Making Matrices: Annotated Bibliography

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See also the CircuitousRoot set of Notebooks on the General Literature for Making Printing Matrices and Types and the overall CircuitousRoot Bibliography for Making Printing Matrices and Types .

In this bibliography, I'll omit volumes referred to only occasionally or incidentally. They are all identified in the text or notes.

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American Type Founders. Type Speaks! Elizabeth, NJ: American Type Founders Sales Co., 1948.

Produced by Loucks & Norling Studios in collaboration with G. M. Basford Co. for American Type Founders Sales Corp. 16mm, sound, color, 25 minutes. (Information from the film and from the 1948 copyright registration for this film. The date of 1946 in Rehak's Practical Typecasting is incorrect. The title is "Type Speaks!", not "The Type Speaks!" as reported in some other sources.) Narrated by Ben Grauer.

This film has lapsed into the public domain due to failure to renew its copyright, as would then have been required. A copy of it is presently (2012) distributed by the filmmaker Carl Schlesinger. Fortunately, he has not asserted any new copyright on it, so it remains in the public domain. I am therefore able to use stills of it in this book, which helps greatly in documenting ATF's processes. However, if you want to view the entire film (you do), you should buy a copy of it from Carl Schlesinger, 39 Myrtle Street, Rutherford, NJ 07070.

Anon. "Type: Frederic W. Goudy Here Demonstrates the Design of One of Advertising's Oldest Devices, a Type Face." Advertising and Selling. Vol. 32, No. 6 (May, 1939): 38-39.

A two-page photo-essay with little text. Online on CircuitousRoot

Bauer, Konrad F. Wie eine Buchdruckschrift entsteht (Frankfurt am Main: Bauersche Giesserei) This was published in two editions, one of 20 pages in about 1933 and one of 30 pages in about 1953. For further notes on them (but, alas, no reprint) see their entries in the CircuitousRoot Notebook on General Literature on Making Printing Matrices and Types .

Beilenson, Peter. The Story of Frederick W. Goudy. (1933/4, 1939)

This is a long biographical essay on Goudy. Originally published serially in The Inland Printer in 1933/1934 (I'm not yet sure of the exact citation). An expanded version was published for Goudy's 74th birthday (in 1939, possibly with several different imprints); this was only a couple of months after the Marlborough/Deepdene fire. It was reprinted for the centennial of Goudy's birth (Mt. Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1965). The Peter Pauper reprint has a portrait of Goudy on its title page, but lacks the eight photographs of Goudy said to be in the 1939 edition.

It's mostly about Goudy and type design, but has a couple of small snippets of information on Goudy's matrix engraving and typecasting equipment.

Boone, Andrew R. "Type by Goudy." Popular Science. Vol. 140, No. 4 (April 1942): 114-119.

Online on the Modern Mechanix blog: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/ Also online via Google Books.

Bruckner, D. J. R. Frederic Goudy. NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1990.

This biography of Goudy contains, as incidental material, some very useful documentary evidence of Goudy's methods (e.g., photographs of him at work, pages from his casting log, etc.)

Dwiggins, William Addison. WAD to RR: A Letter about Designing Type. Cambridge, MA: Harvard College Library, 1940.

Online at CircuitousRoot

Goudy, Frederic W. A Half-Century of Type Design and Typography. NY: The Typophiles, 1946.

This was published in two volumes, which also constituted Typophiles Chapbooks Nos. 13 and 14. Online at CircuitousRoot

Goudy, Frederic W. "On Designing a Type-Face." The Dolphin. No. 1 (1933): 3-23.

Online at Carnegie-Mellon University's Posner Library: http://posner.library.cmu.edu/Posner/

Goudy, Frederic W. "Type Design: A Homily." Ars Typographica. Vol. 1, No. 4 (Autumn, 1934): 3-27

Part 3 of this article is "The Technique of Type Engraving." The material in it, however, is freely recycled from his 1933 Dolphin article. None of the Dolphin illustrations appear, however, and a relatively fuzzy photograph of Goudy at his matrix engraver is used instead.

The numbering of the volumes and issues of Ars Typographica is confusing. Goudy published three issues sequentially in the 1918-1920 period (Vol. 1, Nos. 1, 2, 3). These were published by The Marchbanks Press. Then Douglas C. McMurtrie took over the editorship and produced Vol. 2 in the 1925-1926 timeframe (Vol. 2, Nos. 1-4) and a single issue of Vol. 3 (No. 1, 1926). These were published by McMurtrie as well. But then in 1934 Goudy issued what he viewed as the final number of Vol. 1 (Vol. 1, No. 4 (Autumn, 1934). This was published by Melbert B. Cary's Press of the Woolly Whale.

The entire run of this periodical was reprinted in 1970 by the Greenwood Reprint Co. of Westport, CT. This 1970 reprint was issued as two physical volumes. Physical volume 1 contains all four numbers of Goudy's logical Vol. 1. Physical Vol. 2 contains all of McMurtrie's Vol. 2 and Vol. 3. Thus the Goudy article on "The Technique of Type Engraving," which appeared in the last-printed original number appears in physical volume 1 of the 1970 Greenwood reprint. It's things like this which make bibliography fun.

Goudy, Frederic W. Typologia. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 1940. Paperback reprint 1977.

Although both editions of Typologia remain in copyright, it is available for free viewing (but not downloading) online on Google Books by arrangement with the University of California Press. Find it using the Google Books Advanced Search: http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search You probably want to get a real, paper copy anyway. The pagination of the 1977 reprint is identical to that of the 1940 original.

