British Letterpress

Tag: Monotype

  • The Monotype System

    The Monotype System

    The Mono­type sys­tem was a major break through: a sys­tem that could use a set of com­po­nents to pro­duce indi­vid­ual types, in the right order, using high-qual­i­ty print­ing met­als from a key­board input.  This approach meant an end to exten­sive hand com­po­si­tion.  While friends with line cast­ing machines (like the Lino­type or Inter­type) were first to avoid hand-com­po­si­tion, they could not han­dle indi­vid­ual types like the Mono­type chaps could.  The advan­tages were man­i­fold: once the type was cast indi­vid­ual char­ac­ters could be exchanged, for a cor­rec­tion or sim­ply to improve spac­ing.  Small­er jobs could be done by hand-set­ting but using the indi­vid­ual types cast by the machine.  None of this could be done with line-cast­ing.  Mono­type also had an aggres­sive pol­i­cy of pro­mot­ing great typog­ra­phy.  The firm revived and re-cut many faces to offer a stag­ger­ing array of dif­fer­ent styles for use in all uses of the print­ed word.  Com­peti­tors in line-cast­ing did make some advances in this area but their focus was on small­er sizes and very quick turn­around as they relied on the news­pa­per indus­try for cus­tom.

    The Mono­type sys­tem relied on some dif­fer­ent com­po­nents.  The sep­a­ra­tion of work meant that indi­vid­ual machines could be kept busy.  For exam­ple, two key­boards could be pro­duc­ing paper tapes that would dri­ve a sin­gle cast­ing machine: so the cast­ing machine was busy all day while the two key­boards were busy.  If a line-cast­ing machine was used then the machine is only cast­ing when the oper­a­tor is key­ing.  I’ll sum­marise the key parts of the sys­tem in this sec­tions and why you might use them.

    Side­note: The Mono­type Cor­po­ra­tion was very very keen to pro­tect their trade­mark.  They insist­ed that the mark was a not to be used to describe any­thing; and that the word ​‘Mono­type’ should always be shown either in quotes or in cap­i­tals.  They also asked that wher­ev­er pos­si­ble that word should be described as a Trade Mark of the Cor­po­ra­tion.  For ease of use, I’ll refer here to sim­ply Mono­type.  Should the Cor­po­ra­tion wish to cor­rect me on this, I will be hap­py to oblige pro­vid­ed that they allow me to take them up on their offer of free day train­ing at their Mono­type school.

    Description

    The Mono­type Com­po­si­tion cast­er pro­duces com­posed lines of indi­vid­ual pieces of type, from 4 to 14pt bod­ies, and to a max­i­mum line length of 60 picas. It is con­trolled by a punched paper tape, and runs from 45 to 180 rpm, depend­ing upon body size. With appro­pri­ate attach­ments, it will pro­duce com­posed type up to 24pt, and dis­play type (sorts) to 36pt, and go down to a speed of 9 rpm. It can also pro­duce math­e­mat­ics, Ara­bic, Hebrew, etc., and lead and rule from 1pt to 12pt. Its over­all weight is 1522lbs and work­ing floor area is 9 ft sq.

    The Mono­type Type and Rule cast­er is sim­i­lar to the Com­po­si­tion cast­er, but does not have the paper tape con­trol mech­a­nism, and so only casts indi­vid­ual sorts. Sizes from 4pt to 36pt, and speed from 45 to 180 rpm (down to 9 rpm with low speed and Varigear). It can cast lead and rule from 1pt to 12pt. It weighs 1326 lbs and its work­ing floor area is 9 x 10 ft.

    The Mono­type Super cast­er pro­duces indi­vid­ual type sorts from 4pt to 72pt, at speeds from 4 to 144 rpm (or 2 to 160 rpm with Varigear). With appro­pri­ate attach­ments, it can cast Palace Script, quo­ta­tions, con­tin­u­ous bor­der, swelled rule, lead and rule from 1pt to 18pt, and strip fur­ni­ture from 24pt to 72pt. It weighs 1484 lbs and its work­ing floor area is 8 ft sq.

    More Resources

    Two excel­lent resources: Dave Huges’ Met­al Type web­site has a page ded­i­cat­ed to Mono­type doc­u­men­ta­tion, and David Bolton has also list­ed tehni­cal and oth­er details of these machines at Monotype-Casting.info

    Contributors

    This descrip­tion tak­en from the ​‘Mono­type Book of Infor­ma­tion’ by David Bolton of the Alem­bic Press.

