In the book _Counter punch_ there is a reference to the earliest cutting of very small text size faces.

Since book work is determined by conventional parent paper sizes, today and to some extent, always, there is only a certain range of point sizes that are appropriate. Early paper sizes were regulated in regard to size based on previous formats, which were based on the size of animal skins, e.g., goats, calves. An elephant folio sheet was one entire animal. Uterine calf was used for miniatures (both mother and unborn were sacrificed). The monestaries dedicated to scribal work were mass slaughterhouses, but set the standard that we still abide by.

14-point is hardly an extremely large size however. The fine printer-publisher William Everson, who worked in larger format, recommended 16-pt as the ideal size for bookwork. Victor Hammer often worked at the larger end of the spectrum as well. There is some validity in this as most faces do seem to show their form best at larger sizes. This may be more a fine press/letterpress thing though. Fairly large text sizes are much more friendlier in regard to presswork. And, then there is the market as well; larger format books tend to have a higher selling price and are more likely to attract collectors.

Some of the finest printing from small type, in very small pocket books, was done by the Elzeviers in the late 16th and 17th centuries. They also produced books at larger sizes, using larger type, up to folio size, but their small books are justly admired. The body type is usually about equivalent to 7pt or 8pt.

Interesting, prejudices left out, still I often feel more uncomfortable reading type which is too big than type which is too small.

A copy of one of the small Elzevier books is for sale on eBay this week: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2201&item=7317107570&rd=1

The pictures are not detailed enough to really show the quality of the type, but you can get a good sense of the typographic colour of the little pages.

Some fun stuff on type size here...
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/glossary/ch6.htm

I've heard it's not completely accurate, but I'm not changing it til I get confirmation from Robert.

Cheers, Si

Very nice sample and very small type John, what does one have to do to get those gorgeous textures on the page?

I

...what does one have to do to get those gorgeous textures on the page?

Write in Latin.

The Latin language looks better in the Latin script than any other tongue. There is an eveness of texture in the Latin language set in renaissance types that nothing else in our script matches. Jan Tschichold makes a similar observation in The form of the book.

In the book
"Mut zur Typographie" by Jürgen Gulbins and Christine Kahrmann, p. 281
there is a table with names and point size both in didot points (the "new didot" 0,375 mm) and the corresponding value in DTP-points (1/12 inch = 0,3528 mm) (there is also a row in Pica-Points with 0,351 mm I omit here):

Note there is a big difference in "brevier". I tried to give a translation of some of the names (second row). I don't know if the actual size of type has been different due to the different units in american type. If this would be true an american "nonpareil" would differ in size from a german "nonpareil". But of course an old "Minion" with 7 didot-point was bigger in size than our 7 dtp-point. To get a "Minion"-size we ought to set in 7,44 pt (and of course depending on the actual shape of the glyphs on the body).

oops, sorry, should have read the formatting help before.

John, that

Michael, I`ll never believe 1 pt type was casted ever at least someone could show me an example. :-)

Hector

This is an old list, don't know where it came from but there apparently was a 1-pt known as American. I had some Excelsior musics at one time. One font took up three cases with all the sorts for the various elements. Quite daunting.

Gerald

American 1pt
German 1.5pt
Saxon 2pt
Norse 2.5pt
Brilliant 3pt
Ruby 3.5pt
Excelsior 4pt
Diamond 4.5pt
Pearl 5pt
Agate 5.5pt
Nonpareil 6pt
Minion 7pt
Brevier 8pt
Bourgeois 9pt
Lomg Primer 10pt
Small Pica 11pt
Pica 12pt
English 14pt
Columbian 16pt
Great Primer 18pt
Paragon 20pt
Double Small Pica 22pt
Double Pica 24pt (equals the English Two-line Pica)
Double English 28pt
 32pt
Double Great Primer 36pt
Double Paragon 40pt
Canon 44pt
Four-line Pica 48pt
Five-line Pica 60pt
Six-line Pica 72pt
Eight-line Pica 96pt

Now I

I remember reading, it might have been here, that Latin presents a good colour because it uses relatively* few letters with a descender, and that Lorem Ipsum was a poor choice for visuals. So if you can identify a similar trait in Spanish (or any other language) then you could factor that in when creating a local font.
*relative to English.

