daidala: words on letters

boston day 5: starstruck ...

Slowly, steadily, I am overcoming my trouble with nervousness at these conferences. I can deliver the introductions with relatively few butterflies. I can meet, and can hold some modicum of intelligent conversation with, recognized legends in the field. My hands are drier, my voice is steadier, and I no longer feel – when such isolated moments of anxiety approach – as though I must choose from among the incommodious alternatives of running like hell, vomiting, or shitting in my pants.

People tell me that I never appear to be anxious, and I am invariably relieved to hear this; to paraphrase Fernando, it is far preferable to look calm than to feel calm. And even on those increasingly rare days when tension trumps reason, I can still manage to fake my way through and create an impression of confidence. But every once in a great while – say, one day in a thousand – the facade crumbles, and no amount of acting can conceal the neurosis within. Today was one of those days.

During a midafternoon session break, I inadvertently brushed the shoulder of a fellow conference attendee. As I turned to apologize, I was astonished to find myself vis-à-vis one of my typographic heroes, Veronika Burian; I just hadn’t expected to see her here. Foolishly and impulsively, I attempted to speak, and although I cannot now recall it word for word, I said something quite like: “‘Scusum, buh Maiola ... um, great! So, hee hee (sigh) ... uhhh, you’re ... um ... (clear throat, swallow, sigh, grin) here!? Yeeeaaahh ... er, um, duuuuuhhhhhhhhh ... .” And thus my how-do-you-do was a lamentable, inscrutable amalgam of primitive vocalizations, so wholly bereft of syntax and diction that Ms. Burian could only have concluded I was crapulent, profoundly mentally retarded, or perhaps both.

Much to my credit, however, I remained stationary and upright. Though I was at this point functionally mute, essentially paralytic, and completely dumbfounded, I had no inclination whatsoever either to keck or to eliminate. And much to Ms. Burian’s, she endured the idolatry all very graciously, and she even engaged in a minute or two of what must certainly have been rather one-sided repartee.

If you lack the context to comprehend either my enthusiastic admiration for Ms. Burian, or my stupefaction upon my unexpected meeting with her, then by all means get hold of her scholarly, fascinating 94-page M.A. thesis on Oldřich Menhart; read it for pleasure and then read it again for knowledge and inspiration. Follow that by licensing her vivacious, calligraphic, Menhart-inspired FF Maiola – quite possibly the most beautiful and important typeface of the last two years, and certainly one of the most complete with respect to language support – also crafted toward fulfillment of her M.A. degree, and in which her thesis is set. Work such as Ms. Burian’s lends further depth and complexity to the field of typography, and it leaves one with an overwhelming sense of confidence in its future.

As for me, I’ll undoubtedly continue my hero worship unabated; one has to have something to believe in, after all. But I’ll continue to work on my composure, such that the next time I meet Ms. Burian, I just might be able to offer “congratulations” in English, using all five syllables.

11-August 2006

boston day 4: type luminaries!

Allan, Carol, and Gillian...

Deb and Ray...

Rachael, Angeline, and Shu...

Zara...

Harry and John...

Gary and Amy...

Paul and Thomas...

Tamye and Sibylle...

Piper and Bob...

Robb and Samantha...

10-August 2006

boston day 3: molto allegro

If, on every Wednesday preceding the annual type conference, we define x to represent time, and y to denote our perceptual correlate of it, then the relation y = e^x holds as we move through the day. For it all comes down to Wednesday: The workshops, the type galleries, the registration desk, the computer network, the evening presentation, and all the little details like having enough pens and tape and power strips and goodie bags and t-shirts and and and and and. If God truly is in the details, just as Mies Van der Rohe claimed he was, then why do the details perennially plague us so?

For me, well, it’s a matter of me and Tiffany getting the marketplace going: It’s the unpacking, the inventory, the vendors, the commerce, and the display. But I’m distracted – I’m thinking about Frutiger in an obsessive way, for today is Wednesday, and I’ve got a Saturday deadline. Tiffany and I will be on that stage at 5:00, and we just cannot fuck this up. We have to say something perceptive, sensitive, and intelligent; we’ve got to get the speakers on and off smoothly; we’ve got to be polished and professional, because we’re representing SOTA, and because everyone will be there, and did I mention already that we just cannot fuck this up?

