A Note on the Type

A Note on the Type James Ferry Type design moves at the pace of the most conservative reader. The good type-designer therefore reaUzes that, for a new fount to be successful , it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty. If readers do not notice the consummate reticence and rare discipline of a new type, it is probably a good letter. —Stanley Morison . . . and so the traditional sense of the ending as completion became obsolete in the new age of fragmentation and uncertainty. Stories no longer exhibited a clear-cut finality but merely coUapsed, exhausted from the weight of their own existential inertia. The period as climactic punctuation was a grudging concession to formaUty. The elUpse was always impUed. A Note on the Type The text of this book was set in Times Byzantium, an elite representation of a Linotype face. Times Byzantium was designed by Harold Morris for The Times (Manchester), and first introduced by The Daily Telegraph (Reading) in 1925. Apparently The Times (Manchester) was dissuaded against the new design by a sharply critical review in The Times (London) by Richard Morris, ayounger brother of WiUiam Morris and cousin to Harold, who considered the new face "stuffily obvious." Nevertiieless, among typographers and graphic designers of the twentieth century, Harold Morris has taken his place as a strong and enduring influence. In its deceptively simple face, Times Byzantium successfuUy represents Morris's most famous and oft-repeated tenet: "You can do absolutely anything with a typeface just as long as it superficiaUy resembles any other type." I waited at the station. The train would not arrive for another hour, but I had nowhere else to go. The rain came straight down and spattered on the 174 James Ferry175 cobblestones in the street. A taxi puUed up and let a man and a woman out. The man carried the bags and looked annoyed. Rain dripped off the brim ofhis hat. The woman looked too gay and wobbled on her heels as ifdrunk. I sat down on one of the wooden benches and smoked a cigarette. An old woman seUing flowers came up and said, "Monsieur, you are waiting perhaps for a beautiful woman. A few bright flowers wül brighten her spirits." "I'm not waiting for anyone," I said. Ramone came in and searched the waiting room but did not see me. I sat and smoked and waited. FinaUy he limped over and said, "I knew I would find you here." "You look in pain, my friend." He patted his leg. "It always hurts more when it rains." "You needn't have come." "She's gone, you know." "Yes. Is that what you came to teU me?" "Where wiU you go?" "South, I think. The mountains." "The mountains are good this time ofyear." "Yes, that's what I hear." Ramone shifted his weight, rubbing his bad leg. "The train should be here soon. It is very punctual. The trains in this country are very dependable , unlike the telephones." I nodded. I knew it did not matter. I was not expecting anyone to telephone , and the mountains would wait. A Note on the Type The text ofthis bookwas set on the Linotype in a face called Grammar, designed by Oscar Mergenzicka for the Thalertoggen Linotype Company. Grammar is considered to be Mergenzicka's fourth typeface, the earlier faces being Holstein, Xanadu, and Xanadu Prime. Some critics, while according deserved recognition for the virtues of the latter two faces, fail to appreciate the subtle characteristics that distinguish between the two and consider them one and the same. Mergenzicka was born in Upper Baden-Werttemberg in 1888 and came to the United States at the age of eight. He attended public schools in Milwaukee, and was the first student from The Milwaukee Institute of Fine Arts to become famous. Ironically, it was his lesser known pursuits of engraver, woodcarver, and clock maker that Mergenzicka always considered 176Fourth Genre his crowning achievements and to which he returned in his latter years, admitting that there was nothing more he could do with letters and numbers . He retired to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and spent the rest of his...