A major factor in the typographic colour of Latin is the very high frequency of the vowels a e and o, and the combinations ae and oe.

John

I've only had one occasion to set Latin but I quite enjoyed it. I think though that your point about its typographic colour and the incidence of vowels is the result of how easily it can thus be hyphenated (and its differing rules regarding hyphenation), with the consequence that word spacing can be uniformly tighter. This is not the case with roman languages derived from Latin.

As an addenda to this I should add that Latin as seen in early printing (incunabular) followed the manuscript traditon in regard to the use of word abbreviations and associated symbols. There were far more options available to ensure tight spacing and uniform color.

Yes, although this had changed by the time of the Elzevier editions referred to above, and most scribal abbreviations were abandoned. The point about hyphenation and evenness of word spacing is well made, but I think there is also a simple pleasantness in the frequency of certain letters and repetition of combinations in Latin. I recently set a bi-lingual Mass booklet for a friend's ordination, using the Dante types, and the Latin columns look much more magesterial than the English (in part, I admit, because Latin is a more efficient language, so I had to use a smaller point size for the English).

John,
this now is off-topic but I'm very interested in your Mass booklet. I have to set Mass booklets too and try to make their typography as good as possible (as far as time allows) and clearly distinct between the directions (which tend to increase since few people know what to do) and the spiritual words themselves.
I would like to see how you design a Mass booklet.

I wasn't solely responsible for the ordination booklet, and it was somewhat hastily completed, because the final text revisions arrived a short while before we needed to go to print. Fr Joseph had originally been hoping to include the chant setting in the booklet, but in the end this needed to be printed on a separate folded sheet, because we didn't have time to get it typeset before the deadline for the booklet. It isn't perfect by any means: there are a couple of mistakes in the text, and some instances of less than ideal justification, but it made a good impression on the day. Some of the visiting FSSP clergy noted that it was better typeset than their missals.

I decided to go for quite a large format, to keep the number of pages down and because we knew there would be a lot of elderly people in the congregation who would appreciate the decent size of the type.

Here are a couple of PDFs. The cover is as printer spreads, so you'll have to imagine how it looks folded.

Ordination booklet cover Ordination-Cover.pdf (108.7 k)

Ordination booklet interior Ordination-Interior.pdf (707.7 k)

PS. The heavy use of drop caps isn't something I would necessarily do again: it conforms to what a lot of the 'users' would be familiar with in their regular Sunday missals, but presents an interesting question about the distinction between 'traditional' and 'old-fashioned'.

Wow, that's good stuff! And a lot too (36 pages)!
Unfortunately it's true: Few new missals are typographically well done. Old ones are better for the most part.

>it was somewhat hastily completed, because the final text revisions arrived a short while before we needed to go to print
That seems to be identical through continents and confessions ;-) On the positive side I would say: It shows, that the Mass is fresh and crisp. On the negative: Everybody always does his part in the last minute. Blame myself too of course.

I like the printing in two colours - a good tradition of missal typesetting.
Unfortunately in our church there often is not enough money (or not enough care for liturgical capability to spend it) to work like this.

The distinction between "traditional" and "old fashioned": Unfortunately my english is not so good to understand which implications you have - but it also may be in the words themselves: Which do you regard as better?
Here in Germany with good traditions lost due to Ultramodernism (I mean thinking that all old things are bad and everything new is entirely better, but that results to a good part from a very difficult relationship to history and the shadow of evil that has fallen on it), and now seeking for traditions that are able to take a weight (especially in parishes), everything is called "traditional" that has been done twice. Even if no one carries/trades that "tradition".

I will post an example of missal booklet from me.

I would find it a very interesting thread of its own:
"Missal (booklet) typography"
because there are interesting questions about setting the different types of text and dealing with tradition, readability and even dignity of words and also the influence of social atmosphere.
How make a modern, open, visual skilled booklet keeping long time weight of words? How to integrate explanations? And so on.

Back to the setting of Latin:
I think its evenness is in the rhythm of the language. There is a clear difference in the visual form of latin text in whole sentences (with very very few capitals) and the passages where a lot of Names with capital first letters and a different distribution of consonants/vowels occur.

Gesegneten Sonntag! (in english: have a blessed Sunday ?)

