An Essay on Typography

Description

Gill wrote, referring to the earlier issue, ‘It was one of the author’s chief objects to describe two worlds - that of industrialism and that of the human workman - & to define their limits’. It is with the application of his ‘two worlds’ theory to the trade of printing that the first chapter is especially con­cerned. ‘On the one hand is the world of mechan­ized industry claiming to be able to give happiness to men and all the delights of human life - provided we are content to have them in our spare time and do not demand such things in the work by which we earn our livings’, and ‘On the other... a world in which the notion of spare time hardly exists, for the thing is hardly known and very little desired; a world wherein the work is the life & love accompa­nies it. ’ Gill, himself, in the same 1936 introduction considered that these ‘chief objects’ had been ‘imperfectly remembered’ and faulted the book on that account, although the theme recurs frequently in succeeding chapters. Publishing History Contents: NEW INTRODUCTION THE THEME 1. COMPOSITION OF TIME AND PLACE 2. LETTERING 3. TYPOGRAPHY 4. PUNCH-CUTTING 5. OF PAPER AND INK 6. THE PROCRUSTEAN BED 7. THE INSTRUMENT 8. THE BOOK 9. BUT WHY LETTERING? ABOUT THE AUTHOR Typographic Setting