‘In My Small Way’—Colophons, Typography,
& Ligatures:
An Argument for Analog by Hugh Walter
Barclay
edited by Joseph LaBine
edited by Joseph LaBine
—Nov.
10, 2013—
Colophons:
The
colophon gets its name from a city on the Silk Road that goes by the name of
Colophony, their army that always made a big charge at the end of each battle.
The colophon is the printer’s charge at the end of the battle.The existence of
the word shows the influence and respect amongst typographers in the 17th
and 18th centuries. For example, there was a law in Britain that forbade
public gatherings. There was an exception to this law and that provided for
meeting inside “Chappels.”[1] The
typographers union designated their shops as chapels and would often elect a
father of the chapel. In doing so they changed the word “Chappel” to the modern
chapel. It was not uncommon for a typographer to be addressed as Doctor Printer
as he walked down the streets of the town. You must remember that this person
was one of very few in that town who could read, write, & make books for
others to read.
*
When
I began Thee Hellbox Press in the early eighties colophons were always written
in the third person. I was working as an Orthotic Consultant at the time and as
such I was obliged to write patient notes for medical charts. These notes were
written in the first person and signed essentially to provide a paper trail.
However, third person colophons that might say for example, “The type was set
in 12 pt. Caslon.” always made me ask, “Who set the type, perhaps your mother?”
It always looked to me as a method to avoid responsibility, back then. I began
to write the colophon in the first person, to take responsibility. I was frowned upon by my older colleagues
& private press operators but I have persisted and will continue. No one
has followed my lead and I’m sure they have good reasons.
An
author’s name appears on the title page. It’s not an ego trip. It’s an act of
taking responsibility for the text written. You will often say: so & so
wrote this book, when in reality you should say: so & so wrote the manuscript
for this book, someone else made the manuscript[2]
into a book. Not that I expect that anyone is actually going to change the way
they speak.
My
first book was published by The Poole Hall Press in 1972. Bill Poole asked me
how I wanted my name to appear on the title page. I had actually not considered
that so I thought for a moment or two and said, “Mathew, Mark, Luke and John
only used their first names and they had a best seller so I will only use my
first name.” It didn’t take me long to realize that I was trying to avoid
taking responsibility for the work so I decided then to use my full name Hugh
Walter Barclay in an effort to take responsibility & make certain I wouldn’t
get mixed up with others by the same name.
Recently
I’ve been using the colophon to make political statements by inserting a few
lines about our retrograde Conservative government. This is essentially my
contribution to Press for Responsible
Government—a loose knit group of private presses. It is interesting to me
that I am obliged to submit to the Library & Archives Canada because ironically
they are [still] obliged to accept, all this in effort save heritage.
Most
people think that typography started with Gutenberg; however, Gutenberg knew his
new means of communicating needed to be as aesthetically pleasing, and equal to
the work done by scribes if it was going to sell. Scribes had the ability to
make letters wider or narrower to fill out a line, they could justify both right
& left, and thus, they could eliminate negative word spacing and reduce
rivers to a minimum. They developed ligatures as a means of reducing negative
letter space. In addition to all this, their ligatures were aesthetically
pleasing. Gutenberg had 290 characters in his type drawers. He had wide, narrow,
and normal widths for each letter, and an abundance of ligatures. If you
examine a facsimile copy of the Gutenberg 42 line bible you will see pages laid
out in two columns, both justified left & right. If you lift the bible up
so it’s horizontal & level with your eyes you will not be able to read the
text[4] but
you can see clearly the negative word spaces and any rivers formed by them. You
should be amazed by the control of negative space because what you’re looking
at is a textured page.[5] I
have been told it is the only book printed letterpress that does not have a
typo/not a nick in a serif. When you compare a page from the Gutenberg bible to
a book printed with digital type the difference is night & day.
The
standard of typography has declined since
Gutenberg mostly due to the economic pressure on presses to print stuff
& sell with little concern for aesthetic standards.
