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The Paper That Changed Type Design

by James Felici 7 Comments
John Baskerville is known best as the man who, in the mid-18th century, created a new
typeface that now bears his name. It was ner, more delicate, and lighter on the page than all
that went before it, and it opened the door to a new genre of type designs: the so-called
modern faces, including Bodoni and Didot. As such, Baskerville and faces like it are commonly
referred to as transitionals, the bridges between oldstyle and modern. Figure 1 shows the
before, the transition, and the after.
Figure 1: The types of William Caslon were already lighter than those of their oldstyle predecessors,
but Baskerville’s work took character re nement to a new level, as is clearly visible here. Note the
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delicacy of the Baskerville serifs, the ne crossbar of the t, the wispy tail of the a, and the overall
greater contrast between the thicks and thins. By the end of the 18th century, modern types—
exempli ed by the Bodoni here—had taken these re nements to extremes.
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But Baskerville’s innovative types—and those that followed—could only have existed because Copying Pages Between InDesign
of his arguably more important innovation: a new papermaking technique that yielded sheets Documents
whose smoother surface could reproduce much ner detail in both type and graphics, InDesign Preferences You Must Change
including etchings and engravings. Today
How to Make Amazing Halftone E ects
In Baskerville’s day, paper was still made by hand, one sheet at a time. The process was much with Photoshop
the same as that invented in China some 1600 years before: a at sieve called a mould (see
https://creativepro.com/the-paper-changed-type-design/ 1/8
13/08/2019 The Paper That Changed Type Design - CreativePro.com
Figure 2) was drawn through a slurry of well masticated plant bers to capture them in a Sponsors
rectangular form. After the water drained, with the excess squeezed out under pressure, the
bers bonded solidly with each other. Once dried, it was a sheet of paper.
Figure 2: An oriental papermaking mould consists of exible mat of thin, rounded bamboo slivers
woven in place with silk thread. This is then held in a rigid wooden frame that’s scooped into a tub of
water/ ber slurry.
The sieving surface of European papermaking moulds was a brass version of the bamboo ones
used by the Chinese. Thin brass rods laid on the frame of the mould (giving the name “laid” to
this kind of mould) and sewed in place by ne brass wires in a closely spaced parallel array,
which was supported underneath by a series of ribs that kept this woven surface perfectly at.
The gaps between the rods were ne enough to trap the paper bers but wide enough to let
the water pass through. A piece of this brass “fabric” is shown in Figure 3. A removable picture
frame–like deckle was tted over this sieving surface to create a shallow reservoir that
permitted the slurry to be scooped up.
Figure 3: This close up photo of a laid papermaking mould surface shows the horizontal brass bars
held in places by “chain” wires.
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It was a clever and durable tool, but the surface left its imprint on the paper made with it. The
ridges caused by the rods—so-called laid lines—gave the paper a mildly washboard-like InDesignSecrets
surface. This can be glimpsed from the light-table view of a piece of laid handmade paper in
ePubSecrets
Figure 4. To get type to print evenly and well on such a laid surface mandated a sturdy
character shape because ne details didn’t render well, and delicate character elements of the InCopySecrets
cast metal type were apt to snap o or wear prematurely under the pressure it took to make a
good impression.
Figure 4: A light table betrays the alternating thick and thin texture of a sheet of laid paper. To get
consistently inked type on such a surface meant heavy pressure during printing.
Enter John Baskerville, with a better idea, thanks to a fruit of the industrial revolution.
Baskerville replaced the laid surface with one consisting of a ne brass screen composed of
wires running in both directions, not unlike a modern window screen. An example is shown in
Figure 5. This new “wove” mould yielded a much smoother paper surface, one that could
reproduce ner printed detail with less pressure.
Figure 5: The surface of this wove mould shows none of the telltale lines of the older laid moulds. Its
screen surface yielded a paper with a consistent surface texture in all directions.
Not content even with this surface, though, Baskerville took the extra step of hot-pressing his
paper between plates of heated copper, which gave the paper a much smoother—even glossy
— nish. Here was a surface that rivaled the so-called Japan papers of the day: ne, smooth
papers from Asia that were laboriously (and expensively) made using bers from the inner
bark of mulberry trees instead of the cotton rags used by European paper mills. With this,
Baskerville created a printing surface that revolutionized type design, enabling all that
followed.
As with most revolutions, not everyone was pleased. The American Benjamin Franklin—himself
a printer—wrote the following letter to Baskerville after having visited his Birmingham,
England, print works
Craven Street, London, 1760.
Dear Sir,
Let me give you a pleasant Instance of the Prejudice some have entertained against your
Work. Soon after I returned, discoursing with a Gentleman concerning the Artists of
Birmingham, he said you would [be] a Means of blinding all the Readers in the Nation;
for the Strokes of your Letters, being too thin and narrow, hurt the Eye, and he could
never read a Line of them without Pain. “I thought,” said I, “you were going to complain
of the Gloss of the Paper, some object to.” “No, no,” says he, “I have heard that
mentioned, but it is not that; it Is in the Form and Cut of the Letters themselves; they
have not that Height and Thickness of the Stroke, which make the common Printing so
much more comfortable to the Eye.” You see this Gentleman was a Connoisseur. In vain I
endeavoured to support your character against the Charge; he knew what he felt, and
could see the Reason of it, and several other Gentlemen among his friends had made
the same Observation, &c.
Yesterday he called to visit me, when, mischievously bent to try his Judgment, I stept into
my Closet, tore o the Top of Mr. Caslon’s specimen, and produced it to him as yours,
brought with me from Birmingham; saying, I had been examining it, since he spoke to
me, and could not for my Life perceive the Disproportion he mentioned, desiring him to
point it out to me. He readily undertook it, and went over several of the Founts, showing
me everywhere what he thought Instances of that Disproportion; and declared, that he
could not then read the Specimen, without feeling very strongly the Pain he had
mentioned to me. I spared him that Time the Confusion of being told, that these were
the Types he had been reading all his life, with so much Ease to his Eyes; the Types his
adored Newton is printed with, on which he has pored not a little; nay, the very Types his
own Book is printed with, (for he is himself an Author,) and yet never discovered this
painful Disproportion in them, till he thought they were yours. I am, &c.
B. Franklin
This is a wonderful commentary not just on human nature but also on the conservative
attitudes of readers and the natural brakes that are nearly always set against typographic
innovation. Misplaced—and in this case blind—prejudice aside, when it c
omes to reading, we like what we know and tend to resist change. That the change is good or
bad is not always the issue; if something looks wrong, there’s a strong argument to be made
that it is wrong.
To put Franklin’s commentary in perspective, though, it should be noted that not all of his own
typographic preferences were exactly revolutionary, as you can see in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Here’s a portion of Franklin’s letter to Baskerville as the author might have preferred to
have seen it set. Franklin bemoaned the abandonment of italics for running text and railed against
the lost popularity of the medial s, as well as the trend against capitalizing nouns, as is still done in
German.
Over time, the brightness of modern faces lost favor (one 19th century American type historian
went so far as to call them “e eminate”), especially in the book trade, and by the turn of the
20th century, oldstyle faces were making a comeback, as well as revivals and advances in the
transitional tradition, such as the so-called Scotch faces. It could be said that Baskerville gave
the type-design pendulum a push, and having swung to its extreme with modern designs, he—
or rather the style he created—was still there waiting when the pendulum swung back to the
center.
We’ve inherited other typeface characteristics that are the direct result of various technical
advances (or constraints) as well as commercial pressures, but this is grist for another column.
In the meantime, re ect on John Baskerville’s other gift to type: a better surface on which to
serve it up to readers.
Categories: Features, Type Design, Typography
Tags
Posted on: December 5, 2012
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James Felici
James Felici has worked in the publishing industry—in both editorial and
production—for more than 30 years. A veteran journalist and former
managing editor of Publish magazine, he has set type by hand as well as on
systems from IBM, Linotype, Compugraphic, CCI, and Magna. His books
include The Complete Manual of Typography (Peachpit Press), The Desktop Style Guide
(Bantam/ITC), How to Get Great Type Out of Your Computer (North Light), and contributions
to The Macintosh Bible (Peachpit Press). He has written for numerous publications,
including PC World, Macworld, and The Seybold Report, and has been a featured speaker at
Seybold Seminars, Macworld Expo, and other events worldwide.
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7 Comments on The Paper That Changed Type Design
Fascinating
story. Thank you!
Terry Veiga
Reply
December 5, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Those like myself

who have been
printing via
ajasys
computers for
December 6, 2012 at 3:45 am
decades have
long known that
even the best
printers also depended on the paper that is
used in order to create the best possible result.
For that matter, my parents, (both journalists)

taught me that typewriters were only as good
as the bond paper they struck on.
But I’d never heard about Baskerville’s paper

advances, and your article was fascinating,
instructive and enjoyable.
Thanks!
–––––––––––––––––––
Sanity is a relative concept.
If you don’t believe me,
let me introduce my relatives.
–––––––––––––––––––
Reply
I have worked in
and around
vistalady
printing nearly
my entire life
December 6, 2012 at 7:34 am
and this is the
rst I have heard
about the paper
making innovation creating a workable base
for the new typefaces.
This is a wonderful article. It was both

entertaining and informative.
Reply
As a graphic
designer I
appreciate the
Anonymous
contributions
and artistry of
Baskerville’s
work, but the
invention and production of wove paper was
the work of paper maker James Whatman. And
it seems leaving him out of this discussion is a
little like giving Prefontaine credit for inventing
Nike wa e treads.
Reply
I’m glad to read
your responses
to the column,
Anonymous
which I feared
might be
wandering a bit
far a eld from
the subject of setting type.
James Whatman did indeed manufacture wove

paper for Baskerville. Baskerville was a printer,
not a papermaker. Nor was Baskerville a
punch cutter, so he didn’t actually make the
types we know associate him with. Like wove
paper, they were made to order for him. Paper
historians Dard Hunter and Leonard Schlosser
both credit Baskerville with the invention, with
the latter referring this is as “clearly
documented.”
Reply
Thanks! A
beautiful lesson
in the history
Anonymous
print. A reminder
of the dense
layers of science,
art &
craftsmanship on which our digital
communications are modeled.
When the reproduction of the word was so
labor intensive, a great more thought went into
the message. Today, “talk is cheap” can, in too
many cases, now be applied to the printed
word.
Reply
Was that
Theodore Low
Anonymous
DeVinne with the
“e eminate”
comment? I ran
across
something like
that he had written, in the context of William
Morris’ contributions to make typography
more “manly” again.
Reply
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The Paper That Changed Type Design

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Craven Street, London, 1760.

Categories: Features, Type Design, Typography

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7 Comments on The Paper That Changed Type Design

Those like myself

For that matter, my parents, (both journalists)

But I’d never heard about Baskerville’s paper

This is a wonderful article. It was both

James Whatman did indeed manufacture wove

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I'm not a robot

CreativePro Week Sign up to receive our newsletter

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