Goudy's Design Drawings

Goudy used several of his design drawings in his publications, and allowed others to be printed elsewhere. This is of course good. But due to the details of copyright law, few of these have lapsed into the public domain and therefore become availale for use in writing about matrix making.

Some of the earliest published work is that which appeared in "On Designing a Type-Face" ( The Dolphin, No. 1, 1933) . These include "rough sketches" (that is, design drawings) for Goudy Medieval (as well as finished drawings, master patterns, and working patterns for the same.

Perhaps the best published work is the pair of "preliminary sketches" for Goudy "Thirty" (face no. 111) published in Lewis' Behind the Type . These are lovely, and contain some suggestions of lining and fit, but they do not do so consistently enough to be finished drawings.

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(From Lewis, Bernard. Behind the Type: The Life Story of Frederic W. Goudy. (Pittsburgh, PA: Department of Printing, Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1941.) : 25)

The Goudy papers at the US Library of Congress contain drawings as well. One of these, a sheet of sketches for Friar, was reprinted in their journal.

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(From Beske, Kurt. "Craftsman in a Machine Age." The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress. Vol. 34, No. 2 (April 1977): 97-115.)

Goudy discussed his design techniques in various places, including a fine treatment in Typologia ; these matters of design are outside of the scope of this present book.

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