*
I
employ several methods to keep negative word spacing to a minimum. My pressmark
is a petroglyph turtle and I have some made in 12pt font for lines justified
both left & right that have a final word that will not fit into the line
and cannot be hyphenated. I will reduce the negative word spacing by inserting
a turtle or two usually where a comma or period appears. Around the turn of the
century certain printing houses used dingbats for the same purpose, however, I
find the dingbats outweigh the type face and as such they become very noticeable
and distracting.[6]
About
a year ago, I met with Merilyn Simmons at the special collections library at
Queen’s University to help explain the nuances of a Gutenberg bible facsimile.
We examined the book for some time before Merilyn, in her playful but poignant
manner, said “so who cares?” I replied: “well I do. But, you are very correct
in thinking that it’s easy to ditch typography because uneducated readers will
never notice and ultimately don’t really care.”
In
my small way I place such an emphasis on typography to educate people. We have
already ditched cursive writing from the curriculum and general assault on
typography began when Gutenberg died. Books should look good—even when you don’t
know why they look good.
Ligatures:
Ligatures
derive their name from the Latin ligat, meaning to bind. In most fonts you will
find fi, ff, fl, ffi, ffl, and sometimes ct, and st. Ligatures are necessary to
reduce the letter space that occurs between letters such as f & i. In lead
type the hook on the“f” overhangs the body of the type. This overhang is called
a kern. If you try to place an “i” following “f” the dot on the i will
interfere with the kern on the “f” as will the “l”. If you try to follow the f
with an “f” the kern of the first “f” will interfere with the second “f” and
this will increase the letter space between the two letters on the page.
*
I recently had a young unmarried couple who
wanted to learn to set type visit my studio. I ask learners to come in with a
quotation of their choice & the main objective of the session is to print
that text. While my visitors set their texts I impressed a large wooden
ligature, using yellow ink, in the centre of a piece of handmade paper. We impressed
their quotes above and below but overlapping the ligature so that they appeared
bound on the same page. This was a good opportunity for me to appreciate the
significance of printing over an image that has been printed in a lighter
colour. This technique gives depth to the page and floats the image. And it
takes time to do—10 or 15 minutes per line—they were here for hours. But, many
digital faces have eliminated ligatures in an effort to reduce costs.
I bought a copy of The Convict Lover (1995) by Simmons. While reading it, I noticed
that it’s printed in Adobe Caslon—the digital typeface that’s eliminated
ligatures. I have the original Caslon type face and know that there is a ct
ligature in that face that would work with convict. I immediately made the
connection between ligatures (handcuffs) and convicts. The temptation was far
too great; I printed about 10 bookmarks (with ligatures) & left them in a
paper bag on Merilyn’s porch. The bookmarks were well received and I made my point
with a smile—people still care.
*
Letterpress
& analog printing methods have their disadvantages too. Letterpress
bookmaking takes an inordinate amount of time, compared to commercially
produced books, this makes the analog product expensive, and these products get
printed in limited numbers.[7] I
don’t know anyone who is making letterpress books & driving a Porsche.[8] People
in this “business” because print this way because gives them joy.[9] There
are 20,000 books published in Canada each year and less than 20 are printed using
letterpress & very few (high quality letterpress) using the methodology I have described.
[3] Here Hugh argues that press books should still be
visually pleasing, that printers should mimic the scribes that worked beautiful
inlays & decorations into their books. Of course, while it’s easy to
disagree at times with the overall aesthetic, he does validate the ephemera
quality of the chap.
[6] The
Roycrofters from East Aurora NY used the dingbat method. Negative word spacing
can be controlled using 4-to-the-em spacer, rather than a 3-to-the-em spacer
following a period or comma. You need to understand that the visual spacing
between round letters such as e & o can appear greater than the visual
spacing between letters with apposing extenders such as l & b, knowing this
allows one to adjust the word spacing accordingly. Judiciously reducing or word
spacing also assists in preventing rivers, or the use of a turtle, dingbat,
etc.
[8] I will try to ensure that Hugh knows this statement is a non sequitur. Chapbooks & Porsche have no implicit relationship.
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