Mark Arman was an English type and printing enthusiast who late in life turned to collecting type, prints, and printing equipment, establishing his own Workshop Press at Thaxted, Essex. Before this, he had made a career in Customs and Excise. After his move to Thaxted in 1958, he was active in the restoration of several historic buildings in the town, for which he was awarded an MBE. In his retirement he took up pottery and fine printing, amassing an eclectic collection of historic typefaces. His Workshop Press produced many broadsides and several now-scarce books on type, type design, letterpress printing, and relief prints.
In 1990, Arman designed and printed this 29 x 45 cm specimen sheet of some of his historic typefaces for inclusion in his article “A Collection of Types” published in Matrix 10, Winter 1990, pp. 143-145. Of his collection, Arman writes:
Many nineteenth-century founders’ types, often in odd sizes, are included in my collection and had they not been rescued and stored they would have been melted down long ago. . . .
Mural . . . a particularly spindly face produced by the Caslon Foundry in the 1880s, was difficult to use attractively. It has so many peculiarities . . . .
Black Letter always has interesting possibilities, and Light English Text, still easily obtainable in Monotype, is no exception. . . . and as the name implies, when setting is close with minimal spacing between lines, a pleasing effect is achieved. . . .
Then there are the ‘specials,’ Gill Floriated, Old Face Open, Imprint Shadow, Chisel, Fry’s Ornamented and an assorted collection of nineteenth-century initials. Quite charming specimen pages can be created with such material, particularly if they are embellished with suitable borders and type decorations. . . .
Union Pearl, has a fascinating history and is still produced from the original matrices. . . . I traced the ownership of the matrices from the time they were made for the Grover Foundry in 1690 to the present day.
Mark Arman died in 2007 at the age of 93.
Matrix was printed by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in England, and is a donation from our friend Jerry Buff.
View more posts from Matrix.
View other posts relating to the Whittington Press.
Until the late mid 1980s, ‘font’ was a word that one never heard outside of the printing trades. When desktop computing made multiple typefaces available to the general public, ‘font’ entered the vernacular. It now refers to both the typeface—the design and appearance—and to the software file that generates it.
Traditionally, a font was a set of foundry type in a single point size (e.g., Helvetica is a typeface, and 48 point Helvetica Bold is a font). Few now make the distinction. Stephen Coles wrote, “When you talk about how much you like a tune, you don’t say: ‘That’s a great MP3,’ you say, ‘That’s a great song.’ The MP3 is the delivery mechanism, not the creative work, just as in type a font is the delivery mechanism and a typeface is the creative work.”
“Font” versus “Typeface”:
Typeface: “I love the Goudy Old Style.”
Font: “I’m going to install Caslon.”
Etymology:
Fom the French fonte “a casting,” from fondre to “melt” or to “cast.” This makes “font” a cognate of “foundry,” from the French fonderei, the industrial site where metal type was designed and cast.
The Stammtisch in September takes place a little earlier than usual, but there are special guests. Heike Schnotale and Max Lotze of the venerable Offizin Haag-Drugulin from Dresden are coming. The topic of their lecture is "Between old treasures and fresh casting - lead typesetting as an everyday experience".
The location is Cafe Hardenberg in Berlin Charlottenburg.
More info typostammtisch.berlin!
time: 19.00 h
Café Hardenberg
Hardenbergstraße 10
10623 Berlin
U-Bahn: U2 to Ernst-Reuter-Platz or U9 to S+U Zoologischer Garten
S-Bahn: S3, S5, S7 oder S9 to S+U Zoologischer Garten
Bus: M45 or 245 to Steinplatz