  • Finding Second-Hand Type

    Finding Second-Hand Type

    Adana's Selection of Stock Blocks
    Adana’s Selec­tion of Stock Blocks

    You might be lucky enough to acquire type dur­ing your let­ter­press career-local print­ers clos­ing down, per­haps some comes with the press you’ve found, or per­haps from oth­er hob­by print­ers.

    There’s some advice for you here — sec­ond-hand type can be a bless­ing and a curse. Remem­ber that our cur­rent, UK founders are only in busi­ness while demand exists so you should use them while they are still around. There’s truth in the claim that your print­ing will be bet­ter with new type. Let­ter­press Alive lists the UK founders still in busi­ness.

    Remem­ber also that type — being pre­dom­i­nant­ly lead — has a scrap val­ue. While it’s not as valu­able as pure lead it does com­mand high prices. If you are look­ing for type you are com­pet­ing with the scrap man.

    Looking for Type

    Places to look are –

    • Local print­ers might direct you to let­ter­press shops clos­ing down
    • Small Ads in the BPSs Small Print­er Mag­a­zine
    • eBay occa­sion­al­ly lists print­ers who are loook­ing to get rid of their let­ter­press out­fits

    The type will most­ly be avail­able in job­bing cas­es — these can take up a lot of room, so bear in mind how you will store them in your own shop.

    Buyers’ Guide

    The qual­i­ty of the type will depend on the way the shop was run. Some places know that they will not use lead type again and so do not dis­trib­ute it back once a print­ing job is com­plete. This leaves cas­es with gaps in the most com­mon char­ac­ters. Some com­pos­i­tors take a more per­son­al view — that the type should not be used by hob­by print­ers — and so remove all of a giv­en char­ac­ter to pre­vent re-use.

    • Type Syn­op­sis: how com­plete does the case look? Are there gaps in some let­ters? Have a look at a low-quan­ti­ty com­part­ment (like q, z or x) and see if there are enough of those char­ac­ters
    • Qual­i­ty of the Type: is the type worn? Does it look free of cor­ro­sion? Has it been placed back in the case or thrown?
    • Clean­li­ness of the whole thing: is the case and con­tents dirty? Is it cov­ered in dust or ink? In some ways, well-used type is pro­tect­ed against cor­ro­sion. It might also mean that you have to clean it up before use

    If you have type to dis­pose of, please look at dis­pos­ing of equip­ment

    Alignment: Important!

    When type was cast by a tra­di­tion­al foundry, like Stephen­son, Blake, they main­tained align­ments between cast­ings. Each piece of type was a cer­tain size and cru­cual­ly, the align­ment of the char­ac­ter on the type was con­sis­tent. This meant you could buy, say Mod­ern No. 20 from them in 1905, mix it with type cast from 1950 and the two would look cor­rect sat next to each oth­er.

    When print­ers began to use Mono­type (and small­er founders used the sys­tem, too) there was a much larg­er num­ber of peo­ple cast­ing type, and each could have their own vari­a­tions. One key dif­fer­ence from foundry type was that Mono­type could be aligned on the body just as the founder want­ed. This means that dif­fer­ent cast­ings of 12pt Gill Sans will always have a body of 12pt, and will always have the same design, but the char­ac­ters may not line up because the char­ac­ter is not posi­tioned in the same place on the body.

    For this rea­son, you should not mix dif­fer­ent Mono­type founts (except where they are from a recog­nised founder). If you do, you will find that some char­ac­ters ​‘jump’ around the line reflect­ing the dif­fer­ent cast­ings of type.

    Inspi­ra­tion and much of the con­tent of this arti­cle comes from J. Stafford-Bak­er of the Hap­py Drag­ons Press

  • Type Founders

    Type Founders

    Cre­at­ing print­ing types is a pre­ci­sion job. This sec­tion give infor­ma­tion about the firms that made type in the UK and also the sys­tems avail­able designed for print­ers to cast their own type.

