Whittingham and Pickering, in the field of artistic typography, were fifty years ahead of their time, as printers in general were not ready to accept the good things offered them. The modern renaissance came later.
Job printing as a distinct department is of modern development. Typographers of old were primarily book and pamphlet printers, and in many cases interest was chiefly centered in publishing newspapers or almanacs; job printing was incidental. This caused similarity in the typography of newspaper, book and job work, a condition that today exists only in a small degree. Now these three classes of work are generally separated into departments, each with its own rules, styles and practices, job composition being less restrained by customs and rules than any of the other departments.
Showing the development during the nineteenth century of a severe and uninteresting style ]
Attractiveness is as necessary to the typography of the general job of printing as dignity and legibility are to a law brief, but, endeavoring to get attractiveness into their work, job printers often go astray. They wrongly labor under the impression that to have a job distinctive it must be made freakish. Typography is not good unless based upon art foundations.
Ideas in plenty could have been plucked by the printer of the nineteenth century from old books, especially from those printed for religious organizations, such as the “Book of Common Prayer.” A handsome edition of a book of this kind was printed in London by John Murray in 1814. Each pair of pages is different in decoration and typography, the designs being by “Owen Jones, architect.” The decorative treatment of the page of Psalms reproduced from this book is worthy of study and adaptation.
Title-page of MacKellar’s manual, “The American Printer,” 1882 ]
About the time of the Civil War the job printer was less fettered than ever by the customs of the book printer. While title-pages of books were being composed without ornamentation in severe-looking modern romans, the job printer, influenced by the typefounder, took a liking to fancy typography, for the production of which there were shaded, outlined, rimmed and ornamental letters, in imitation of the work of the copperplate engraver. The business card on the next page, and the “bill of fare” here shown, are specimens of such work.