these young students rebelled against what they saw as Raphael's theatricality and the Victorian hypocrisy and pomp of the academic art tradition. The friends decided to form a secret society, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, to emulate Renaissance painting before Raphael developed his grand manner. They adopted a high moral stance that embraced a sometimes unwieldy combination of symbolism and realism, religious or romantic subjects with an insistence on painting everything from direct observation.
The model for the painting above was Jane Burden, muse for the Pre-Raphaelites who discovered her and proclaimed her to be a perfect example of Renaissance beauty.(She later married William Morris) To read more about the Pre-Raphaelites check out the Delaware Art Museums site.
6.
William Morris
William Morris, a wealthy British theology student,"developed an interest in art and literature and a deep love for everything medieval, not only art and design, but also architecture. Morris (and friend Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones) joined the gothic revival architectural practice of George Edmund Street. Here they met Philip Webb who was to become a lifelong friend and, together with Webb, they formed the Arts & Crafts movement.
To members of the Arts & Crafts, the Industrial Revolution separated humans from their own creativity and individualism; the worker was a cog in the wheel of progress, living in an environment of shoddy machine-made goods, based more on ostentation than function. These proponents sought to reestablish the ties between beautiful work and the worker, returning to an honesty in design not to be found in mass-produced items. In both Britain and America the movement relied on the talent and creativity of the individual craftsman and attempted to create a total environment."http://anc.gray-cells.com/Intro.html
Morris & Co, 1861
Morris married Jane Burden and moved into his commissioned home, Red House. Unhappy with the quality of products available for furnishings, Morris worked, along with his friends to create wallpaper, tapestries and furniture demonstrating good craftsmanship and design. At the project's end they joined together to form a business. "He then set up a studio in 1861 with several associates, including architect Philip Webb and English artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. In 1875 he reorganized the partnership into Morris & Co.
Morris' designs were realistic. He pulled from the nature around him as did the medieval tapestry artists before him.... using traditional methods, often obtaining dyes from vegetables. He perfected the use of woodblocks for printing wallpaper and textiles. The idea of the house as a total work of art, with all of the interior objects designed by the architect, emerged from this studio and remained standard practice throughout the Arts and Crafts movement."
As part of his attempt to reintroduce handmade quality Morris used only natural dyes and hand production processes. His refusal to use modern production techniques meant that his products were only affordable by the rich and therefore anathema to his socialist beliefs."
Read more
"The wallpapers and prints became the height of fashion but Morris realized that he was bound to lose his one man battle against the degradation of capitalist production. Success itself was proof of this. He hated 'spending ... life ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich', and the more involved he became in production the more evidence he found of the injustices and misery caused by exploitation. By the 1870s he had come up against the limits of artistic rebellion. 'What business have we with art unless all can share it?' he asked." Read more
Morris was a socialist and was an active member in the Hammersmith Socialist League.
8. The Kelmscott Press
England, 1890
"William Morris established the most famous of the private presses, the Kelmscott Press, at Hammersmith in January, 1891. Over the next seven years the press produced 53 books (totaling some 18,000 copies). Kelmscott was the culmination of Morris's life as a craftsman in many diverse fields. The books Morris produced were medieval in design, modeled on his studies of incunabula of the fifteenth century."
From University of Glasgow Library
Morris was fascinated not only with the design of books but wrote a number of books. His fantasy stories were a direct inspiration for C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia and influenced Tolkein's,The Lord of the Rings. Read more)
The Kelmscott Chaucer is considered Morris's masterpiece. 425 copies of the book were completed by a total of 11 master printers. See this spread from McCune Collection, CA, USA.
The Type of the Kelmscott Press
Ever consistent in his rejection of industrialized processes, Morris designed and produced his own typefaces, manufactured his own paper, and printed using a hand press. He set out to prove that the high standards of the past could be repeated - even surpassed - in the present. His books were designed to be read slowly, to be appreciated, to be treasured, and thus made an implicit statement about the ideal relationships which ought to exist between the reader, the text, and the author — a statement which we have, by and large, continued to ignore. (Source: Victorian Web)
Numerous other British presses were founded in the style of Kelmscott including the Doves, Eragny, Ashendene and Vale Presses.