John Hudson, I do not like what happens with most of the initials
(drop caps) in the pdf 'Ordination-Interior' -- the drop caps
should have/keep their square, followed by the first word glyphs
set in sc. Nice setting, though.

Best,
AS

Regarding the distinction between traditional and old fashioned. Especially in the context of religion, I take an etymological stance on tradition: always remembering that it is from the Latin verb traditio, to hand on. Tradition is all about passing on of something of inherent value from one generation to another. Conversely, old-fashioned implies simply doing something superficially in the way it used to be done, without critically considering whether the thing has inherent value. The kind of ultramodernism to which you refer is similarly uncritical, in that it tends to treat all tradition as if it were merely a matter of fashion and taste, and not of inherent value. Some traditionalists, of course, make the opposite mistake, and in their fervour to defend tradition against modernist or post-modernist assault will adopt a reactionary position that clings to anything old-fashioned as a kind of reassurance. It seems to me that the only healthy position in all these options is that of true tradition: which requires a critical consideration of both past and present, but with dutiful acceptance of what is handed to us, maintaining it and handing it on in our turn, and erring on the side of this traditio if we are uncertain about or unable to understand the value of what we have been handed.

PS. I'd be very happy to contribute to a thread on missal or prayerbook design. I have some historical examples that I can photograph.

Erratum: ...remembering that it is from the Latin verb traditio, to hand on.

The verb is actually tradio. I was very sleepy when I wrote that, having stayed up the night before to watch the live feed of the Pope's innaugural Mass, itself a study in both tradition and innovation. Watching Benedict XVI and the eastern rite patriarchs incense the tomb of Peter before the Mass, it was difficult to believe that this is a new addition to the innauguration of a Pope, which has never been included in the ceremony before: it is an innovation that joins to the tradition without the seams being visible.

traditio/tradio

I didn't even notice the error and thought of course tradio, maybe I didn't notice the superfluous "ti" due to the restrictions of type-rendering on screen - or latin-rendering in my brain ;-). By the way: Do you read Latin fluently?
The (former and now) Popes Masses on St. Peters place are aesthetical, liturgical and medial events of their own. For me it's very interesting how outer symbols of doing, color, textiles and rites show inner structures of meaning. And of course as a theologian and fellow countryman (I live about 100 km from where Benedict XVI. comes) I'm very interested about every move of innovation joined to tradition by this Pope.

I'd like to start a new thread about Missal and prayerbook design next week (for this week my duties do not allow much work on it).

But - back to the topic:
I would be very very interested to have a look at those Missal books, that were used on St. Peters Place.

Which type size does the Pope have to read?
As I can recall, he has been wearing different glasses ...

I hope there is no young enthusiast with a computer and Arial ;-)
Or a hype designer working solely with Rotis as in our bavarian protestant church ...

Are there good, skilled scribes left in the Vatican?

John Candara looks very charming in the pdf you gave. At first glance I tought it was frutiguer, but then I had a closer look.

__ Are there good, skilled scribes left in the Vatican? __

A woman from ACI, http://www.calligrafia.org, told me not.
Here they are doing things, http://www.malleus.it/index_ABA.htm
but calligraphers should be calligraphers, not manual typographers.
And, sad to say, their brochure used calligraphies by Giovanni
De Faccio.

About 'traditio/tradio' I also heard about 'redditio symboli'
but unfortunately I cannot explain you more.

"Man mu

Do you read Latin fluently?

Alas, no; I wish I could, and hope to study more systematically in future: at the moment I'm picking up what I can as I go along. I have a basic understanding of grammar, and can often guess the noun declension and verb tense from the ending. I can follow the ordinary of the Mass very well, of course, and the psalms that we repeat during vespers and compline, but beyond that I'm either making guesses (often wrong) or looking at the English translation.

Traditio: noun f deliverance/surrender
Tradere: verb to deliver/transmit/betray (Trado: I deliver/transmit etc)
I think reditio symboli is to do with "a return to the gifts of a common feast"

to bieler:

the names for sizes American (1 pt), German (1.5 pt), Saxon (2 pt), Norse (2.5 pt), Brilliant (3 pt), Ruby (3.5 pt), Excelsior (4 pt) referred to point sizes of Rules, not type.

Brilliant (3.5 pt) and Ruby (5.5 pt) referred to Type, slightly different sizes.