Hitchcock, Frederick H. The Building of a Book. (NY: The Grafton Press, 1906). Linn Boyd Benton wrote the chapter on "The Making of Type," pp. 31-40.

This book has been digitized several times, and copies are available online from The Internet Archive, The Hathi Trust, and Google Books. A local copy of the Internet Archive version is online at CircuitousRoot

Kahan, Basil. Ottmar Mergenthaler: The Man and His Machine . New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Books, 2000.

Kegler, Richard. Making Faces: Metal Type in the 21st Century. [Film] Buffalo, NY: P22 Type Foundry, 2011.

This is the most important film ever made on type-making. Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph0ooDzD4ZQ P22 page: http://www.p22.com/products/makingfaces.html

It also includes a good transcription (probably as good as possible; certainly better than the online version) of the 1933 Kellerman film The Creation of a Printing Type .

Kaup, W. J. "Modern Automatic Type Making Methods." American Machinist. Vol. 32 (December 16, 1909): 1042-1046.

Digitized by Google from the Princeton University copy and available via The Hathi Trust (Hathi ID: njp:32101048918864) An extract from the digitization of this volume, containing only Kaup's article, is online on CircuitousRoot.

Kellerman, Maurice, director. The Creation of a Printing Type: From the Design to the Print by Frederic W. Goudy . [Film] "A Paramount Picture Presented by Adolph Zukor." 1933.

This film is online at http://www.TypeCulture.org/ However, that digital copy of it has suffered much in transcription, and at times important details are not visible in it (for example, when it shows Goudy drawing the 'M' and 'Q' of Saks Goudy you can see his pencil move but the page appears to be blank; in reality it was not).

A much better transcription (you can see what he's drawing, e.g.) is included as a Bonus Feature in the DVD release of the 2011 Kegler film Making Faces . (This is just one more reason why anyone who loves type needs to buy this film.)

Legros, Lucien A. "Typecasting and Composing Machinery."

This is a very long article by Legros on this subject; a sort of a warm-up for Typographical Printing Surfaces (Legros and Grant, 1916) . Published in two versions (at least), both of which are available online via Google Books:

(1) ["Excerpts Minutes of Proceedings of the Meeting of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, 18th December, 1908."] London: The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1908. (The reproduction of this version in Google Books is much better than that of the next version.)

(2) Proceedings [of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers]. 1908, Parts 3-4. London: The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1908. Pages 1027-1222. The reproduction of this version in Google Books is poorer than that of the previous version, and several of the plates are incomplete (it looks as if they were photographed while being turned).

See the CircuitousRoot Notebook on General Literature on Making Printing Matrices and Types .

Legros, Lucien A. and John Cameron Grant. Typographical Printing Surfaces. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1916).

See the entry for Legros and Grant in the CircuitousRoot Notebooks on Making Printing Types and Matrices. A Google Books scan is viewable in the US (but not abroad, where its copyright status is unclear because nobody knows when J. C. Grant died). I've put my own scan online on The Internet Archive.

See the CircuitousRoot Notebook on General Literature on Making Printing Matrices and Types .

Lewis, Bernard. Behind the Type: The Life Story of Frederic W. Goudy. Pittsburgh, PA: Department of Printing, Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1941.

Online on CircuitousRoot.

Mahr, Karl. Der Druckbuchstabe: Sein Werdegang in der Schriftgießerei dargestellt in Holzschnitten und Versen . ([no location, but Mahr in Frankfurt a. M.]: Verein Deutscher Schriftgießereien E.D., 1928).

For a discussion of this, and links to a partial reprint, see its entry in the CircuitousRoot Notebook on General Literature on Making Printing Matrices and Types (the online reprint, which contains only three of the engravings, is of the Bauer Type Foundry's 1937 booklet, Human Touch)

Rehak, Theo. Practical Typecasting. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Books, 1993.

Rimmer, Jim. "The Cutting of Cartier in Metal." DA [Devil's Artisan], A Journal of the Printing Arts. No. 52 (Spring/Summer 2003): 15-20.

Rimmer, Jim. "Engraving Type Designs in Lead." The Devil's Artisan. No. 15 (1984): 14-20.

This is a later, illustrated, version of his 1984 ATF Newsletter No. 9 article.

Rimmer, Jim. [Letters from Jim Rimmer to Alex Widen: "Pantograph Notes for Alex Widen" and "Patrix vs. Matrix"]

Online on CircuitousRoot

Rimmer, Jim. "Original Font Cut in Lead, Matrics [sic] Are Electroformed." American Typecasting Fellowship Newsletter No. 9 (May 1984): 27-31.

This is an earlier, unillustrated version of his 1984 Devil's Artisan article.

Rimmer, Jim. Pie Tree Press. Kentville, Nova Scotia: Gaspereau Press, 2008.

Primarily an autobiographical work, it includes some useful information on his typemaking methods.

Wilkes, Walter. Das Schriftgießen: Von Stempelschnitt, Matrizenfertigung und Letterguss: eine Dokumentation von Walter Wilkes . (Darmstadt, Germany: Technische Hochschule Darmstadt, 1990.) also (Stuttgart:, Germany Hauswedell, 1990) ISBN: 3-7762-0311-0 (same for both Darmstadt and Stuttgart editions). ISBN-13: 978377620311.

This is almost certainly the best comprehensive overview of all aspects of matrix making and typecasting. Even though it is in German (a language I cannot read) I find it to be valuable to me - the illustrations alone are worth it. It is, regrettably, out of print.


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