Troy, Chaucer, Golden
Morris's roman 'Golden' type was inspired by the work of the early punch cutter Nicolas Jenson of Venice. Troy (above left) is based upon studies of manuscript blackletter. Please note that the versions shown here are digital recreations of Morris's type. *Remember that digital designers often try to emulate the ink spread and paper surface from historical letterpress work to recreate the character of the original printed type, rather than the actual type design.
Noteworthy for their harmony of type and illustration, Morris' main priority was to have each book seen as a whole: this included taking painstaking care with all aspects of production, including the paper, the form of type, the spacing of the letters, and the position of the printed matter on the page. Kelmscott books re-awakened the lost ideals of book design and inspired higher standards of production at a time when the printed page was at its poorest.
Ashendene Printers Mark
11.
Doves Press (at Bridwell Library)
1900
"The Doves press was in direct reaction to Morris's strongly decorative approach to bookmaking. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, a friend of Morris, (and Emery Walker, the proprietor of the press) was a difficult, demanding and highly idealistic man. He was a great bookbinder, and designer of book bindings who had bound for Morris. For all the superb ornamentation of his bindings, he chose an austere approach in his printing.
The typeface they designed... was also based on Jenson, but it was as if he had looked at an entirely different book from Morris. Where Morris's face was rather heavy, with comparatively short ascenders and descenders crowned with strong serifs, Cobden-Sanderson's version was much lighter in feel. Unfortunately after an internal dispute the punches and matrices of this typeface ended up at the bottom of the Thames, for Cobden-Sanderson could not bear the thought of anyone else using them, even his partner." (Quote source)
The Dove's masterpiece is the Dove's Bible,1903. Stark in comparison to Morris, the text type was cut by Edward Prince (also Morris's punchcutter) in a Jenson style roman; the large red initial letters were by Edward Johnston. Read more about Johnston at the Edward Johnston Foundation site.
9.
Golden Cockerel Press (link)
England, 1920
The Golden Cockerel Press distinguished itself not only for its high quality of printing but for the rich wood cuts by various artists including Eric Gill. The masterpiece of the Press is the Four Gospels, which used Gill's wood cut illustrations as well as his type face design.
10.
Ashendene Press (link)
England, 1895 - 1935
Wealthy book publisher St.John Hornby founded this small private press. Most Ashendene editions used a trademark font: Subiaco, which was based on a 15th century semi-humanistic Italian type created by Sweynheim and Pannartz in Subiaco, Italy.
"Goudy's fonts were a modern marriage of craft & technology."
Typologia. Studies in type design and type making", Berkeley 1940
12.
Bruce Rogers
The Riverside Press, 1895—1912
In 1895 Rogers began work at the Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts and appointed as head of the department responsible for the production of limited-edition books in 1900. The freedom of constraints on his budget and time allowed the production of some notable books.
During a period in Britain from 1928-32 Rogers produced some of his finest books, including his Bible and The Odyssey of Homer (1932). After returning to the States, Rogers settled in his home in New Fairfield, Connecticut. He designed some good books for the Limited Editions Club of New York, notably an illustrated, thirty-seven-volume folio of Shakespeare.
(Above)
Bruce Rogers, contribution to a type sample book entitled Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation, for Mergenthaler Linotype Co. Brooklyn, 1936. Fulltable.com
12.
Bruce Rogers
In 1915 Rogers produced a translation of Maurice de Geurin’s The Centaur in his own type design, and named it after the title of the book. Just the same as so many other private press fonts, Centaur was based on a design cut by Nicolas Jenson in the 1400's. The entire edition was hand-set by Rogers and printed in a limited edition of 135 copies at the Montague Press in Massachusetts. The design was originally commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Rogers hired Frederic Warde to design the accompanying italic based upon the work of 16th century Italian calligrapher, Ludovico degli Arrighi
Roger's masterpiece, The Bible for Oxford University Press, was completed in 1935. A lectern-sized format, the pages measured 12 x 16 inches. The type is a special version of Centaur, 22 points, set on a 19 point body to save space. The type was set using Monotype's typecasting machine, in a pioneering demonstration that beautiful, well-designed books could be produced using modern methods.
