The grammar of typography: The Printers’ International Specimen Exchange and Victorian letterpress design reform

Abstract

ABSTRACT For most of the nineteenth century, letterpress design in Britain followed conventions established in the pre-industrial era, paying little attention to matters of colour, form, and display. Decorative typefaces competed with a profusion of type ornaments, leaving job printing, especially, with no visual logic in its composition. In the final decades of the century, however, some Victorian printers began to search for aesthetic principles that could do two things: reform letterpress design, and teach the public to embrace this new style of composition. Their search led printers to the tenets of design reform, popularized by Henry Cole and his coterie of artists and designers at mid-century. While design reformers discussed printing solely in terms of factory-produced commodities on which designs were stamped (fabrics, wallpapers, tiles, etc.), the principles guiding their notions of morally- and economically-uplifting visual display were well-suited for adaptation to letterpress design. Key to the dissemination of these ideas throughout the printing trade became a globe-spanning project called the Printers’ International Specimen Exchange. For nearly twenty years, reform-minded printers near and far exchanged letterpress specimens with each other via the PISE. This effort united participants in a global fraternity of fellow-tradesmen, popularized new technologies and printing techniques, and spread the gospel of design reform. In this way, the PISE became a nineteenth-century grammar of typography, a sourcebook of design principles and exemplary practices that turned letterpress printers toward the horizon of professional graphic design. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT