Stephenson Blake

A bit of the early history as summarized in that 1953 type specimen book. This is backed up by a rather impressive genealogical tree, linking Stephenson Blake by blood and money (mergers) to William Caxton (ca. 1480), Joseph Moxon (ca. 1660), Walpergen (ca. 1680), James and Thomas Grover (ca. 1700), William Caslon I (ca. 1730), Joseph Fry (ca. 1780), Edmund Fry (ca. 1790), William Caslon II and William Caslon III (ca. 1800), Fann Street Foundry (ca. 1810), William Caslon IV (ca. 1815), William Thorowgood (ca. 1825), and Robert Besley (ca. 1850).

I am only showing a few of the typefaces at the Stephenson Blake Foundry. Check the references above to learn more about their catalogs. The type on the left is Amanda Ronde, a 1939 font purchased by SB probably from Wagner and Schmidt, and previously known as Undine Ronde. Jaspert calls the lower case stiff, but I like its consistency.

Bologna (1946): this beauty is one of the more famous Stephenson typefaces. McGrew explains its history, which once again starts in the United States: Humanistic was designed by William Dana Orcutt and privately cast by ATF in 1904 for the University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is a careful rendering into type of the round humanistic writing of the Renaissance period, based in particular on the 1485 manuscript of Antonio Sinibaldi's Virgil in the Laurentian Library at Florence, Italy. This is considered by some to be hand-lettering in its most beautiful form, and occurred after the development of roman types as we know them. In 1940 this type was adapted to Monotype keyboard composition, under the direction of Orcutt and Sol Hess, the 21-point size being used for a large edition of Science and Health. The Monotype cutting, known as Laurentian closely follows the foundry version, including some but not all of the original alternate characters. A few years later the design was modified by Stephenson Blake in England, and issued as Bologna; this in turn was adapted by ATF as Verona.

Millington says that it corresponds to Petrarch at ATF.

In any case, the type is based on the 15th century handwriting of Sinibaldi.

Copperplate Bold is a bold version of Youthline Script (see below, 1952), dating from 1953.

And here is that 1952 predecessor, Youthline Script. A copperplate script for the banking and insurance industry, it was a Stephenson and Blake original.

For a modern digital version, see the beautiful execution by Rebecca Alaccari and Patrick Griffin as Sterling Script (2005, Canada Type).

Dominus (1925) is a gorgeous Openface in the tradition of the best of them, a contemporary of Goudy Openface, the face I use for certain mathematical symbols in my mathematical writing. I do not know of a digital version of Dominus.

Engravers Shaded. Engravers Roman was purchased from the Inland Type Foundry in 1912. About that original, McGrew writes: Engravers Roman was designed by Robert Wiebking and advertised by BB&S in 1899 as the "latest design"-"the only genuine." Other founders had introduced some similar faces a short time before, all imitating favorite designs of copperplate and steelplate engravers for fine stationery and announcements; Hansen called its version Card Roman. Engravers Roman was shortly supplemented by Engravers Roman Condensed and Engravers Title- the latter was a companion bold face which was displaced by Engravers Bold, designed by Morris Benton for ATF in 1902, and later cast also by BB&S. Western Type Foundry and later BB&S also had Engravers Bold Condensed, and a companion cap-and-lowercase face known as Engravers Litho Bold Condensed, designed by Robert Wiebking in 1914. However, Engravers Litho Bold, designed by Wiebking in 1915 for Western as Rogers Roman, was a substantially different face. Compare Card Mercantile, Bran don, Litho series. ATF issued Engravers Shaded, designed by Morris Benton about 1906, while BB&S had Engravers Roman Shaded, formerly Chester Title, designed by Sidney Gaunt in 1914. Compare Lithograph Shaded. Offset Engravers Roman and Offset Engravers Title were cut in reverse for a process of transferring proofs of type to lithographic stones.

I have no information on this blackletter called Festival Text in the 1953 specimen book.

Francesca Ronde is an original script font from 1948, based on the handwriting of Lady Frances Stephenson. Jaspert et al do not like the wild the variation of the inclinations of the letters.

Fry's Ornamented was originally cut in 1796 by Richard Austin for Dr. Joseph Fry. It then came into the hands of the Reed Foundry and in 1907 , via a foundry purchase, it fell into the hands of Stephenson Blake.

There are many descendants of this typeface. One is called Colonial, about which McGrew writes: Colonial appears to be a recutting by ATF in 1933 of Fry's Ornamented (see Imports in Appendix), a revival by the Stephenson Blake foundry in England of a type cut by Richard Austin in 1796 for an eighteenth-century ancestor of that company. It has much the character of Baskerville Roman, which descends from the same source, but shaded and with an outline ellipse set into the middle of each main stroke. A similar face was shown by the Caslon foundry about the same time. The second Colonial specimen shows a font of mats acquired by Bob Halbert in Texas from a Detroit typographer. It appears to be a duplicate of the English face, with a few characters redrawn. It is not identified otherwise. Compare Old Dutch, Dresden.

Closer to taday, Ari Rafaeli (ARTypes) made a digital version also called Fry's Ornamented (2007), a revival of Ornamented No. 2 (which was Austin's original name for this face). And ARS Type has a similar offering.

Imperial Script: Cut in 1905 by Karl Gomer, who cut many other faces at Stephenson Blake, such as Chisel (1935, design by Robert Harling), Imperial Script (1905), Long Imperial Script (1906, design by Elisha Pechey), Thorne Shaded (1938) and Plantin (1942, designed and engraved by F. H. Pierpoint from a 16th century model, adapted by Stephenson Blake and cut by Gomer).

