Typophile - Old Emerson Typeface - Comments

Eben — I’m pretty sure

kentlew — Sat, 2 Feb 2008 07:05:23 -0800

Eben —

I’m pretty sure that Blumenthal’s papers went to the Dartmouth College Library. I don’t know if the collection has been indexed.

As mentioned in Hrant’s last post, the APHA article says that the original Spiral materials were given to the Cary Collection at RIT. Jerry Kelly would also be a good resource.

I can try to drum up some contacts for you. Maybe you (we?) can get over there and hunt something down during TypeCon week in nearby Buffalo. ;-)

I’ll respond to your e-mail separately.

— K.

No suggestions, but very

akma — Sat, 2 Feb 2008 06:24:39 -0800

No suggestions, but very handsome and distinctive — well worth the effort of interpreting for digital type, I’d think.

I am also getting interested

Eben Sorkin — Sat, 2 Feb 2008 02:22:56 -0800

I am also getting interested in this face but more in the version called Spiral that existed before Monotype adapted it. Does anybody have a suggestion?

So I got my hands on

hrant — Thu, 3 Nov 2005 18:54:20 -0800

So I got my hands on “Typographic Years”. First: it’s really
quite well set, in Monotype Baskerville - very sharp, sans any
letterpress fetish. Anyway. There’s a chapter on Emerson, and
it’s pretty interesting, but: not much on its origins, although
he does say he traced over enlargements of Jenson, Baskerville
and Bodoni, if only to familiarize himself more with classics;
and nothing on the hybrid numerals. But the book does reveal
that the punches, matrices, proofs etc. of the original version
of the design (Spiral) are at RIT’s Carey... It also mentions
that Victor Hammer thought it was the best Roman in town.
Oh, and that he made virtually no money from it. But I think
it’s a really nice design, worth reviving much more than
Garamond yet again (although with a new Italic).

BTW, John, I got the Bennett book you mentioned as well.
Isn’t the chapter set in Emerson so utterly convincing?

hhp

Sorry for the rack

hrant — Wed, 5 Oct 2005 15:09:36 -0700

Sorry for the rack inducement. :-)

That article sounds tantalizing. Maybe its contents ended up in his “Typographic Years”? I’ll be getting my hands on that soon. Colophon: if you’re firm on that lead I can scour the collection that UCLA has.

And certainly, if one must get married, one
should spend the big money [shortly] beforehand.

hhp

Hrant Ever since you put out

jim_rimmer — Wed, 5 Oct 2005 15:04:33 -0700

Hrant

Ever since you put out a call for information about the Spiral/Emerson type of Joseph Blumenthal I’ve been racking my brain to try and recall where I have an article by JB on the entire process of making both the types.

Each time I come across a pile of paper, books, etc. I think I’ve found it. No luck.

I recall that the account was very personal, covering the early days of his sketching the design, and mentioning that since he was newly married, he had no money to fund the project.

It seems to me that the article was in a copy of The Colophon, but I can’t be certain. Can’t swear that I will ever find it, but I’m on the lookout for it.

Have you looked into the early editions of this publication?

Jim

Apparently I can’t even

hrant — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:13:48 -0700

Apparently I can’t even keep track of my own stuff: I had previously found an older example of hybrid numerals, done towards the end of the 19th century by Phelps, Dalton & Company (AKA Dickinson) and even discussed the find here on Typophile. Oh well.

hhp

So thanks to Gerald I got a

hrant — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 18:34:01 -0700

So thanks to Gerald I got a good specimen of Monotype Emerson.
Here’s the charset at 10 point:

http://www.themicrofoundry.com/other/Emerson.gif

Nothing as exhilarating as the “a”, but the “AE” has a feature I think is as nice as it is rare: the middle stem slightly tilted leftward. And the “U”, although not very uncommon, is rare enough to single out for praise. Negatives: a descending “J” but a non-descending -if decent- “Q”; although in the Italic the “Q” is exactly the sort I like. Another thing about the Italic is that Monotype’s typical uniwidth (generally called “duplexed”) approach has NOT been applied - which however makes me wonder why it still looks a bit brutish. The smallcaps are too small to me (although the main caps are too big).

The numerals (as I mentioned above, but it’s worth mentioning again) are hybrid (and I just noticed, monowidth too) which is pleasantly surprising to see as far back as the 1930s. I wonder if Blumenthal was in fact the first...

hhp

Gerald, continued

hrant — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 21:05:31 -0700

Gerald, continued thanks.
I’ll probably come in this Tuesday.

hhp

Hrant The reprinted quote

bieler — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 20:42:05 -0700

Hrant

The reprinted quote from Stone

“The intention seems to have been to make the type suitable for photogravure reproduction. This involved a thickening of thin strokes and a blunting of the serifs and all terminals. The designer further seems to have aimed at producing a reasonably light face, fairly condensed, and at the same time one which avoided the rigidity of a modern face and preserved some of the virtues of the classic renaissance types.”

Any typos are my own!!!

The figures are as you say.

There is a foundry in Switzerland, which bought up the Berliner stuff, so they do have the mats.

Gerald

Hrant No problem if you want

bieler — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 17:09:03 -0700

Hrant

No problem if you want to borrow what I have. Let me know if you will be coming by on a Tuesday night and I will bring them along.

Gerald

Gerald, more great info -

hrant — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 22:38:02 -0700

Gerald, more great info - thanks.
Do you have a scanner? And time? :-) Or if it’s not between semesters right now could I come by your class, borrow it, and bring it back? Basically I’m wondering if there are other glyphs beside the “a” that are both so fine and so unique. And the other thing is the derivation of the numerals - I wonder if that Signature article says anything about that, or any possible derivation of the font in general; I’ve been trying to track down the first case of hybrid numerals for a while now...

John, another thing to pick up from UCLA then - thanks.

hhp

Emerson is used to set one

John Nolan — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 20:07:54 -0700

Emerson is used to set one of the articles in Books and Printing: A Treasury for Typophiles.

Hrant I’ve got a specimen

bieler — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 19:30:04 -0700

Hrant

I’ve got a specimen of it that shows the full character set in 10 pt plus text settings in 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 18, and display setting in 24. According to the sheet the Monotype version is number 320, issued in 1935. It was originally cut by Bauer in 1930 as Spiral. There was an article on Emerson in Signature by Reynolds Stone.

I might have others but this was readily at hand.

Gerald

Thanks Gerald. Do any of

hrant — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 10:59:07 -0700

Thanks Gerald.
Do any of those sources provide particularly good/complete print samples?

hhp

Old Emerson Typeface

hrant — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:24:15 -0700

I’m looking for everything/anything on the
Emerson face (originally made in the 1930s).

hhp