As I sit here alone tonight, and as I mull over Frutiger’s place in the pantheon of 20th century type designers, I realize I’ve got a problem – to be specfic, a problem of context. Where, exactly, do I put him? I feel as if I’m reaching an impasse, for this mathematician, symbologist, morphologist, sculptor, semiotician, and typeface designer just doesn’t seem to fit.

I’m thinking that the Greek philosophers might have had a problem classifying Frutiger as well. (N.B. I am neither Greek, nor am I a philosopher, but my wife is a classicist, and sometimes she lets me look at her books.) One of the fundamental distinctions in Greek philosophy is that of epistêmê vs. technê, or of theory vs. practice, or knowledge vs. craft. I read that Plotinus was pretty harsh on the idea of mere technê, or craft – it had no soul. I also read that Plato was more forgiving of the concept of craft and of the role of the craftsman. It was lower in the hierarchy, but at least it was part of it. And what about Aristotle? Didn’t he draw some kind of distinction, too? Problem is, Adrian Frutiger operates in the dual realms of epistêmê and technê, of knowledge and craft. His type is imbued with the skill of the consummate craftsman, and his scholarship is infused with a profound understanding of form, language, and meaning.

I’m worrying that this has nothing whatsoever to do with anything pertinent to the objective; but if it does, how will I link it to Bach, and to Frutiger, and do such links even make sense? In the end, I’m concerned that no matter how appropriate our analogies are, and how perceptive and polished and professional we may seem, we still just might fuck this up.

09-August 2006

boston day 2: praeludium and allegro

I’ve been mulling over Adrian Frutiger a fair amount over the past several days; not least because Tiffany and I are to emcee a celebration of his life and work, which happens to be scheduled for Saturday night, but also because I feel as though I am just now beginning to understand his typefaces, whose subtleties and complexities have, until quite recently, simply eluded me. And so I’ve been reading; hence the books, which, since the cessation of the turbulence, have been gathered together once more, read, and subjected to a premature attempt at synthesis. I confess to an early misstep in this work, for I struggled in vein to place Frutiger and his oeuvre somewhere firmly within the nexus of twentieth-century designers and designs. I might have realized that the proper context was perhaps not typography, but rather music, or more specifically, musical composition.

The composer to whom I am able to draw the closest comparison with Frutiger is not Kreisler, as might be suggested by the cheeky title of this post, nor is it Mozart, whose music opens Saturday evening’s program; rather, it is Johann Sebastian Bach, whose consideration of notes and their nuances, coupled with his acute, highly developed numeracy, suggest an apt analogue between one artist and the other, despite the gaps of medium and time.

First, Bach emphasized the dynamic of positive-negative contrast in music, much as Frutiger did with respect to type design. Bach famously declared that while just about anyone could play the notes, it was the treatment of the spaces in-between that fleshed out the real musicians. The great Bach interpreter, Ralph Kirkpatrick, lent further shape to this idea, saying, “Great playing plays the right notes, but it also plays what connects those notes, what gives those notes meaning.” In similar fashon, Frutiger, in his introduction to Signs and Symbols, Their Design and Meaning, wrote:

The white surface of the paper is taken to be ‘empty,’ an inactive surface, despite the visible structures that are present. With the first appearance of a dot, a line, the empty surface is activated. A part, if only a small part, of the surface is thereby covered. With this procedure, the emptiness becomes white, or light, providing a contrast to the appearance of black. Light is recognizable only in comparison with shadow. The actual procedure in drawing or writing is basically not the addition of black but the removal of light.