    I’ve scant infor­ma­tion on these type founders. If you can sup­ply more infor­ma­tion or can name fur­ther founders, please con­tact me

    Current Type Founders

    If you’re look­ing for new type in the UK, keep an eye on Let­ter­press Alive. Key, cur­rent, UK founders are-

    Address­es and con­tact details at Let­ter­press Alive

    Acorntype

    John Eick­hoff of Bris­tol cast type ini­tial­ly in a ded­i­cat­ed unit and then at home until 2005 under the name Acorn­type. John’s focus was on small print­ers and his basic syn­op­sis was 5A10a. John used Mono­type machines to cast, and pro­duced won­der­ful spec­i­men book­lets and broad­sheets.

    Miller and Richard

    Miller and Richard dis­played in their Vic­to­ri­an lit­er­a­ture that they were ​‘Let­ter Founders to Her Majesty of Scot­land’. The firm was based in Nichol­son Street, Edin­burgh and was start­ed by William Miller in 1809. Wal­ter Richard joined in 1825 and the name for the firm was changed in 1838 to Miller and Richard. Dur­ing the 1840s an ​‘Old Style’ was cut for the firm and became the orig­i­nal ​‘Scotch Roman’, a style which shaped many sub­se­quent designs. In 1951 the firm closed and the designs passed to Stephen­son, Blake. SB attempt­ed to re-cast the ​‘Old Style’ but were unable to do so because of the incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty between M&R machines and SB machines.

    Mouldtype

    Mould­type used Mono­type cast­ing machines to cast type. The firm was last based in Dunkirk Lane, Pre­ston, Lan­cashire. It seems to have closed around 1992 and the machines went to a muse­um in Japan. Type cast by Mould­type has the let­ters ​‘MTF’ cast on the shank.

    Qualitype

    Qual­i­type appear to have trad­ed from Vic­arage Place, Wal­sall, and cast a ​‘Q’ in the shank of their types sug­gest­ing they cast their own type rather than sim­ply dis­trib­ut­ing type from oth­er founders.  By Jan­u­ary 1982 they appeared to have been tak­en over by Key­set Spools (Wal­sall) Ltd retain­ing a Mr C R Avery and still offer­ing to cast card founts.

    Riscatype

    In 1878 Thomas Yen­dall took over a print­ing busi­ness start­ed by John Tay­lor eight years ear­li­er. The firm became a lim­it­ed com­pa­ny in 1911. By 1925 type cast­ing had start­ed under the name ​‘Riscatype’. Ten years lat­er print­ing stopped and Yen­dall con­cen­trat­ed on the man­u­fac­ture of type. In 1984 Yen­dall and Co. went into vol­un­tary liq­ui­da­tion.

    The firm had cast type using Mono­type machines, housed in a cramped green met­al build­ing in Risca, South Wales.  Mr Williams — at one time an appren­tice at Riscatype — let me know that theirs was one of the largest foundries in the world with 11 Mono­type Super­cast­ers and 20 Mono­type Com­po­si­tion cast­ers.  Only Mould­type could match their qual­i­ty.

    Startype

    Stary­type based in Birstall, West York­shire used Mono­type machines to cast type and adver­tised that they were con­trac­tors to HM Gov­ern­ment and Over­seas Gov­ern­ments. The cast­ing machines were mod­i­fied to work at high­er tem­per­a­tures with a dif­fer­ent mix of type met­al mean­ing that they could pro­duce type suit­able for hot foil work on a com­po­si­tion cast­er. The firm closed in the late 1980s.

    Some machines and the exper­tise con­tin­ue with Bri­an Hors­fall who casts type under the name Super­type.

    Stevens, Shanks & Sons Ltd

    Stevens, Shanks & Sons Ltd was based in South­wark, Lon­don SE1. Dur­ing the 1950s they used Mono­type equip­ment, with a mod­i­fied heat­ing unit and hard­er alloy to make their type more hard-wear­ing.

    In 1971 they moved from 89 South­wark Street to 22 Cole­man Fields where they con­tin­ued to cast type until the mid-1980s.

    They revived some very old faces, and held some ancient founders matri­ces. They did not use Mono­type Thomp­son Cast­ers for this work, so must have mod­i­fied the matrix hold­ers on stan­dard Mono­type machines.

     

  • Type and Typography

    Type and Typography

    Let­ter­press print­ing depends on a raised image, it’s known as a relief pro­cess. Mov­able type was the break­through that allowed print­ers to use and re-use indi­vidual char­ac­ters. When you prac­tice let­ter­press print­ing it’s easy to for­get just how dif­fi­cult it must be for type founders to cre­ate tiny pieces of cast met­al hard enough to with­stand a tre­mend­ous force that are made to tol­er­ances of less than one thou­sandth of an inch.

