THE OLD SCHOOL PRESS

An occasional newsletter about forthcoming books and events
 

August 2018
 

In this newsletter . . .

nearly ready: Zapf and Stauffacher

new booklet now ready: Some van Krimpen Types

event soon: Whittington Press Open Day
 

progress on
  Zapf and Stauffacher

The collaboration between type designer and typographer, by Ferdinand Ulrich

at the binders, available soon

Having 'inherited' the Hunt Roman types from Rampant Lions Press we've wanted for some time to have a text about the typeface that we could set and print in it. Back in 2012 Ferdinand Ulrich was writing his dissertation on Hunt Roman and he contacted us as holders of one of just a handful of sets of the face in the world. We kept in touch and Zapf and Stauffacher resulted from our own collaboration.

Ferdinand's essay has made a handsome sixteen-page book, all set in the 14pt, with the 18pt and 24pt used of course for headings and title. We have adopted a simple presentation with a plain stock on the boards and as end-papers: the front board carries the book's title and the rear board the logo that Zapf designed for Stauffacher's New Laboratory Press. The tipped-in frontispiece is a photograph of Zapf and Stauffacher in conversation. Everything is with our binders, Ludlow Bookbinders.

Copies are £75 each (about US$105 and euro90) plus postage at cost. If you haven't already reserved a copy and would like to buy one just email us and we'll be in touch. We will be posting photos of the book on our website as soon as we have copies.

a new booklet
Some van Krimpen Types

A showing of five typefaces that Jan van Krimpen designed or had a hand in designing

copies now available

Many years ago, between 1992 and 2003, mostly for fun we printed five small type specimens: Type Trials. Each was printed on wide strips of Zerkall folded on the fore-edge and sewn with tape in covers of original Curwen patterned papers. They were always in a very small edition of 25 copies, priced absurdly cheaply, and went in a flash. We still had one more Curwen paper to use and we had had some more Zerkall guillotined ready for a sixth and final specimen. It never seemed to appear but when earlier this year we acquired a good range of a favourite typeface, Monotype Van Dijck, the decision was made.

As I was searching for a suitable text, in particular around the influence of Jan van Krimpen, I remembered that we hold several other typefaces by him, namely Open Kapitalen, Romulus (a great favourite), Cancelleresca Bastarda, and Lutetia. So of course they all had to be used, though the main theme was to be Van Dijck from 8pt to 36pt, in roman and italic. For the text I have taken snippets from, inter alia, Stanley Morison’s argument for a sloped roman as the basis of an italic, and Walter Tracy’s comments on typographical style. To see this new specimen in more detail (and our other booklets) visit our website and click on the 'booklets' button on the left. 18pp.

We have printed more copies this time – sixty – and we're pricing them a bit more realistically at £20 each. Let us know if you would like a copy – postage is charged extra at cost.

(For the record those earlier pieces were Gill on letters (Gill Shadow and Cameo Ruled), Rhyme in Ronde (Parisian Ronde), Morris & books (Abbey Text), Any copy to hand (Caslon Old Face), and Sandwiches in printing (Perpetua).)

coming soon
  Whittington Press Open Day

We shall have a table with all sorts for sale

1 September 2018

It's nearly that time of year again: the first Saturday in September, when we hope for good weather.

We'll be there with some of our books, but mostly printed ephemera including our range of booklets. And as in the past few years, we'll take the opportunity of selling printing stuff that is surplus to our needs. We shall have some foundry type from Caslon, 72pt Times New Roman (don't knock it), lots of Resalite furniture (somehow I feel as though I have cornered the world's supply and really need to move some on), paper off-cuts, and more.

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Copyright © Martyn Ould 2018