Typography 01
Wertzberger
Fall 2008
Frederic Goudy: Typographer
Frederic Goudy was born in Bloomington, Illinois on March 8, 1865, although many different sources seem to have problems keeping their information consistent of when and where he was born. Goudy credits the beginning of his art career as 1876 when he saw his first pantograph (used to copy plans, diagrams, etc to any scale) and became overly excited about watching the artist draw. When he was fifteen, living in Butler, Illinois, he got a job as a janitor in order to buy a $10.00 lathe from a popular boys’ magazine, which he says had a significant influence on his work later in life (in which he became interested in mechanical work). Around 1881 while attending Sunday school, he constructed his first “real” typography project. He cut all the letters of the Ten Commandments and placed them on ten panels that were previously blank in the church. He offered to do it for free, but was later compensated with a twenty dollar check to his mother and another twenty dollar check after positive feedback of church-goers. This led to many more project requests from various people, come he was compensated, others he was not. Nonetheless these projects put him in place to start a career when the time came. Once Goudy was able to be on his own, he got around. He moved around many, many times during the course of his young adult life and into his professional life. In 1887 he moved to Minnesota and in 1888 he became a bookkeeper for credit and mortgage companies where he taught himself typography and printing. During the same year he worked in his father's real estate office in Hyde County, South Dakota. Then, in 1890 he found himself working in Chicago for a financial broker, and later a real estate firm. He also worked in the rare book department of A.C. McClurg. During a slow point, he ran into a friend of his, Lauron C. Hooper, who helped him start up “the Booklet Press” to produce advertising booklets. However their first big project they were scammed and didn’t receive any payment for their work. Despite this, they continued working and eventually, thanks to a connection with Stone and Kimball, they were able to get the “Chap Book” to print. At this time Goudy decided to change the name of the Press because he didn’t feel that “Booklet Press” was an adequate name since its growth. He changed it to “Camelot Press” and that is the name with which they printed the “American Chap-Book.” He eventually sold the Press to George Leland Hunter, the foreign rewrite editor on the Chicago Tribune. He produced his first typeface design in 1896 for Camelot Press. The font, a display font called Camelot, was named for the Press. He also sold the font for ten dollars to the Dickinson Type Foundry. In 1897 Frederic Goudy married a bookkeeper named Bertha M. Sprinks and at the turn of the century he became a lettering instructor at Holme’s School of Illustration. Goudy’s teaching inspired the likes of William A. Dwiggins, Oswald Cooper, and R. Hunter Middleton. He had the genes to become a teacher. Not only his father, but many of his aunts and uncles were also in education careers.
In 1903, Goudy, along with Will H. Ransom, founded the Village Press in Park Ridge, Illinois. They later moved the Press to Boston and then moved it to New York. In 1908 their beloved Village Press burned to the ground. The fire destroyed everything, all his notes, and sketches etc. Therefore, he decided to construct notes on information that came to him regarding his seventeen to eighteen first types. He used these notes for talks, magazine articles and etc. In that same year Goudy produced a typeface for Lanston Monotype Machine Company. His 16th typeface design was called Monotype No. 38-E, or sometimes known as Goudy Light. In 1911 he created his 19th design, which was his first really successful typeface. It was called Kennerley Old Style and he produced it for an H.G. Wells anthology, published by Mitchell Kennerley. The type was made because he didn’t like the typeface “Caslon” in conjunction with the rest of the book of, which he had originally planned to use. He drew the entire typeface freehand, inspired by the Fell types, imported by Bishop Bell in 1671. Four years later he created his most widely used type, Goudy Old Style, which was released by the American Type Founders Company and was his 25th design. One of the reasons it was so successful was because it has graceful letters and allows for more type on a page. While designing this typeface, Goudy was very strict in not allowing any changes to the characters without his approval. He was extremely satisfied with the original outcome. Later on, though, bold, extra bold and italics were developed by the type foundry and called the “Goudy Family,” for which Goudy himself received no compensation for the use of his name. The Q was also redesigned by the foundry “to a form that irritate(d) (him) mightily.”