Second, Bach clearly appreciated much more than the binary contrast of notes and the absence thereof in music; his interest in, and exploitation of, musical subtleties, was epochal. In particular, his use of tonicizations – short-lived references to other keys – served to add color to his textures. In a similar vein, Frutiger’s exquisite nuances lend a beautiful complexity to several of his typefaces, particularly to his sans serifs, which, to the untrained eye, may otherwise appear to approximate Platonic forms, if such things could be said to exist. Charles Bigelow described it like this:

Most readers understand at least a small set of graphic meanings based on variations within a typeface family or between families: Italic versus roman; bold versus normal weight; seriffed versus sans serif; but Frutiger leads us further into a realm of varied half-tones, delicate patterns, and subtle textures, all built up from simple form elements. His work is an exploration of a realm where one thinks not about forms but with forms, and his typeface designs are philosophies expressed not in a language of words but in a language of images. The look of a type in text is a complex graphic expression that is not the content of the text; rather it is an ephemeral yet necessary accompaniament, a visual sensation that is forgotten once the text has been read, as a wrapping is discarded after the gift has been opened or a glass set aside after the wine has been drunk.

Finally, it is well established that Bach was as mathematical a musician as existed at the time. He had keen interests in the golden section, in the Fibonacci sequence, and in the relationship between numbers and letters, all of which underlay a systematic and quantitative approach to composition. Likewise, Frutiger, himself a student of mathematics, pioneered in 1957 a calculated means by which his Univers (which, incidentally, Stanley Morison at the time dubbed the “least worst” of the new sans serifs, evidently missing the point) could be classed. To anyone familiar with the row × column notation employed in matrix algebra, this coding mechanism appears entirely logical and sensible.

So much for Frutiger, at least for now; I have a few days yet. Certainly time enough for an epiphany, should one be required. But while we’re on the topic of introductions, a few of you have kindly written over the past year to inquire whether I could pass on the one that Tiffany and I provided during TypeCon2005 for Matthew Carter. I’d be very glad to do so; here it is:

Good afternoon everyone. Two years ago, at TypeCon 2003 in Minneapolis, we had the very special privilege of introducing Matthew Carter at the Walker Art Center in what was for him, a sort of homecoming. For he had not returned to the city in the eight years since he completed his designs for the now legendary Walker typeface, a font that the Walker continues to use well, and in ever-innovative ways, even as the Walker has reinvented itself in the face of its 2004 expansion.

That evening, Matthew spoke to a capacity crowd of 370 people; there were 75 more outside who, unfortunately for them, could not get in. We hope that everyone who wanted to be here today has a seat in this auditorium, for this afternoon, we – on behalf of the Society of Typographic Aficionados and the Type Directors Club – hear about, and hear from, Matthew Carter in the context of what is nothing less than a celebration: A celebration of fifty years of contributions to the typographic arts in such various guises as designer, professor, mentor, corporate honcho, and always as a friend – a friend to experienced type designers, budding lettering artists, and enthusiasts alike.

When faced with the task of describing what Matthew means to the field of typography, the usual glowing adjectives and substantives naturally flow into one’s mind. One of the best of these comes, we confess, not from the two of us, but from one of those aficionados of whom we speak. You see, after the Minneapolis conference, a survey was sent to all of the attendees, to which one of whom responded in the general comments section, in large caps, MATTHEW CARTER IS THE SHIZNIT!!! Upon reading this comment, we apprehended immediately that this was an expression of considerable appreciation and awe, but we admit that we did not quite know at the time just what SHIZNIT meant.

So we did a bit of research, and we found that SHIZNIT has a dual etymological path. The first, Yiddish: provenance otherwise unknown, but meaning “the best.” This survey respondent clearly meant to tell us that Matthew Carter is the best, and we couldn’t agree more. Interestingly, the second etymological path has a markedly shorter, but much more recent, and complete, history. Date of inception: 1993. The originator? An entertainer who is likely known to many of us: One Snoop Doggy Dogg. Translation: The Shit. Truly, Matthew Carter is the shit. And we mean this, of course, with all the admiration and respect in the world. His contributions to the typographic arts are unparalleled, and his legacy will endure forever.

Thanks for reading. For now, it’s back to the praeludium; the Typophile Film Festival is tomorrow night, and the allegro is hot on its heels.

