#type classification

Week 2: Type Classification

This kid wasn’t messing around when it came to typeface classification.

Daniel Berkeley Updike was an American printer and typographic historian. In 1893, he founded the Merrymount Press in Providence, Rhode Island with the express purpose of doing “common work well.” Could you imagine? There used to be a time when hand-set printing was common. We were all born in the wrong era. Ultimately, his excellence in printing inspired other printers. He taught the first college course in the United States on this history of typography, and the practice of printing at Harvard University. 

In 1922, he published his sweeping scholarly achievement: Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use in 1922 which covers typography from before the golden age of printing, well through to the opening of the twentieth century.

In Printing Types, Updike discusses 15th century printing types in Europe with astounding depth, far more depth, in fact than could be captured within our pie chart system. Shown above is the paired down version of his typeface classification system. To see the detailed version, one would have to imagine six of these charts—one each for Germany, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Spain and England).

There would then be some differentiations in those charts. Only the Italian chart would have the Italic, which it would use over the Vernacular classification. Germany’s Gothic types would be called Textura, Fraktura and Schwabacher (say that 5 times fast).

England would remove the Classical Roman classification and Spain would lose the vernacular category. It would also have a Woodcut Capitals classification, which brings up a whole other mess–should there also be printing based classification? (Probably) And how would that work? (Ugh, we’ll save that for another post.)

In addition to detailing the most in-depth classification system, Updike discusses nearly all of the known printers of each country, which typefaces they used, and their contributions to the art of letterpress printing. Can you say workaholic? We’re glad though. He’s pretty much the 1920s James Bond of typefaces­–attempting to crack all the typographic mysteries with his never-ending knowledge. He kind of reminds us of Paul Shaw, one of our favorite professors who happens to be an extremely knowledgeable historian and talented calligrapher.