See his bible and a collection of Bruce Roger's Press Books are the Minnesota Center for Book Arts
13.
Frederick Goudy
The Village Press, 1903-1939
"Frederic Goudy (1865-1947), commands a special place in the American book arts. In addition to his work as printer, book designer, and author, he was the first American to make the designing of type a separate profession. He was successful and prolific, designing 124 different typefaces and executing many of these from the drawing stage to the casting. Printing and type design for Goudy were activities that required all of the skills of fine craftsmanship while still operating in the framework of the Machine Age."
Goudy and his wife, Bertha, operated the Village Press modeled after the style of William Morris from 1903 to 1939. (Source Library of Congress)
Bertha M. Sprinks Goudy (right) cut the 24-point italic of the presses's Deepdene font. She set the type for much of the output of the Village Press which the Goudy's founded together with Will Ransom in 1903. Printing, an Essay by William Morris & Emery Walker, was their first publication. Their designs continued the Morris legacy of fine craftsmanship in the book arts.
(Source: Unseen hands, Women Printers, Binders and Book Designers)
Above:Caricature of Goudy par Cyril Lowe
Here you can watch a charming silent movie of Goudy drawing and cutting type using a pantograph.
Goudy designed fonts for American and British foundries. He sold 8 to the Caslon Foundry in London and several for Lanston Monotype Co. Some of Goudy's most well known fonts, Copperplate Gothic and goudy Old Style.
Follow this link to a specimen of Goudy's Monotype Kennerley font from the Progressive Composition Company of Philadelphia. The font was created for a H. G. Wells anthology published by M. Kennerly. 
Image source http://tipografos.net/designers/goudy.html
Bored with reading about type? See the movies about Monotype, Linotype and Goudy at TypeCulture.
15. Linotype, 1886
Benton´s punchcutting machine enabled Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German immigrant in Baltimore, to create the Linotype in 1886. Instead of setting founder´s type, the Linotype cast a solid line, or slug, of hot-metal type from brass matrices brought into position.
16. Monotype, 1887
Tolbert Lanston of Washington, D.C., invented the Monotype, which cast individual letters through a machine-driven process. To survive the inroads made by Linotype and Monotype, the ATF (American Type Founders Company) was formed to supply precast metal type nationwide.
Stanley Morison and Monotype
"From 1923 to 1967 Morison was typographic consultant for the Monotype Corporation. In the 1920s and 1930s, his work at Monotype included research and adaptation of historic typefaces, including the revival of the Baskerville and Bembo types. He pioneered the great expansion of the company's range of typefaces and hugely influenced the field of typography to the present day."(Wikipedia link)
A typographer, scholar, and historian of printing, Morison is particularly remembered for his design of Times New Roman, later called "the most successful new typeface of the first half of the 20th century."
He was inspired by William Morris' ideals of quality but at the same time aware of the need to adapt them to the new mass-production techniques.
14
The Pantograph eliminates the Punchcutter
An Interview with Matthew Carter By:Mark Solsburg
Q. Is there a seminal event that marked the beginning of 20th century typography in America?
A. I would say that the most important event occurred just before the turn of the century in 1892 when the American Type Founders Company (ATF) was formed through a merger of 23 of the country's most prominent type foundries. Until then, most big American cities had at least one type foundry to service the local newspapers and printers. These foundries designed their own typefaces and liberally copied each other.
Picture above, Matthew Carter, the most renown type designer in the world today. Read about his career in a 2009 interview with the Washington Post at this link.
Q. What prompted the major American foundries to merge?
A. ... a Milwaukee engineer named Linn Boyd Benton put the first “nail in the coffin” of local foundries in 1884 when he invented a pantographic punchcutter, a router-like engraving machine for cutting the steel punches for type. That was the most important technical development in typography since Gutenberg´s invention of variable-width type molds in the 15th century.
Here is a video of wood type being cut with a router guided by a pantograph (from Nick Shermans flicker account.)
(Above is an engraving pantograph used for reproducing a drawing. It is from Diderot's Encyclopedie)