08-August 2006

boston day 1: peeing in airplanes (and other delights)

It is painfully clear to me that the methods of modern travel effectively reduce us – or at least our behavior – to pathetic, primeval forms. However self-actualized we may ordinarily be, once we board the airliner, we lose our balance atop Maslow’s hierarchy, and plunge right past ego, social, and security, and crash headfirst into physical. Distilled down to our essentials, we eat, sleep, and eliminate, with a few stabs at reading in-between. And even then, these simple acts are debased. We pick through so-called snack boxes, eating garbage we never touch on terra firma; we endeavor to snooze sitting straight in seats ill-designed for any imaginable purpose; we pee into pitiful pots: low, metal, human waste vacuums that undoubtedly stir feelings of envy in James Dyson himself. It breaks my humanistic little heart to see us do this to ourselves.

A thick layer of turbulence, such as the one I experienced this morning, turns the pathetic into the truly pitiable, particularly where airborne egestation is concerned. If only I’d been readied for this exigency early in life; if only one day Mr. Grady, my fourth-grade gym teacher had said something like:

Okay boys, we’re gonna take a break from floor hockey to practice peeing into airplane toilets. So everybody get up on the balance beam, unzip ‘em, and pee like there’s no tomorrow. Now, while you’re whizzin’ away, I’m gonna shake the beam a little bit this way and that. Just do your best.

Alas, this lesson escaped the curriculum of my elementary education, and so midstream, as it were, today’s turbulance jerked me forward, yawed me into the sink, and lurched me back, halfway out the door, where flight attendant Corrinne was eating what appeared to be a tortellini salad. Only by the grace of God did said door hold; for more than a fleeting moment I imagined myself awkwardly (to say the least) planted in Corinne’s lap, pants open and willie skyward. Perhaps on the flight home I’ll sit rather than stand.

While I was jostling about back in the lavatory, my books up in 17-C were suffering similar insult: Lawson, McLean, Carter (Sebastian), Bigelow, and Frutiger all ended up underfoot, underseat, or in the aisle, affording my confreres, however briefly and unexpectedly, their first taste of fine typography. I had Kinross with me as well; I felt as though I needed a dose of Unjustified Texts for solace and scholarship. Now there are some who speculate openly on the length of the stick that ostensibly protrudes from Kinross’s ass; not knowing the man personally, I cannot say for certain, but I find no evidence in his prose for a stick of any dimension whatsoever. He is an exceedingly thoughtful and well-informed writer, and were I ever to possess half his talent I should be very proud indeed. Kinross, I might add, was the only volume amongst the half-dozen that lay impervious; it remained square on the seat, precisely where I had left it. Perhaps it’s symbolic.

From the letterforms to the loo and back again; such is the journey of a typographic aficionado. Welcome to TypeCon2006, day one; see you tomorrow.

07-August 2006

oh f...

Though they were published roughly half a century ago, the translations into English of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, are arguably the truest, and most flowing and rhythmic; they remain classroom standards for studies of Greek tragedy in translation.

These Complete Greek Tragedies are set largely in metal Monotype Bembo, although phototype Bembo appears to have been used for the later translations. Bembo throughout, then, except for that decidedly non-Bembo, roman f that foists itself upon Aeschylus’ Agammenon, The Libation Bearers, and Eumenides, and that trespasses as well on Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. The effect is more than anachronistic; it is a collision on the page of culture, mood, and style something akin to seeing Neville Chamberlain leading the Bravio delle Botti through the narrow streets of Montepulciano.

What might have been the cause of this disharmonious juxtaposition? Gerald Lange kindly told me that it may have been the result of a necessary supplantment due to a damaged or burned out f-matrice, or was less likely the result of a mistaken substitution. Whatever the case, to the extent that such catawampus windows provide us with a glimpse of antiquated, yet awe-inspiring technologies and practices, we’ll search for answers; yet in this particular instance, we’ll probably never know. Nonetheless, the typographic fossil record remains for those few of us interested in such matters.

20-June 2005

ohmigawd!

So I like walked into the lab the other day and there it was just staring me in the face ...

... and I said to my co-workers – like do you see what I see? And they’re all like – what? And I’m like – my gawd how can you NOT see what I see – it’s right there. And they’re like okay you’re starting to freak me out here – just calm down and tell me what the hell is going on. And I’m like look-at-that-f-ligature. FUCKINGLOOKATIT! And they’re like okaaay, like I don’t even know what the fucking hell an f-liga-whatever is. And then I’m like screaming at them THAT’S LIKE NOTHING LESS THAN THE FINEST, FUCKINGEST, INTERLOPINGEST F-LIGATURE EVER TO APPEAR ON AN INSTITUTIONAL WAREWASHING DETERGENT BOX!!! And they like actually fucking sent me home and told me to get a good night’s sleep.

