*_Caledonia_* A NEW PRINTING TYPE DESIGNED FOR MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE COMPANY BY W.~ A.~ DWIGGINS =with a note on the face by the designer and a note on the designer by= _HERMANN PTERSCHEIN_ 1939 =mergenthaler linotype company brooklyn, new york= _Copyright 1939 by Mergenthaler Linotype Company Printed in the United States of America Typography by W.~ A.~ Dwiggins_ =caledonia= A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z & "AE" "OE" _A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T T U V W X Y Z & "AE" "OE"_ =a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z & "ae" "oe"= a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z fi fl ff ffi ffl "ae" "oe" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 _a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z fi fl ff ffi ffl "ae" "oe" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0_ ( ) "[" "]" "$" "L" , . : ; ,'~ .'~ ` - ' ? ! "*" "**" "++" "P" "p" _( ) "[" "]" "$" "L" , . : ; ,'~ .'~ ` - ' ? ! "*" "**" "++" "P" "p"_ =alternative characters= _J j f fi fl ff ffi ffl_ A NOTE ON THE FACE BY THE DESIGNER =The effort= that matured into =Caledonia= started with a strong liking for the Scotch Modern face. That sound, workable type has served the printing craft for a hundred years. But there are a few fea- tures about it that are not quite happy. How far could one go towards modifying those features without spoiling the vigor of the face? That was the start... But why modify Scotch? Isn't it good enough as it stands? Well, there was a kind of wooden heavi- ness about the modeling of some of the original Wilson letters that didn't seem to need to be there. And when you got down to our own day, and the design had suffered the changes of many recut- tings, the woodenness had become clumsier still -- by reason of the 19th century designer's obligation to strike all his curves with a compass and to get everything hard and symmetrical and shipshape =Figure= 1 _Attempts in the line of Scotch_ from a mechanical draftsman's point of view. Why couldn't you go back to the feeling about printing types that inspired the Wilson punch-cutter and then just liven up a few of his curves without changing the action and color of the face? The attack along that line did not turn out very well. It appears that Scotch is Scotch, and doesn't =Figure= 2 _Attempts to blend: Baskerville and Scotch Didot and Scotch Martin and Scotch_ stay Scotch if you sweat the fat off it. The results were pinched and mean and lacked both color and action (_fig.~_ 1^"*"^). Certainly there's nothing Scotch about them. | | ^"*"^ The figures, except figure 5, are reductions of drawings 10x12 | point made in the course of the investigation. | =Figure= 3 _On the trail_ The next effort was a look at Baskerville and Bodoni and Didot, and all the designers who were working in that general direction. The results did not get very far: merely a rehash of the old forms without any improvement. (_fig.~_ 2) One was not try- ing for a _revival,_ one wanted something modern and individual. =Figure= 4 _The Final Effort_ Then, in pursuit of lively curves combined with a general `modern face' atmosphere, we turned to one of the types that Bulmer used, cut for him by William Martin around 1790 -- and here seemed a good place to start again. The Martin letters were more slender than the face one had in mind, so an attempt was made to add weight to the characters and still keep some of the Martin swing (_fig.~_ 3). The result of this last effort (_fig.~_ 4) was most promising; so we went on and finished the alphabets in the form shown in this text; and christened the face =Caledonia= because the project was inspired in the first instance by the work of Scotch typefound- ers. The face as it emerges is not at all like Bulmer's Martin nor like Wilson's Scotch, but it has touches of both of them in spots. Also it has something of that simple, hard-working, feet-on-the-ground quality that has kept Scotch Modern in service for so many years. About the `liveliness of action' that one sees in the Martin letters, and to a less degree (one mod- estly says) in =Caledonia=: that quality is in the curves -- the way they get away from the straight. stems with a calligraphic flick, and in the nervous angle on the under side of the arches as they de- scend to the right. (_fig.~_ 5) The finishing strokes at the bottoms of letters, cut straight across without `brackets,' making sharp angles with the upright stems, add `snap' to many of the old `modern face' designs -- and why not to =Caledonia=? W.A.D. =Figure= 5 A NOTE ON THE DESIGNER BY HERMANN PTERSCHEIN =Dear Mr=.~ "*" "*" "*" "*" "*": Your suggestion that I write a note about the work of my friend W.~ A.~ Dwiggins falls in happily with my mood. I have been mulling over an idea about contemporary design that can be discussed in con- nection with the work of this artist -- moreover there are one or two points about his association with me that need to be cleared up and this will be a convenient opportunity for that also. You will understand, at the outset, that I have no illusion about the importance of what I have to say. I should be the last person in the world to insist that the branch of activity in which Mr.~ Dwiggins and I are engaged -- the fine arts -- is an activity of much importance in the nation's great total of enterprise. All the work of all the artists in America working for a hundred years is a small thing when placed by the side of the performance of a single one of your base- ball experts during a single year. What Mr.~ Dwiggins has done, or what I have done, or how we may have seen things differently -- those are affairs that happened in a lonely backwater; and are shrunk to a further ridiculous micrography through the fact that they concerned only himself and me. Nevertheless, if you think the subject will be of interest I shall be glad to discuss it. _"["Here follows an account of the collaboration of the two men in a number of undertakings; together with a recital of evidence advanced by Dr.