TYPOGRAPHY always fascinated me and in an enjoyable second career of selling digital fonts, lecturing on typography, unitising fonts, researching type and designing typefaces (only two), I have always struggled with the very difficult problem of categorising fonts. The Frenchman, Maximilian Vox, proposed a scheme of classification in 1954 and, while it certainly wasn't comprehensive, it was a big step forward.
Later refinements saw an emphasis on the major categories of type being subdivided into minor groups. Such a system works well with categories such as serifs and sans serifs where it is easy to understand the names of the various subdivisions because they usually have a traditional significance. However, I was very much aware that such an approach wasn't suited to decorative type because of the many divisions and subdivisions required to accommodate such a diverse group. Then one day it occurred to me that if I produced all the different subdivisions in the form of a matrix everyone would be able to relate the style of a decorative face to its category name. Also, if a traditional index was added then a decorative type search could be pursued by the look of a face or by the name of a font. Buoyed by such a breakthrough I started work four years ago on my Decorate with Type; a categorised handbook of decorative and novelty type. Finally the project is finished, and hopefully I have included sufficient decorative samples to make this new system of classifying decoratives a pleasure to use because, while it has been a long road creating the handbook, it has been a pleasure.
And how did I arrive at this typographic publishing pinnacle? Well; I started my career as a colour camera operator in the days when photo-mechanical masks were used to render colour separations. However when I joined a Graphic Arts Supply company I moved from colour to 2nd generation phototypesetting. These machines with their many problems awakened my interest in letter forms and it didn't take long for me to become obsessed with typography. In 1984 with the arrival of PostScript I formed my own business marketing fonts because for the first time since hot-metal days it was commercially viable to sell fonts. The question wasn't what typesetting system but rather, do you want Mac or PC?
As the business grew, one aspect that intrigued me was that the customers' needs reflected trends in typesetting. So when I moved out of Sydney and up the Mid North Coast, where in semi retirement I was to be a type consultant for the Font Factory, not only did I take a couple of Macs but also a drawer full of ideas for future developments. The first project was a few fonts based on the Lindisfarne Gospels. The second project was to develop a system of categorising decorative fonts in all their complexity, and now the third has me shuffling through the papers in my drawer again.
Harry C Pears
Lake Cathie, Australia
Download this Introduction in PDF to see it correctly set out