Fuck them!

17-June 2005

coltz rumored to suffer writer’s block: surgery planned

What has long been a topic of speculation among many of his readers now seems to be confirmed: Jon Coltz, proprietor of the type blog daidala, is suffering from a protracted and indeed severe case of writer’s block.

When pressed for comment, Coltz had only this to say: “I’d like to post on why I haven’t been writing, but I just can’t seem to find the words.”

While some readers are confident that Coltz’s hiatus is temporary, others are less hopeful – and less patient. Gladys Torkanainnen of Ontonagon, MI – an admitted financial supporter and self-described “former” reader of the daidala site – lashed out: “He coulda gestated a fuckin’ baby in the time he’s taken to do jack shit nada.”

Coltz countered, “Ms. Torkanainnen has a god-awful understanding of human reproduction. As far as I know, I got no volvos, uvulas, hors d’oeuvres, or any of that plumbing that’s pretty much required to keep a baby goin’ inside o’ there. I do have a really fine pair of nipples, though. Why men have nipples, I’ve no idea; I guess that is and always will be one of the great mysteries of the universe.” Coltz continued, “Did you guys know that, when I was in the 10th grade, I had the largest jugs in my class – 36DD’s, to be exact. Larry Dykstra hit me in the head with a shotput during gym class, and the doctor said that’s why my testo- um, tetra- uh, that’s why my ‘mojo’ went away. After six months or so, the honkers started gettin’ smaller, but I still got a good B-cup goin’.”

Dr. Irving Rosenbloom, Chief of Neurosurgery at Boston General Hospital – and erstwhile novelist – examined Coltz last month using a battery of psychological measures. He commented: “While Coltz probably has the most severe case of verbal logorrhea I’ve seen in my 34-year career, he is extremely reluctant to put anything down on paper. I can certainly empathize; I’m having some trouble of my own right now with my latest all-family feelgood romantic suspense-thriller, tentatively titled ‘A night at the drive-in with my forceps, my retractors, and you.’” Rosenbloom continued, “Anyway, MRI work done on the patient revealed a startling lack of brain cells in area 81b – or in layman’s terms, the ‘motivation center.’ It’s as though nothing was ever there. To be honest, it’s a medical miracle that he ever posted anything on his site at all.”

It may sound like “weird science,” but Rosenbloom and his team of doctors are poised to proceed with the first-ever cerebral replacement in a human. “We have utmost confidence in a new outpatient procedure in which Coltz’s left hemisphere will be replaced with that of a gecko lizard, and his right with an HGH [growth-hormone] fed chicken.” Rosenbloom explained, “After it became clear that a mammalian surrogate was infeasible, we began to compare Coltz’s brain to those of a host of avian and reptilian species. In the end, we flipped a coin to decide between the gecko and the hen, and wouldn’t you know, the coin landed on its edge! Darnedest thing. So we decided to do a little mixin’ ‘n matchin’, and we’re now confident that we have a close analogue to Coltz’s native but defective brain in size, shape, and neurological activity. We basically have nothing to lose at this point, and clearly so much to gain.”

While it’s anyone’s guess what effect the residual growth hormone might have on Coltz’s breast size, which Rosenbloom describes as “alarming, but not altogether unattractive, in a 38 year-old male,” the predicted increase in Coltz’s motivation is more certain. “He’ll awaken each day and immediately begin working.”

Coltz agreed, “It’s true – I’m gonna get up real early in the morning, go onto the World Wide Web, and read the news, the weather, the sports ... and then I’m just gonna Google the hell outta all kinds of shit. Learn about stuff I never even realized I had to know. Like about Paris Hilton.” Coltz’s wife was quick to add, “Needless to say, we’re pretty desperate at this point in time. I mean, the chicken’s not even free-range.”

But Torkanainnen was skeptical upon learning of the upcoming surgical procedure: “I’ve PayPal’ed that sonofabitch over 51 grand since Christmas – all the money I used to send to Jim and Tammy Faye. What I feel like is I got shafted ... is what I feel like.”