He designed mostly display fonts, like “A ‘Display’ Roman” (his third design), during the beginning of his career, but as time went on and he developed his skill and craft, he was more interested in perfecting the roman typefaces. Goudy was very much a believer in the history of typography and those that came before him. He used a lot of already existing fonts to inspire and base the design of many of his typefaces on, as he explains, “First, a letter is a symbol of unity that has come down to us with but little actual change in its essential form since the invention of typography. There remains, then, very little which may be changed, since we may not foist new or strange characters into an intellectual currency already fixed by long use, beyond giving the accepted norm a new quality of interest, or a quality of personality, and still retain the value of any letter” (T, p74). Continuing his teaching career, Goudy taught at the Art Students League from 1916 to 1924, and in 1920 he became the Art Director at Lanston Type Co. He held that position for twenty-seven years. He also taught at New York University from 1927 to 1929. Goudy drew his typefaces by hand because he strongly disliked mechanical techniques. He said, “I do not feel that type cast by any one else carries fully into print the exact qualities of rhythm and feeling I strive for in my original drawings. No punch cutter or matrix engraver, however skillful, can do more than approximate the subtleties of another’s thought and feeling.” However, at 60 years old, he decided, partly out of necessity, to dive into the entire process. He had no previous experience, yet he began to make patterns, grind cutting tools and cast type. He is one of the few men, since the invention of type, who can do the entire process of creating a typeface: from sketching to casting to printing. In light of his new found all-around skill in the creation of typefaces, in 1925, he set up a type foundry in his home in Marlborough, New York. Unfortunately, again, for Goudy and all of his work, in 1939 his home and his foundry burned down. That fire also destroyed most of his work. At this point Goudy decided to dedicate the rest of his life to teaching which began in 1940, when he took the position at the University of Syracuse, teaching calligraphy. In 1942 he began the preparation of the preset “Chap Book,” a newer version of “The American Chap Book” that he created in 1895. But he became ill during this time and his work on it came to a halt. At 40 years old, he considered himself a failure, but he proceeded to made 113 fonts during the next 36 years. Frederic Goudy designed 124 typefaces and published 59 literary works during his life. Frederic Goudy won numerous honors for his fine printed books which include the gold medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Friedsam gold medal of the Architectural League of New York, and the medal of honor of the Ulster-Irish Society of New York. He died in Marlborough-on-Hudson on November 5, 1947. Frederic Goudy was a genius in type-making. He was one hundred percent devoted and involved with his work. He says, “Each face, has a spirit of its own. New types express the tempo of the times. After all, it is very easy. I just think of a letter and draw a line around the thought.”
Frederic Goudy is regarded as one of the greatest American Type designers in history. He started when many would be preparing to quit, he faced many, many adversities and still prevailed. He lost his work twice in fires, his name was used without payment to him, while still managing to teach and spread his genius. Despite everything he still created over 100 typefaces and became what refer to him as, “The Greatest American Type Designer.”
