Jul 21, 2017
Rules, border, and ornaments of the Plimpton Press
This page is from the 1962 Plimpton Press specimen. Plimpton mostly did high-end book printing—D. B. Updike worked with Plimpton—so it’s likely not representative of American printing overall. Historical borders were popular from the Victorian era at least into the 1920s; they were part of the historicism trend documented by Nick Shinn. For 1962 this seems terribly anachronistic. Especially that swastika border. The title page lists decades of previous editions, so it’s possible that the press just reused the same lockups for decades, a common practice in twentieth century specimen design.
