Ultra Bold

The Swinging ’60s started to sway somewhere in the ’50s and continued to reverberate in to the ’70s. It was a time when Britain rocked to the Beatles and Rolling Stones; was alarmed at the Great Train Robbery; and scandalised by the Profumo affair. Mary Quant dressed the nation’s youth and Terence Conran furnished their homes. David Bailey and Terence Donovan captured it all on camera and Oz magazine satirized it in print. While ’60s society was swinging, typography was not idle. A succession of sans serif typefaces arrived quickly on the scene: Helvetica, Optima, Folio, Univers and Eurostile. New magazines were launched: Neue Graphik Design, Communications Arts, and Herb Lubalin’s Eros started in New York. The Fletcher|Forbes|Gill design agency was formed in London, and Adrian Frutiger joined Deberny Peignot in Paris. There were new tools for the designer when the fibre tip pen was invented, and Letraset retailed its first sheet of dry-transfer lettering. Offset lithography started its rise to pre-eminence and the first phototypeset book was produced; graphic reproduction techniques were refined, and computers became an industry reality.

It was Louis XIII, prompted by Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, who first established a printing office specifically to serve the French crown and state. Cardinal Richelieu may be better known for his creation of the Académie française (for the defence of the French language), the Académie Royale de peinture et de sculpture, and the powerful Académie Royale d’architecture, but Richelieu had ‘. . . for a long time the design of establishing a royal printing office at the Louvre’, where he wished ‘to execute everything in it with the greatest possible perfection . . .’ Richelieu’s design came to fruition in 1640 with the creation of the Imprimerie Royale, and from then until the present day, France has had a state printing office. However, politics, war and revolution have caused several name changes over the centuries, and depending on whether the country was ruled by Kings, Emperors or Presidents the printing office was variously called the Imprimerie Royale, Imprimerie de la république, Imprimerie Impériale or Imprimerie nationale. Today, it is officially known as the Imprimerie nationale SA.

The Cabinet des poinçons is a punch-cutting workshop in Paris where engravers both restore and create typographic punches. Throughout the 20th century a lively and essential school of engravers practised their craft in the Cabinet in continuity with Garamond, Grandjean, Luce and Didot. In the 21st century the Cabinet supports just two punch-cutters, Nelly Gable and Christian Paput, who have a range of skills that are fast becoming extinct; Gabel and Paput are the only remaining representatives of their trade in France and Gable is the only female punch-cutter in the world. All their work is done by hand and eye: adding new characters and sizes to historic founts, making replacements, repairs and re-cutting punches. But the punches are not made simply for historic curiosity; they are produced for use on a diverse range of real jobs. Gabel and Paput do not work in isolation but produce their typographic punches alongside a small team of type-founders and printers in workshops that are equipped with letterpress printing machines, lithographic presses, equipment for stitching and binding and an 18th century copper plate engraving machine that is in full working order.

Following on from my column of last week I have some more to add to the current Baskerville fever that is sweeping Birmingham. For more than 230 years John Baskerville - printer, typographer and designer of the world’s most enduring and ubiquitous type face - has lain peacefully at rest in an unmarked plot in the Warstone Lane catacombs. But Baskerville will be over looked no more as a fitting tribute to Birmingham’s typographic genius is to be unveiled next month. Carved in Welsh slate and using Baskerville’s own letter forms the chosen text reads: Stranger –Beneath this Cone in unconsecrated ground A friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body to be inhum’d May the example contribute to emancipate thy mind From the idle fears of superstition And the wicked arts of Priesthood. The words were composed by Baskerville as a memorial for his own death it they seem as fitting a tribute as any to a man who did more than anyone to liberate the craft of printing.

I have been lucky enough to be invited to work with the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (part of Birmingham City University) on the production of ‘Baskerville’ – an animated film about the life, work, technological impact, cultural achievements and world-wide influence of the city’s typographic genius. The film is a cinematic version of a Prints Past column - an exercise in how to compress a life-time of achievement into a 10 minute movie without losing the sense of the story and sill managing to captivate the audience. The project is testing my writing skills to their maximum, but I hope the end result will be pleasing. The film will be premiered at the Hello Digital Festival, Birmingham, 23-26 October 2008 and will be the start of a long-term Baskerville project for which we are looking for enthusiasts from the printing industry who would like contribute to their opinions on Baskerville, anecdotes of working with the face, samples of designs using the font. If you want to know more contact me at Print Week.