Part B:
1869
1
Camelot
1897
2
Unnamed
1897
3
A "Display" Roman
1898
4
DeVinne Roman
1902
5
I Pabst Roman™ I
1903
6
Pabst Italic
1903
7
I Powell™ I
1903
8
Village
1904
9
Cushing Italic
1904
10
Boston News Letter
1904
11
Engravers' Roman
1905
12
Copperplate Gothics
1905
13
Caxton Initials
1905
14
Globe Gothic Bold
1905
15
Caslon Revised
1908
16
Goudy 38-e™
1908
17
Goudy 38-e Italic™
1910
18
Norman Capitals
1911
19
I Kennerley Old Style™ I
1911
19A
I Kennerley Open Caps™ I
1911
20
I Forum Title™ I
1912
21
Sherman
1912
22
Goudy Lanston™
1914
23
Goudy Roman
1915
24
Klaxon
1915
25
I Goudy Old Style ™ I
1915
26
I Goudy Old Style Italic ™ I
1916
27
I Goudy Cursive ™ I
1916
28
Booklet Old Style
1916
29
National Old Style
1916
30
Goudytype
1917
31
Advertiser's Roman
1917
31A
An Unnamed Design
1918
32
I Kennerly Italic™ I
1918
32A
I Goudy Initials ® / Cloister Initials ® I
1918
33
I Hadriano Title™ I
1918
34
Goudy Open
1918
35
Goudy Modern
1919
36
Collier Old Style
1919
37
Goudy Modern Italic
1919
38
Goudy Open Italic
1919
39
Goudy Antique
1921
40
Nabisco
1921
41
Lining Gothic
1921
42
I Garamont™ I
1921
43
Garamont Italic ™ I
1921
44
Goudy Newstyle
1924
45
Goudy Italic
1924
46
Italian Old Style™
1924
47
Italian Old Stlye Italic™
1924
48
I Kennerley Bold™ I
1924
49
I Kennerley Bold Italic™ I
1925
50
I Goudy Heavy Face™ I
1925
51
I Goudy Heavy Face Italic™ I
1925
52
Marlborough
1925
53
Venezia Italic
1926
54
Aries
1927
55
Goudy Dutch
1927
56
Companion Old Style
1927
57
Companion Old Style Italic
1927
58
I Deepdene ™ I
1927
59
I Record Title ™ I
1927
60
Goudy Uncials
1928
61
I Deepdene Italic ™ I
1928
62
I Goudy Text ™ I
1929
63
Strathmore Title
1929
64
I Lombardic Capitals ™ I
1929
65
Sans Serif Heavy
1929
66
I Kaatskill Oldstyle ™ I
1929
67
I Remington Typewriter ™ I
1930
68
Inscription Greek
1930
69
Trajan Title
1930
70
Sans Serif Light
1930
71
Mediaeval
1930
71A
I Hadriano Lower-case ™ I
1930
72
Advertiser¹s Modern
1930
73
Goudy Stout
1930
74
Truesdell
1931
75
Truesdell Italic
1931
76
Deepdene Open Text ™
1931
76A
Deepdene Text ™
1931
77
Ornate Title
1931
78
Sans Serif Light Italic
1931
79
Deepdene Medium ™
1932
80
Goethe
1932
81
Franciscan
1932
82
I Deepdene Bold™ I
1932
83
Mostert
1932
84
I Village No. 2 ™ I
1932
84
Quinan Old Style
1932
86
Goudy Bold Face
1932
87
Goudy Book
1933
88
Goudy Hudson
1933
89
Goethe Italic
1933
90
Deepdene Bold Italic ™
1934
91
Saks Goudy
1934
92
Saks Goudy Italic
1934
92A
Saks Goudy Bold
1934
93
I Hadriano Stone Cut™ I
1934
94
I Village Italic™ I
??
95
I Californian Oldstyle™ I
1953
96
I Goudy Thirty ™ I
Font: Goudy Old Style:
Font Classification: Old Style
1. slight contrast between thin and thick strokes (letter A, W, K etc.)
2. scooped or slightly concave serifs. (on letters N, L, I, J etc.)
3. diagonal stress on round characters
4. short descenders, fairly tall ascenders.
5. The tail on the Q6. slightly organic shaped (handwriting influenced, serifs not flat/straight etc.)
Part C: Cultural/Historical Event
The font was created in 1915. The Arts and Crafts Movement was during the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, but was at its height from 1880 to 1910. It focused on and took pride on personal handiwork. It came about as a reaction to “soulless machine-made production” which was brought on by the Industrial Revolution.
Bibliography:
Goudy, Frederic. Typologia. Berkeley & Los Angeles. 1940.
Goudy, Frederic. Goudy’s Type Designs. New York. 1978.
Johnson, Alastair. Print. The Old College Try. New York, March-April 2000.
http://www.wikipedia.com/
http://www.typographia.org/1999/graphion/goudy.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Goudy
http://www.linotype.com/396/fredericwgoudy.html?PHPSESSID=a79de2b5103459841f694037f181f0d0
http://www.pointlessart.com/education/loyalist/typeTalk/goudy2/goudy.html
http://www.britannica.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20001210030800/webcom.net/~nfhome/goudy.htm
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/09/01/type-by-goudy/
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