Coltz would like to thank Torkanainnen personally for indirectly covering the costs of his operation, but once again, he claims he simply cannot find the words. As for daidala, which Coltz has let lapse since August of last year, only time will tell.

16-June 2005

daidala adds third column

MINNEAPOLIS: AUGUST 3, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE WORLDWIDE RELEASE

A redesign of the seventh most popular “blog” on typography has the font world abuzz this morning, but reaction to the addition of a third text column is mixed.

Fans of Jon Coltz’s daidala site such as Paula Nordquist of Missoula, MT hailed the change. “That third column makes my life soooo much easier. Jon is a visionary. He’s like what could happen if like, Fred Durst and Nicole Richie did it and made a baby.” And Ben Smith of Columbus, OH added: “Fuckin’ A, I logged on and just about dumped a load in my Carhartts.”

But critics – among them, computer usability expert Julie Emmett of Vancouver – urged caution in navigating the updated daidala: “[It’s] an important achievement, but now I have to go to the other side of the page just to read his copyright statement. It was negligent of him not to study the potential effects of this change on users before doing something so extreme.”

Others are shifting attention away from the redesign and are focusing instead on the recent addition of a PayPal link to Coltz’s site, where readers are now invited to make donations via a credit card transaction. Danny McCoy of Far Rockaway, NY lambasted Coltz: “I hope you’re reading this, you little prick. You string us along for two whole years, bullshitting us into thinking you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart, and then out of the blue you start begging for money. Well waaah-waaah. My violin’s about this fuckin’ big [makes gesture approximating thumb to index finger], and it’s playing all for you, you asshole.”

We caught up with Coltz earlier today, and he had this to say about the recent redesign as well as readers’ reactions to it.

“That third column’s been vexin’ me for darn near a year – I’d just been pissin’ in the wind tryin’ to figure it out. Shit, I had columns movin’ all over the fuckin’ place, and they was everywhere ’cept where I wanted ’em. And then it dawned on me – I swear to the Lord Jesus Christ it was a bona fide fuckin’ miracle – I says to myself, ‘Don’t be tryin’ to write your own goddamn CSS file, ya stupid git – just copy someone else’s.’ But how do you do that, y’know? I mean, how the hell d’you actually find one and once y’do, how d’you make any sense of it? Jesus, that’s like crackin’ the fuckin’ Mohenjodaro seals!”

To complete the work, Coltz retreated to the woods of Northern Minnesota, isolating himself from family and friends for a lengthy code-copying session.

“Next thing I thought was, ‘Well shoot, just whose CSS do I copy, anyhow?’ Cogitatin’ on that alone took most of a week. And then it just hits me. I says to myself, ‘That Dean Allen’s got three columns on his Frenchy-Canuck blog – an’ he’s one smart fella, too. Y’know he moves over there to France and gets himself a pretty, booklearnin’ ladyfriend and some hounds – set up right nice he is. Anyways, I copy his whole deal, lock, stock, and barrel – float left to left, right to right, and smack most of that sonofabitch right there in the middle. Changed ’round a few things an’ put all kinds o’ neat shit in that new third column, too – links an’ shit. Looks real nice now, it does. I’m fixin’ to move up to fifth or sixth place in them type blog rankings next year. An’ maybe now that uppity crybaby Heller’ll open up his peepers an’ take notice o’ my blog.”

Responding to the criticism that he is now implicitly “charging” users to read daidala, Coltz said, “Hey, that’s the American way, you know, fightin’ communism and promotin’ capitalism. Ben Franklin wasn’t out flyin’ kites in thunderstorms for shits and giggles. ’Sides, I made 25 bucks so far – that’s enough for two deep dish Meat Lover’s – uh, I mean, that’ll really help out with them server space issues I been havin.”

Coltz says he actually plans to give the $25 to Mr Allen.

03-August 2004

the san francisco treat

During a happy, chance meeting just off the corner of Mason and Ellis, daidala’s Jon Coltz and The Assistant’s Andy Dick discuss the similarities between Today Sans and Cronos, debate whether FF Unit is better described as FF Meta’s “strict sister” or “strict daughter” (the young woman at left casts her vote for the latter), and pause in the conversation to pose together for this handsome photograph.