~ Pterschein to prove that his colleague misappropriated various ideas and designs. It has been omitted as irrelevant."]"_ But let the matter stand. Let it be forgotten. What will be of much greater interest to your readers is my estimate of the value of the man's contribution to the art of book design. His contribution is considerable. One of the things that have made it appear considerable is the background against which his work is seen. Any relatively competent design looks important if you set it up in mediocre sur- roundings. The design of books in the United States has never been forceful. Consequently this artist's designs, which have a kind of original force, are conspicuous... That, in a nutshell, is my estimate of the position of Mr. ~ Dwiggins'~ work in the contemporary field. But, how far is he _really_ original, or forceful? That is the question to concern us if we are actually trying to arrive at facts. He appears to you to be working out a `contem- porary' style of his own. Where did he get it? I have known the artist for a long time. Probably I know more about the steps of his development than any other individual. I am able to say without any hesitation what- ever that the features of his style which appear `contem- porary' and original are results of his association with me. Left to himself he would have gone on as he started: a student of historic design, conservative, timid. My ideas opened up a prospect. He is clever at adapting. By sur- rounding his conservative schemes with a shell that had the appearance of novelty (a shell that he made out of fragments of my practice) he has achieved a kind of style of his own. But his `style' misses the real essence of the true con- temporary feeling. And what may that essence be? Modern resthetic design is a repudiation of the human animal _in toto._ It _denies_ that anything is shaped by hu- man hands -- that anything _possibly could_ be shaped by human hands. _Its_ very life-source is a strenuous and per- petual denial of the fact that any such soft mammals are alive on the earth. Its life is a life of metal; hard, square- edged, unyielding. It turns away in disgust from the sug- gestion that any material object could grow, or be punc- tured, or eat, or bleed, or digest... There are certain glyptic emblems in the East, frank admissions of the Way of Life. A western European viewing these images turns away with a feeling of surprise, disgust... In the same way modern resthetic design turns away from _mankind..._ Dwiggins leaves all that out of his `contemporary' style. He creates an illusion of machines. But his machines are a masquerade. There are men inside them. And that is the point about contemporary `modernist' design that I wanted to bring out with this artist's work as a text. Here you have in the United States a large company of designers of all kinds: architects; graphic artists; de- signers of house furnishings, printed fabrics; etc.~, etc.~ -- all set agog by the arrival of a new fashion. Practically all of them had their habits formed in the Victorian era. They see that they have got to train themselves in a radically new set of habits if they are to go on earning their pay. They try to straddle the two worlds, the old and the new. ... And of course they fail to grasp the implication of the new age of machines and metal. They insist on dragging _man_ into the formula -- and on dressing him up in a fancy costume of triangles and other geometrical absurdities -- thinking that thereby they have fulfilled all the require- ments of the `modern' style. Is it not so? The brass works of an alarm-clock could make better _modern_ designs than these _migr_ Victorians. Dwiggins pretends to love steel. He deceives nobody who _thinks_ steel. He deceives his friends -- Victorians like himself. He does not deceive _me..._ Dwiggins loves the forms of his youth -- split-rail fences, the dust of the road, shady farm-lanes, hills, clouds, sunshine, rain, a simple breed of semi-barbaric rural morons -- all the sentimental hogwash of the days when he was young. With a rack of drummer's traps like that for his equipment he undertakes to express to you the sonorities of _this_ era! A sense of humor would have saved him from some of the contradictions and absurdities of his `style' -- he has no humor. A word from a discerning friend at the right time ought to have shown him where his real ability lay -- he would not listen... =H.~ Pterschein= January 3, 1939 SPECIMENS OF 12 _point_ 11 _point_ 10 _point_ 9 _point_ 8 _point_ 12 _point, on_ 13 _point body_ 12 _point, on_ 17 _point body_ 11 _point, on_ 12 _point body_ 11 _point, on_ 15 _point body_ 10 _point, on_ 11 _point body_ 10 _point, on_ 13 _point body_ 9 _point, on_ 10 _point body_ 9 _point, on_ 12 _point body_ 8 _point, on_ 9 _point body_ 8 _point, on_ 11 _point body_ a theory that the proponent thinks may have sense in it: Fine type letters were, in the first place, copies of fine written letters. Fine _written letters_ were fine because they were produced in the most direct and simple way by a tool in the hands of a person expert in its use, by a person, moreover, who was an artist, _i.e.~,_ a person equipped to make sound judgments about lines, curves, proportions, etc. The artist of that moment when printing was invented who fur- nished the fine written patterns for type was (luckily for printing) working at the top notch of a fine tradition of calligraphy. He was making sound judgments about lines and curves and proportions of letters. He had resurrected an ancient distinguished style of writing and had added to it the quality of his own fine taste. His letters flowed from his pen easily and simply without any tricks or affecta- tions or extraneous embellishments. He was simple enough and artist enough to let the implement itself (and his facile hand) shape