    Guten­berg of Ger­many is cred­ited with the inven­tion of move­able type around 1450; but records show that both Chi­nese and Kore­an invent­ors had used the idea before the time. Gutenberg’s inven­tion was the first to be exploit­ed and the idea spread rap­idly. There are three key stages in found­ing type –

    • Punch­cut­ting: cre­at­ing a three-dimen­sion­al rep­res­ent­a­tion of the let­ter in the end of a bar of met­al. This skilled work requires a num­ber of oth­er punch­es and tools to be used to cre­ate the punch, and then it be sub­ject to harden­ing. Mod­ern-day equi­val­ents of punch­es can be seen in DIY stores to mark met­al equip­ment with ini­tials.
    • Cre­at­ing the Mat­rix: this step takes the punch, and strikes it in a soft­er met­al to make a neg­at­ive mould. The met­al is usu­ally brass
    • Cast­ing: this is fill­ing the mould with mol­ten type met­al and remov­ing the cast type

    Type Found­ing in the Print­ing Eco­nomy in the UK

    Type found­ing is a spe­cial­ist indus­try need­ing artis­tic and design skills in equal meas­ure with engin­eer­ing prowess and abil­ity to work in some of the very heavy aspects of indus­try. The indus­try was cen­tred around the demand in Fleet Street, Lon­don; but oth­er sig­ni­fic­ant type founders worked where tech­nical expert­ise was great­est-for exam­ple Steph­en­son, Blake of Shef­field.

    The key con­straint for print­ers was that type from a foundry had to be assem­bled by hand before print­ing could begin. This com­pos­i­tion activ­ity took a great deal of time and tied up cap­ital in the type need­ed. As the 19th cen­tury grew to a close peo­ple we very keen to auto­mate this part of the process-work began to look at pro­du­cing type in the order it was need­ed. That’s to say go dir­ectly from the copy to the met­al type with no sort­ing or com­pos­ing pro­cess in between.

    There became two fam­il­ies of type: foundry type (gen­er­ally hard­er qual­ity) that was pro­duced in the great foundries; and com­pos­i­tion type (slight­ly soft­er qual­ity) that was pro­duced from copy either by a spe­cial­ist firm, or even by the print­er him­self.

    UK Type Foundries

    The UK had a num­ber of very influ­en­tial foundries. While ear­ly met­al type from the con­tin­ent (in par­tic­u­lar Dutch type) was con­sidered super­ior, the UK caught up and great names like Caslon, Fig­gins and Steph­en­son, Blake were estab­lished. The large num­ber of small foundries gave way to a smal­ler num­ber of large foundries. The last of the Eng­lish Foundries, Steph­en­son, Blake of Shef­field stopped trad­ing in Decem­ber 2004. That foundry alone had acquired Charles Reed and Sons in 1905, and H. W. Caslon and Co in 1937.

    Com­pos­i­tion Type

    Allow­ing print­ers to cast their own type was a key dri­ver behind devel­op­ments in com­pos­i­tion type. There were two broad approach­es: build a com­plete line of type from a machine; or build indi­vidual char­ac­ters in the cor­rect order from the machine.

    Lino­type and Inter­type took a sim­ilar approach: the oper­ator sat at a key­board and typed the copy. While copy was being typed the matri­ces (type moulds) were assem­bled with­in the machine. Once a line was com­pleted the moulds were filled with hot type met­al and the res­ult­ing ​‘slug’ was forced from the machine, being trimmed and shaped in the pro­cess. The Lud­low Typo­graph was sim­ilar, but the matri­ces were assem­bled by hand.

    Mono­type adop­ted a dif­fer­ent tack. They split the oper­a­tion between key­ing the copy and cast­ing the type. Copy was typed on a Mono­type Key­board pow­ered by com­pressed air which punched holes in a paper tape. The tape was then tak­en to a cast­ing machine  which used the paper tape to pos­i­tion a case of matri­ces and cast a sin­gle piece of type for each key­stroke on the paper tape. The advant­age of this approach was to allow for cor­rec­tion after com­pos­i­tion had been pro­duced by the machine.

    In mod­ern times, Mono­type machines can be con­trolled by com­puter–allow­ing the dir­ect pro­duc­tion of met­al type from a com­puter key­board.

    In this section

    Fur­ther Information