02-August 2004

a long, passionate kis for you...

Part 2: Some ontogeny and phylogeny

Optical scaling in digital type design – that is, the production of distinct masters at each of several different point sizes – is a subtle and rare thing. When applied, the various point masters are often near clones of one another, spanning a narrow continuum of width and weight. And notwithstanding the pioneering work of Knuth [9], and later of Hoefler [10], Slimbach [11], and Stone et al. [12], as well as a few others (e.g., Burke, Kobayashi) who appear to approach optical scaling as simply part and parcel of constructing a quality typeface, most designers of digital type have adopted a “one size fits all” modus operandi. But this was certainly not the case in the days of metal type. Of pre-digital optical scaling – and with particular regard to the Stempel Janson types – Jack Stauffacher wrote:

When these early letters were hand cut, the punch-makers made their different sizes according to a natural optical scale. Their very limited tools created a style that expressed an intuitive sense for good proportion. The artists clearly retain this kind of spirit in contrast to an incongruous letter that is contrived, having no dignity or beauty. You will notice that each size (font) bears a slight variation in mood for both the romans and italics. These varieties in the fonts are the unique signature of a hand punch-makers skill. This is not found in the modern pantographic methods of adapting the letter design into type. The modern method creates its own kind of simplicity in the exactness for each size [ref. 7 below, p6].

It may well be folly, then, to attempt to compare the Stempel Janson types to their direct descendants in metal, for although each of the Stempel sizes is a familial variant, each is just as much a different cut – different, to underscore Stauffacher, in both point size and mood. And even within the same point size, there are variants; in the 12-point size, for example, there are two distinctly different cuts, labelled 12a and 12b [i, j], the latter being the cut in which Stauffacher’s monograph is set. An examination of the roman reveals that the most apparent differences between these variants may lie in the absolute size and in the x-height, the ‘a’ cut being somewhat smaller and lower than the ‘b’ cut. The lower case also reveals marked differences in the letters f and a. In the 12a cut, the shoulder of the letter f is generous and round, and the terminal extends far to the right of the bar. The shoulder of the f in the 12b cut is much more modest and angular, and the terminal, which is somewhat bulbous, lies closer in. The lower case a in the 12a variant looks nearly out of place; it appears to me to be more Van Dijck than Kis. Not so, however, with the lower case a in the 12b specimen; today’s digital versions of Kis – predominantly, Linotype Janson Text, Monotype Janson, and Monotype Ehrhardt – have retained its more angular shoulder and low-sitting bowl.

Stempel Janson roman in the 14-point size [k] has the look of a stylistic interpolation between the flow of the 12a cut and the stout angularity of the 12b cut. With a few exceptions, perhaps most notably in the tail of the upper case Q, it has all the fatherly markings of Monotype Janson in metal [l]. Its italic progeny, however, are not like Monotype Janson at all in appearance; the overall angularity of the Stempel italic was retained instead in the text sizes of the Linotype issues [m]. Most particularly, the squarish up-over-down shoulders of the lower case m and n in the Stempel 14-point italic [n] are mirrored in its Linotype digital descendant; these constitute a nearly unique hallmark of Linotype Janson Text italic. The relative smoothness of the Monotype italic appears to owe much more, rather, to the Stempel 12a and 12b italics [o, p].

But now I realize that I am getting a bit ahead of myself, for although I’ve mentioned and have shown the Linotype and Monotype descendants of the Stempel types as points of comparison, I’ve left out all specifics; here again, Lawson fills in much of the necessary detail [ref. 2 below, p168]:

Linotype Janson was first produced in the United States in 1937 under the guidance of C.H. Griffith, the typographic director of Mergenthaler; he used the Stempel original as the model for this cutting. In the same year, Sol Hess undertook for the American Monotype firm a modification of the face, using as a pattern a version in a seventeenth-century book. Both of these revivals found immediate favor with the American printers, even though the types lack some of the crispness of the Stempel foundry version, a factor that is most noticeable in the display sizes. [See, for example, the Groot Canon Romein and Clein Canon Romein in this specimen [q], prepared by Stauffacher and used by Heiderhoff [13]].

