ur shop, Paul Baker Typography Inc., established in 1981, has become well-known for typographic work on art books. One of the book designers with whom we have worked most frequently is Connecticut-based designer Bruce Campbell. Our way of working harkens back to the days when the skills of designer and typesetter were separate and complimentary.
In approaching a project we discuss possible type treatments and set samples in a variety of faces, sizes, measures and leadings. We experiment with letter and word spacing until we settle on type with which we both are satisfied.
The title “graphic designer” is a relatively recent one. In the twentieth century, before the triumph of desktop publishing, the skills of “design” and “typesetting” were separate. In Jenson’s time these skills, plus that of printer, were married. Today designer and typesetter have been joined again, although much of the skill of the typesetter (often, also, that of the designer) have been lost. In “Web publishing” all three skills are again united, plus some of that of the coder/programmer, in the body of the Webmaster. [More later.]
With Bruce, we often use classic faces such as Bembo and Aldus, but seldom the faces closest to Jenson. Bruce Rogers’ Centaur was effective when set letterpress, however it suffered in its transition to the computer. Monotype’s digitization seems to have been done directly from the Centaur drawings and, owing to the change in printing technology from letterpress to offset, reproduces too lightly today. Centaur also has a personality of its own, quite distinct from Jenson. (Images of Centaur in later chapters.) The other Jenson derivatives that we had available (before the advent of Postscript we were a Linotype shop—would a discussion of the transition from proprietary to non-proprietary systems be useful?) were Cloister, which clients rejected out-of-hand, and Linotype’s Nicolas Jenson, which was also unpopular.
One of Bruce’s clients, Little Brown and Company, publishes books of Ansel Adams photography in affiliation with the Ansel Adams Trust. They use Centaur for many of the Adams books. We set one of these books, Ansel Adams in Color in Linotype’s version of Centaur. Linotype had licensed an 8 point master from Monotype. An 8 point master is designed to be printed at 8 point size, so when set, instead, at 12 point it becomes heavier. Although not entirely satisfactory, this was better than Monotype’s Postscript version, which had been created as a 12 point master and was too light at 12 point.
Bruce and I would occasionally commiserate about how there was no real useable digital Jenson derivative. So one day, about five years ago, I decided to create my own. My daily activities had given me an understanding of letterfit, word spacing, and the characteristics of a typeface that affect its use. Our shop had produced specialty fonts and logos for map and travel guide companies, and we had designed a font, Exposition, which had been employed by designer Deenie Yudell for display type in the LA County Museum of Art’s American Arts & Crafts: Virtue in Design. The book won several major book design awards; I’d like to think that our type had something to do with that.
The first step would be to research Jenson’s Jenson. And the first stop would be the Newberry Library.
Copyright ©1997 Paul Baker and Paul Gehl
2nd revision September 21, 1996
1st revision August 20, 1996