I've recently got invovled with a typographic distraction and have been working on a project which aims to cover the atrium at Millennium Point, Birmingham, in a Field of Light - and it’s going to look magical! This is all part of the Hello Digitla festival that is running in Birmingham 23-26 October 2008. However, you don’t have to be in Birmingham to view the Field because we’re using a web-cam and you’ll be able to watch it 24 hours a day at www.fieldoflight.com. The best bit though, is the Field is fully interactive with music for added atmosphere, and it is you who can control it and it is you who can make it move in any way you want! It doesn’t matter who you are or where you live, anyone from anywhere in the world can be a part of our project and play the Field in Birmingham. So how does it work? First of all you need to register yourself with www.fieldoflight.com and then go to our sequencer page where you can create your own light sequence. Submit your designs and if enough members like what you have done your sequence will be played by the Field live in Birmingham and watched by people all over the world. It’s simple! So come on and play the field.

There are few places of printing pilgrimage in England, or anywhere else for that matter, however, amongst the famous interments in St Margaret’s, Westminster, is that of William Caxton, the first English printer. Although Caxton’s precise date of death is uncertain, estimates from the records of his burial in St Margaret’s show he died in about March 1492. Typo-holic visitors to London sometimes go to the churchyard of St Luke’s in Old Street, about a mile to the north of St Paul’s Cathedral, a public space with some tall plane trees and a single free-standing 18th-century tomb surrounded by iron railings. The tomb commemorates William Caslon I who started the Caslon Foundry in around 1720, which became the leading English type-foundry of the 18th century. Historically minded typographic visitors to Birmingham often make the trip to Warstone Lane catacombs - a decorously decaying disused burial ground in the city’s Jewellery Quarter - to pay respect to the genius of Baskerville, an 18th century type founder and printer.

The Pen Room is a lovely museum in Birmingham. For more than a century Birmingham was the centre of the world pen trade employing thousands of people. With its unique blend of ingenuity and industrial expertise found Birmingham was in the forefront of steel pen design from the 19th century until the decline of pen making after World War II. It was in 1790 that Samuel Harrison of Birmingham produced one of the first handmade steel pens for Joseph Priestly (the man who discovered oxygen), but it wasn’t until 1822 that John Mitchell first mass-produced pens using hand presses. By the 1830s Joseph Gillott, Josiah Mason and John & William Mitchell had all become major producers of still pens and during the 19th Century over 100 companies grew up in the area. The availability of cheap pens enabled the development of education and literacy throughout the world. The Pen Museum works to ensure this important part of Birmingham’s history receives the recognition it deserves.

I have to confess to hearing the present story from James Moseley, a fellow typographic historian and retired librarian from St Bride; but as I liked it so much I thought I’d pass on my pleasure. Letterforms can be found in all sorts of places and none more delicious than in the Belle Époque at Newington Green, London; a patisserie that maintains a level of confectionary quality its Parisian equivalents would be glad to reach. A specialty of the house is its tarte au citron, which, as is customary, has the word ‘citron’ piped in chocolate on its lemon base. The lettering is an interpretation of the écriture anglaise, the script that the French named after its model, the 18th-century English round-hand that appeared with the introduction of metallic quill. All writing styles are influenced by the tool with which they are written and the medium that it employs: in this case the tool is that of the pâtissier and the medium is chocolate.

When I was in St Bride Library a few weeks ago I chanced upon Stan Donwood – the artist who illustrated all the Radiohead album covers - absorbed in the printing of the latest section of his ongoing work, London Views. Started in November 2005, London Views is an apocalyptic panorama of the capital that stretches from the Thames estuary upstream and that has now reached Fleet Street. Stan carved the first section of this medievalised vision of London on 14 pieces of linoleum using one small cutting tool. The original blocks made up a picture about twelve feet long, which was painstakingly hand-burnished on to beautiful Japanese Kozo paper. Thus the edition is extremely small; only 8 have been made. Each of the 14 sections were first proofed on a huge cast-iron printing press, an Albion made in 1860, scanned, and printed on to large aluminium/polymer composite panels, which in turn were caged with diamond-pattern wire. Each of these panels are 75 cm wide x 140 cm high.

