Will Bradley, His Chap Book: An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures ...Bradley, Will
History
Will Bradley, His Chap Book: An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures ...
Bradley, Will
Bradley, Will, 1868-1962; Printers -- United States -- Biography; Printing -- United States -- History
Another Hearst project in the early Twenties was a new format and
the creation of a typographic lay-out for _Hearst’s International_.
For the lay-out, the headings of which would have to be different
from those provided earlier for _Cosmopolitan_, I designed a set of
initial letters, later catalogued by the foundry and called “Vanity.”
Knowing that Mr. Hearst would want to use portrait heads for covers
and that they would all have to be made by a single artist whose style
did not permit of confusion with the Harrison Fisher heads used on
_Cosmopolitan_, I approached Benda with the suggestion that if he would
use one color scheme for both head and background he could probably get
the contract. On seeing the first Benda cover Mr. Hearst asked how it
happened that this was the only Benda head he ever liked! He was told,
and authorized a contract.
These _Hearst International_ changes led to my being asked to give
thought to strengthening _Cosmopolitan_ headings in 1923. The request
came on a Monday morning. The issue then in hand closed at Cuneo’s in
Chicago on the following Friday. Mr. Hearst never urged hurry, but
early results were appreciated. Obtaining a current dummy with page
proofs, I headed for the ATF composing room at Communipaw, N. J. About
half-past four I had personally set, without justification, every
heading in the issue--using Caslon in roman and italic in the manner it
had been assembled by uninhibited compositors of the Colonial period.
That night, at home, I trimmed and mounted proofs in a new dummy.
The mixing of roman and italic in radically different sizes and with
consideration for desired emphasis, with possibly a 96- or 120-point
roman cap starting a 48- or 60-point italic word, resulted just as I
had visualized while the type was being set in fragmentary form. No
changes were necessary, and every minute of the afternoon had been
good fun. Tuesday I left for Chicago; Wednesday was spent at Cuneo’s
where, using this reprint copy, all headings were set, made-up with
text pages, and proved; Thursday the new lay-outs were enthusiastically
approved in New York; Friday, at Cuneo’s, _Cosmopolitan’s_ managing
editor closed the forms according to schedule. It had been a grand
lark--and within a few weeks that free style of typography began to
appear in national advertising.
One morning a request came from Mr. Hearst to use color at every
editorial opening in _Hearst’s International_--a startling innovation
at a time when illustrators were accustomed to drawing or painting
only for reproduction in black and white or for an occasional insert
in process colors. Closing day on the current dummy was only two weeks
away. With the aid of editorial substitutions it was thought we could
make the date. Taking a dummy showing possible signature distribution
of colors, I made the round of studios to find artists agreeable to the
use of one extra color.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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