It is unfortunate that P22 named one of its calligraphic scripts (by Rob Leuschke, 2003) P22 Imperial Script, because it is totally different.

Invitation Script is an English copperplate script made by Stephenson Blake in 1949. Interestingly, not a singly new glyph can be found in this font, as the uppercase letters are from (their own) Marina Script, and the lowercase letters were inherited from (their own) Youthline.

Again, a confusing name, because the Inland typefoundry had an Invitation Script, which in turn were similar to (clones of?) Benton's Typo Script and Typo Script Extended.

There is nothing British about Le Champlevé: it was purchased by SB in 1911 from Deberny Peignot. It is in fact the Openface style of Tradition, a type designed by Bernard Naudin, whose open capitals are called Naudin Champlevé. Tradition too was bought in 1911 from Deberny Peignot by SB, and called Naudin at SB.

A digital version was created by ARTypes / ARS Type, under the name Le Champlevé.

Madonna Bold is not an SB original. It is identical to Lucian Bernhard's Bernhard Cursive (1925, Bauer). The Bernhard Cursive Bold is Madonna Bold. Stephenson Blake seems to have bought the design in 1925 from Bauer.

Not to be outdone, as piracy existed even a hundred years ago, ATF got its own version in 1927, called Liberty ("made" by W.T. Sniffin, hmmm). Yes, some glyphs (like the K) are different, but isn't that the same story over and over?

McGrew writes about Liberty: Liberty was designed for ATF by Willard T. Sniffin in 1927, presumably to counter the importation of Bernhard Cursive, which it greatly resembles. It differs in the crossbars of A and H, which have loops in them, the hooked ascenders of bdhl, and some lesser details, but it is a delicately handsome, unconnected script, with very small lowercase and very tall ascenders. On Intertype it is known as Lotus. Also compare Pompeian Cursive.

Madonna Ronde is the regular version of Madonna, so the discussion above applies.

Marina Script is a 1936 original copperplate script, heavier than Palace Script.

Shown is Mercury Light. Now, Mercury too is a copy. The original was done by Erich Mollowitz in 1936 for Trennert, and was called Forelle or Rhinegold.

Old Face Open dates back to the Joseph Fry collection of 1788. When Stephenson Blake purchased the Sir Charles Reed Foundry, it came into possession of this type in 1904. The letters are as in Fry's Baskerville. A revival was issued in eight sizes by Stephenson Blake in 1928.

Also called Fry's Shaded, it was probably cut in 1788 by Isaac Moore.

Look also for a digital version called Old Face Open by ARS Type.

The is called Old Style Head Piece No 739.

Palace Script is a Stephenson Blake original from 1923. It is co-owned by Monotype, also starting from 1923.

Of course, thanks to Monotype (Palace Script MT), an early digital version of this script became very popular, maybe too popular, with countless versions now roaming the internet, see, e.g., here. Adobe, Linotype, everyone has his own version.

Similar copperplates abound in the SB library: Marina Script, Imperial Script, Society Script. Elsewhere, see also Embassy Script (1924, Caslon).

Parisian Ronde was purchased in 1878 from Chappelle in Paris according to Millington. Others say it was bought from Inland in 1905, where it was called French Script, patented there by William Schraubstadter. The American Typefounders called it Tiffany Upright and Typo Upright (by Morris Fuller Benton). Typo Upright was digitally adopted by many: Linotype (Linoscript), Bitstream, and so forth.

Again, ARS Type has a recent digital version called Parisian ronde.

Saxon Black's punches were cut by Rochaix in 1884.

Society Script is yet another copperplate script. it was acquired in 1912 from Deberny and Peignot in Paris, where it was known as Calligraphiques and as Ecriture Taille Douche.

Union Pearl is the first known English decorated letter (ca. 1690), attributed to the London-based foundry of James and Thomas Grover, active in the late 17th century. Via Fry and Fann Street Foundry, it made its way to Stephenson Blake.

Vogue. McGrew: Vogue is an American sans-serif type, cut by Intertype in light and bold weights early in 1930. It had been created for Conde Nast of Vogue magazine, but was released also to the general printing trade. It is generally quite similar to Futura (q.v.), but caps are the full height of ascenders, and descenders are a bit longer; most noticeable in the original version are the very long crossbar of G and the vertical tail of Q. The bold weight is about equivalent to Futura Medium. Extra bold, oblique, and condensed versions were added over the next several years, and it became especially popular for newspaper work. Vogue Extra Condensed was designed by Edwin Shaar in 1971 for the New York Times classified display, and cut in 48-point only. Several sets of alternate characters in some versions enabled users of this series to simulate the general appearance of Futura, Kabel, or Tempo, while r the light and bold weights also offered unusual squared versions of kmnru, derived from early tentative designs for Futura. Through an unusual twist of names, Vogue Medium Condensed is bolder than Vogue Bold Condensed. Vogue Bold Extra Condensed (not to be confused with Vogue Extra Bold Condensed), is made only in a few large sizes and departs somewhat in design. Lining Vogue and Lining Vogue Bold are made in several sizes of caps and figures to cast on a 6- or 12-point body in the manner of Copperplate Gothic; also one small size of 18-point.

Needless to say, Vogue is flashy and sexy, and many digital versions exist. Look for example, for Am Sans (2005, Volker Busse), Vogue (Corel), Mondän (Simon Schmidt).

The listing of Stephenson Blake types according to Millington.

Contact

Luc Devroye
School of Computer Science
McGill University
Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6
lucdevroye@gmail.com
http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc
http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~lu/fonts.htmlc