Initial and Monogram fonts
There has been a discussion about some inital and monogram font i.d.s and the question was asked as to why they don’t appear in Mac McGrew’s book of American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century.
On page 164 under Decorative Initials, Mac explains that “the styles are too numerous for this book, except for a few most closely related to regular typefaces.”
I have never been comfortable with the fact that a lot of very common ones were not included, and I pondered that there might be only about two dozen or so.
Like the man with new orthopaedic shoes, I stand corrected!
I decided to pull out some 20th century foundry, Monotype and Linotype catalogs and see what I could find. I only counted cast fonts (no sterotyped ones - and there are PLENTY of those) and I have come up with an astonishing count of 76 that are not shown in Mac’s book!!!!! And I really didn’t spend a lot of time finding them so there may actually be a few more.
Now you know the rest of the story.
Rick
I wonder if Oak Knoll has any intention of reprinting or offering a new edition of this book. It’d be great to add a chapter on initials.
Or maybe the subject warrants a book of its own!
Daniel Morris
The Arm Letterpress
Brooklyn, NY
So Dan, are you volunteering to become the Mac McGrew of monograms? :-)
Barbara
>I wonder if Oak Knoll has any intention of reprinting
They have reprinted it. Just go to their website at:
http://oakknoll.com/
and plug “McGrew” into the search box.
If the price seems high (it isn’t) then recall that a while ago when it was out of print and remaindered copies dried up the secondhand price instantly went to twice this.
Regards,
David M.
www.CircuitousRoot.com
Barbara,
Unfortunately I have far too much on my plate as it is! But I do love initial caps, ornaments and borders! You do it and I’ll buy a copy or three! ;)
David,
I’d seen the price of the copies circulating and imagined that Oak Knoll had run out. Their own list price (printed on the back of the book) is $49.95.
Dan
I seem to have failed to notice that this is a REPRINT of the Oak Knoll edition. Surely the costs have risen since this was first issued in 1993 hence the price increase.
Dan
It would be pretty daunting to come up with a fairly decent showing of ALL the missing monogram and initial sets. The more standand ones would be easy to get, but the older ones would probably be near impossible to find anyone with a complete set to show. There are also some fonts that only came in very large sizes so they will take up a lot real estate on a page. Another factor is that I am guessing that there is probably just about zero information on most of them as to who the designer was, etc.
I toyed with the idea of trying to take a stab at something like this, but the obstacles are many.
Rick
It would be pretty daunting to come up with a fairly decent showing of ALL the missing monogram and initial sets. The more standand ones would be easy to get, but the older ones would probably be near impossible to find anyone with a complete set to show. There are also some fonts that only came in very large sizes so they will take up a lot real estate on a page. Another factor is that I am guessing that there is probably just about zero information on most of them as to who the designer was, etc.
I toyed with the idea of trying to take a stab at something like this, but the obstacles are many.
Rick