I am collaborating with the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (part of Birmingham City University) on the production of ‘Baskerville’ - a short animation celebrating the life, work and influence of the city’s typographic genius (www.baskervilleproject.com). The film will be premiered this autumn at the Hello Digital Festival, 23-26 October 2008. (www.hellodigital.net). Production on the animation has now commenced and we are looking for compositors, typographers, lettering artists, calligraphers and other creatives who would like to participate in a day of filming. Artists will be recorded while creating individual letters through printing, drawing, carving, incising etc. The letters will be used in a multi-screen installation spelling out the name Baskerville. Filming is scheduled for Monday 22 September 2008 in the Milo Studio, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, Gosta Green?, Corporation Street?, Birmingham? B4 7DX. If you would like to take part in this project and see your letters on the silver screen then please contact me: Caroline Archer | caroline@uktype.com | 0121 766 7948

When I bought my half dozen eggs last week the box announced ‘understanding egg printing’. Sounded fascinating, but when I opened the lid I was disappointed to merely find an explanation of how to interpret the numbers stamped on the shells. However, intrigued I set about investigating this much-overlooked area of print production. A machine for printing uncooked poultry eggs with decorative motifs on the shell was first patented in 1968. The motif, according to the patent, was made up of continuous parts printed by tampography and the design was printed in several colours and was able to extend over at least two perpendicular arcs of the ellipse. The machine comprised a support for the egg to be printed, an inking pad for printing by tampography, and a mechanism for placing the inking pad in contact with the egg on the support and for moving it away. I am not sure if this patent made it to market, but nowadays there are a number of manufacturers of egg printing machines.

I'm having a bit of saucy typographic fun and helping to raise some money for St Bride in the process. UKType are inviting printers, designers and typographers from around the world to create a type tart card: the results of which will be exhibited in Birmingham and London and then place for auction: proceeds will all be donated to St Bride. IIf you fancy taking part then email UKType for the details - caroline@uktype.com

Not all the best printing projects depend on up-to-the-minute technological solutions and I am always pleased when new generations of designers start to use old technologies in a contemporary manner. Johanna Basford’s collection of responsive wallpapers are a case in point; her work is a delightful marriage of hand rendered designs, reproduced using craft-based printing techniques that incorporate a hi-tech twist. Her Glow Wallpaper, commissioned for The Scottish Show, 2007, caught my eye: seemingly traditional wallpaper it reveals a dark side, as hidden within the design are the curvaceous silhouettes of pole dancers. Basford described her process: ‘all my motifs begin as intricate pen and ink drawings, which I then manipulate digitally. The designs are individually silk-screen printed in my studio using hand blended inks and rich metallic lacquers. Working this way ensures each print has a unique sense of character and a tactile quality that is specific to screen-printing.’ Character, tactility, humanity and an appropriate and knowledgeable use of process: everything a good piece of print needs.

I’m shocked: that which I think of as new technology, – digital typography – is a quarter of a century old! It was 1985 that Apple adopted Adobe’s PostScript page description language for its Apple LaserWriter printer and this, combined with the advent of DTP software, sparked a revolution in page-layout technology. PostScript was rapidly adopted by high-end image-setting devices; became the native operating language of many graphics programmes and reveled in its dominance of the typographic marketplace. Both Apple and Microsoft quickly understood the importance of a scalable font and developed its own solution: TrueType. Apple traded the technology with Microsoft and in 1991 TrueType specifications were made public and built into all subsequent versions of Mac and Windows operating systems. Thus, by the early ’90s there were two widely used outline font specifications: TrueType which was built into the operating systems used by over 95% of computers worldwide, and PostScript, which was well-established and supported by most high-end output devices. Printing was never to be the same again!