The Bentons: How an American Father and Son Changed the Printing Industry

10 How Type Was Made at ATF

117 In December 1909, the American Machinist magazine published an article by W. J. Kaup about the American Type Founders Company, noting that type making “is an art where the little things, measured in fractions of a thousandth of an inch are the big things as exemplified by [ATF], whose system makes each small step a refinement link in the whole chain of microscopic accuracy.”1 This accuracy was what both Linn Boyd and Morris Fuller Benton demanded of themselves and others. Father and son were perfectly suited to the work, and the results they achieved were phenomenal. One of ATF’s advertising devices, used as early as 1922, was a piece of type on which was cast the entire Lord’s Prayer—66 words, made up of 271 right-reading characters, including punctuation. (The matrix was cut wrong-reading so that the type would be right-reading). On the eight-point version of the Lord’s Prayer, the lowercase letters were .0044 inch in height; the matrix was cut by a tool measuring .0005 inch in diameter ; and the image area was constrained to a six-point square,that is,a square measuring 1/144th of a square inch.2 Amazingly,the words are entirely legible under a microscope. ATF also cut another matrix using the same pattern for a four-point type body and cast the type,3 but Linn Boyd Benton was not satisfied with it.He maintained that the eightpoint example was the smallest successful cutting done directly into a matrix.4 The microscopic detail of this advertising piece was made possible by Linn Boyd Benton’s greatest invention: the matrix-engraving machine. But an accurate matrix engraver would be of little use if each image to be engraved was not also absolutely precise. Luckily it was Morris Benton who oversaw the type design department at ATF, with a zeal and passion for quality that equaled his father’s. As independent type designer Frederic W. Goudy wrote, “The machine itself may be hard and uncomprochapter 10 How Type Was Made at ATF 118 the bentons mising, but its product is entirely within the control of the pattern—if the pattern is right, then the more accurate and precise the machine, the more perfect the reproduction of the designer’s art.”5 Initial Drawings As the first step in the creation of a new typeface, Morris Benton studied the historic exemplars in ATF’s extensive typographical library. Even for a completely modern face, Benton first conducted extensive research. He believed that gathering thorough background information was an essential part of the designer’s job. Benton studied original type founders’ specimen sheets and books printed in a wide variety of typefaces . Many of these resources were located in ATF’s splendid library and museum. Morris Benton and his colleagues began with pencil drawings, which would then be inked in for evaluation. These would be used to get a sense of what the letters would look like.An original drawing could be of any size,but preferably was 96 point or larger. Some faces began life as just one word: ATF’s Balloon Light and Extrabold, for example , started with Max R. Kaufman’s drawings of the letters in the word CHAMPION.6 Every year ATF received hundreds of proposed typefaces from enthusiastic letterers . The drawings they provided could seldom be used as working drawings because independent designers rarely realized the complexities of the type manufacturing process . A 1947 Inland Printer article by A. Raymond Hopper explained: Even among printers the belief is widespread that a type face originates by some designer submitting the drawing of an alphabet to the founder who buys it for a Hollywood figure and then proceeds to photograph it to the various sizes to make up a series. Nothing, even the imaginary Hollywood figure, could be further from the facts than this over-simplified conception of the birth of a type face.7 Designs submitted from the outside had to be redrawn to conform to technical limitations and peculiar word combinations. For example, Bertram Goodhue’s drawings for The Lord’s Prayer cast on an eight-point piece of type 119 how type was made at atf Cheltenham were not directly translated into patterns for cutting matrices upon their reception by ATF’s design department. Morris Benton first had to adapt them to the appropriate specifications for typecasting. In the process of...