Alessandro — I’m not sure if this is what you’re thinking of, because the wording is slightly different, but my first thought when I read your inquiry is that this sounds like something Dwiggins said to Griffith.

WAD wrote one of his extensive missives to CHG on February 22, 1937, entitled “Newsface.” This contained the conceptual seed of what became his Experimental No. 223, also known as Hingham. There is a statement in the beginning which echoes your questions. Here are the first two paragraphs:

Your (Lino’s) attack on the problem of newsface, via Ionic, Excelsior, etc., — is the first intelligent effort in the line ever made, and results in a solution that is adequate in every detail so far as I can learn, from all engineering angles.

You have taken the style of letter established as “the” newspaper face, and have modified it step by step until it will print under modern conditions, and can be read when printed. I think very little can be added on the side of the problem that comes under the head : It Will Print. If anything more can be done it will have to be in the department : It Can Be Read.”

This passage was quoted in the text used to show Hingham in the second volume of the Postscripts on Dwiggins, Typophile Chapbook XXXVI, published a few years after WAD’s death.

You may be associating this with Unger because he also quoted this passage in his 1981 article in Quarendo, Vol XI No. 4, about WAD’s Experimental No. 223.

Glad to be of assistance, again. ;-)