In the Linotype lineage, then, we proceed from Kis to Griffith, and then from Griffith to Zapf, who, in 1951, retooled the font’s 6, 8, 9, and 10-point cuts (and still later, as shall be mentioned, from Zapf to Frutiger). It should be noted that, retooling and refinement aside, the faithfulness of the Linotype interpretation was necessarily compromised by the Linotype machine itself. Robert Bringhurst puts it succinctly [ref. 1 below, p137]:

Typeface design for the Linotype was restricted by three basic factors. First, kerning is impossible without special compound matrices. (The basic italic f in a Linotype font therefore always has a stunted head and tail.) Second, the em is divided into only 18 units, which discourages subtlety of proportion. Third, the italic and roman matrices are usually paired. In most faces, each italic letter must therefore have the same width as its counterpart in roman.

Reexamine the Linotype sample [m] from above; it is indeed the lower case italic f that stands dramatically apart from the rest of the lower case italics. You will see the result of the handicapped kern in the lower case roman ff ligature as well, in the form of a truncated terminal in the second f (spot, as an example, the word “indifferent” in this [r] sample).

If you pick up, at random, an American book printed in the mid-twentieth century, you may well find that it is printed in Linotype Janson; for a couple of decades at least, this type appeared to be used with nearly the frequency of Caledonia. As it is today in its digital incarnation, Monotype Janson in metal was used far less frequently than its Linotype counterpart. With regard to the genesis and subsequent history of the Monotype cut, I unfortunately know relatively little. Nevertheless, something of an aside to the very early history of Monotype Janson is recounted, in part, in Bruce Rogers’s Paragraphs on Printing [14]:

In planning the Limited Editions Club Shakespeare [s, t] the first consideration was of the type, which needed to be bold and vigorous enough to convey to the reader’s eye something of the rugged Elizabethan quality of the text. A large format was necessary to allow for the illustrations and therefore a correspondingly large type was indicated. The first experiments were made at the Oxford University Press with great-primer Fell types; but when for various reasons it became necessary to print the volumes on this side of the Atlantic, the use of Fell types had to be abandoned and search made for something else comparable in effect.

For so extensive an undertaking hand-setting in this country was out of the question. After experiments with several of the type faces made by the machine companies it was felt that none of them was as suitable as the reproduction of a type cut by a Hollander, Anton Janson, between 1660 and 1687 – less than a hundred years after Shakespeare’s time.

The Lanston Monotype Machine Company undertook to cut the 18-point size in close facsimile of the original, preserving all the slight irregularities of design and alignment which help to give it life and vigor. The 18-point italic of the original Janson appears distinctly inferior to the other sizes; perhaps an odd fount that has been introduced into the series.

James Hendrickson, the interviewer of Rogers and the editor of Paragraphs on Printing went on to add, “The brief description of this partial re-cutting of the Janson type sounds quite simple here, but it was anything but that. To accomplish it B.R. had to conduct a detailed and almost daily correspondence with Mr. Sol. Hess, Art Director for the Monotype Company, for some weeks, a reading of which would be an eye-opener for anyone who may fancy that fine printing is principally a pleasant pastime.”

Now up to this point, I have focused principally on the Linotype and American Monotype interpretations of Kis; what of that of the British Monotype firm? Well, in the mid-to-late 1930’s, Stanley Morison was, as ever, doing double duty as both historian and businessman, at once attempting to determine the origin of the Kis types and directing the production of a Kis of his own. Nearly concomitant, then, with the Linotype and American Monotype releases of Kis revivals, Morison issued a Kis of a slightly different kind, not so closely based on the Stempel types but rather more similar in spirit to the original Groot Canon Romein type shown earlier [q], yet retaining Morison’s indelible imprint – most notably, perhaps, the color and compactness he considered necessary for good book types. And so Monotype Ehrhardt [u, v] would become a sort of bastard child whose parentage appears to owe as much to Morison as it does to Kis. Particularly illuminating in this regard is Morison’s early direction of the Ehrhardt face. From Barker [ref 4 below, pp 345–346]:

...Morison took up the idea of recutting [the Janson], and