Eben:

I’m assuming you know the little book called “The Centaur Types” by Bruce Rogers? Chicago: October House, 1949. Maybe this has some of that info on alternate sorts? I recall that in one part it talks about—I think—some alternate uppercase sorts For the Montaigne type that was Centaur’s precursor.

I’m not sure where you can get this book. A few years ago a bunch of copies came on the market. Maybe through APHA. I’d reckon some libraries with good holdings about type would have it. There was also an even smaller book about that type published by I cannot recall whom; sorry. Both of mine, like most of my type books, are buried away. I need a few hundred feet of new bookshelves in this old house.

powers

Thanks Will!

I think I have seen “The Centaur Types”. I don’t recall any pre-centaur stuff in it but I may not be correct.

I ceratainly know what you mean about shelves! And I just put in about 100 extra feet.

BTW, there is a fairly new book called “Humane Letters: Bruce Rogers - Designer of Books and Artist” which may have information about it as well.

I suppose it may depend on whether or not we consider the Montaigne type to be “pre-Centaur” or not. There was a set of different caps cut for its use at the Metropolitan museum and its Press.

But maybe when you say “alternative glyphs” maybe you mean something beyond just alt caps at a different size.

Good luck with this.

powers

Even, do you mean Bruce Rogers : A Life in Letters by Joseph Blumenthal? I have a copy. It’s been a while since I read it. I can look later for some information for you. What exactly are you looking for — a history of the different castings? alternate characters? pre-cursors?

— K.

Kent, thanks very much!

But maybe when you say “alternative glyphs” maybe you mean something beyond just alt caps at a different size.

Yes, definitely. What I am hoping to find is predictable if you have followed the topic of my posts. ;-)

I am wondering if Bruce found that the type he had to work with had clashes or gaps and that he may have created an alternative sort to use instead for better fitting. If he did make alt letters that is just one of many reasons he may have done it. He could have also made an alternative swash or just tried to make a type look more even on the page or correct a poorly weighted S for all I know. But talking to Kay I started to get an idea that it might have been the case that the special cuts may have been to correct a fitting problem in existing type, and certainly Blumenthal might well have had a special interest in such things as well given his history with his own design: Spiral.

Hopefully I will also talk to the Author of Humane Letters today and see what he has to say. His name is Richard Landon. He works at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto.

I checked all of the indexed citations for Centaur, but I’m not sure what Ms. Amert was referring to, since I found no reference to any kind of contextual alternates like you’re interested in.

The closest I could come were the various references to the fact that the design had to be subtly altered when it was adapted for Monotype setting in a full range of sizes.

Here is the most relevant quotation:

“Having the Centaur type cut has meant 3 or 4 times the amount of work I anticipated — besides all the unlooked-for delays. It was necessary to make 4 sets of patterns to cover the great range of sizes — with individual modifications of certain letters, almost without number. The design called for so many departures from their usual practices that even after the first size was satisfactorily made, they were all at sea about the other sizes — and I was equally so, except by experiment. So really I’ve made four types.”

This is quoted from a letter to Carl Purington Rollins on 9 Feb 1930. [from Bruce Rogers : A Life in Letters by Joseph Blumenthal, page 115; published by W. Thomas Taylor, 1989.]

I’d be willing to bet that all the extra adaptation was as much BR’s notorious perfectionism as anything else. That and struggling against the unitized constraints of Monotype. In other words, probably not the kind of contextual motivations you’re looking for.

— Kent.

I have a feeling Kent is on the right track here. I’ve not come across any references to the sort of sorts Eben mentions.

powers

Eben — One more tidbit for you. I found this piece not in the Blumenthal book, but in BR’s own Pi : A Hodge-Podge of Letters, Papers, Addresses, written during a period of 60 years [The World Publishing Company, 1953].

“The first cutting was admirably done by Robert Wiebking, of Chicago, and though certain modifications of the the design were made by him, they were in almost every instance improvements on my pattern. Several of the least satisfactory letters have been recut from time to time in the effort to better them.” [pp. 55-56]

This is taken from a Printer’s Note he wrote for the first book printed with the Monotype re-cutting of Centaur in 1929.

Again, it seems BR’s revision of any Centaur glyphs is motivated by perfectionism, not contextual adaptation.

Okay, back to work now ;-)

— K.

Thanks Kent! It does start to sound likely that Kay was conflating the two ideas. The other thing is that she didn’t have any of the Centaur work in mind but rather extra glyphs for other people’s existing types. This would have been pre-centaur. Still, it is also quite true that it may well turn out that he wasn’t making something to be used contextually with the existing glyph but rather as a refinement as you have just described.

Maybe there will be something in “Humane Letters”. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.

Oh, pre-Centaur; I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry.

I’m not going to try to run this down, but I’ll reiterate my suspicion that if anything of this sort was done, it was along the lines of customizing the look of a face and improving perceived shortcomings, not contextual alternates. Something like what Porter Garnett requested with Van Krimpen’s Lutetia when he wanted it for the Frick art collection catalog [see Letters of Credit, pp. 103–04].

— K.

I have read the book “Humane Letters” now. It does mention numerous instances of customizing or tinkering but in no case is a contextual shape mentioned. It is a very nice book indeed with samples of nearly everything mentioned in the book. It is $30. Softcover. I will still talk to the author but I am not expecting to any surprises.

…it was along the lines of customizing the look of a face and improving perceived shortcomings, not contextual alternates.

That would make a lot of sense in regard to the various sorts in the Jenson books, which seem to have a pattern, but only inconsistently.

Just to be clear James, Kent and I were talking about projects of Bruce Rogers. Maybe I am missing something though. What do you mean?

My take on what Kent said—in relation to your research into the alternate glyphs in Jenson’s printing—is that Jenson could have been customizing his own types while he was working with them. Maybe he was tweaking stuff and trying it out along the way, which is why sometimes it seems like systematic use of alternate characters, but five lines later, it doesn’t.

Oh, I see now. Yes, if you do are inventing as you go to a certain extent then you would get more variation. And if you were to run short mid-composition and had to cast more, you might throw a tweak in on the way.

It seems to me though that those few Jenson’s I have clapped my own eyes on, even when they held some variety, did also have a kind of “cast of characters” eg a1, a2, a3 and so on that had distinctive feature sets even through the haze of printing variables.

Still, thats only what I *think* I see so far. And there is much more to investigation needed.