TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Fri Dec 13 00:46:21 EST 2024

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LUC DEVROYE


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Chromatic type

Fancy metal or wood type from the second half of the 19th century. According to Ringwalt in his American Encyclopedia of Printing and Bookbinding (1871): type made of metal or wood for color printing and so arranged that there are duplicate or triplicate copies of each letter, which, after being printed, respectively, in different colors, on a given space, blend together in a harmonious whole. Chromatic types were shown regularly in foundry type specimen books of the 1840s and 1850s.

Rob Roy Kelly describes the early history: Chromatic types were first produced as wood type by Edwin Allen, and shown by George Nesbitt in his 1841 Fourth Specimen of Machinery Cut Wood Type. Both William H. Page in 1859, and J.G. Cooley in c.1859, showed several pages of Chromatic type in each of their wood type specimen books. Page showed these types in most of his specimen books in the 1870s. The high point of Chromatic wood type production came in 1874 when the William H. Page Wood Type Co. issued their 100-page Specimens of Chromatic Type & Borders. Though Hamilton, Morgans & Wilcox, and Heber Wells all showed samples of Chromatic types through the rest of the century, none of these ever reached the level of intricate precision attained in Page's 1874 masterpiece.

Free copy of William H. Page's Specimen of Chromatic Wood Type Borders Etc (1874). Local download of this PDF file.

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file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874b


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874e


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874h


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874j


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874l


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874q


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874r


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874s


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874t


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type 1874x


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Aetna 1874y


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Aetna Open 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Aetna Ornamented 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Arcadian 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Belgian Ornamented 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Caxton 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Caxton No5 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Celtic No1 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Clarendon Ornamented No2 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Florentine 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Gothic Ornamented No7 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Ionina No2 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Streamer Aetna 1874


file name: William H Page Specimenof Chromatic Wood Type Streamer Etruscan No4 1874







Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ https://luc.devroye.org ⦿ https://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html