There are three representatives of classic book typography, three important type faces – JANNON, BASKERVILLE AND WALBAUM – that should not be missing in any decent printing office. The versions included in this collection were redrawn and tuned to please the eye of the contemporary reader.
When selecting type faces we must not forget about their period and local roots. If we have a good Walbaum, we cannot use Baskerville to set Goethe or, on the contrary, Garamond to set a catalogue of 18th-century painting, or else we would become a laughing stock of connoisseurs. To select a type face for modern texts is, of course, more difficult: in the first place because modern type faces are not worth a lot, but mainly it is always difficult when the text refers to various periods and continents. Then we must try to enter into the nature of the work and know the character of the individual typefaces:
The flamboyant and melodious Renaissance typography derives from the proportions of the Roman capital and from calligraphy; it has a slender look and a noble character – no wonder, because it serves predominantly for spiritual literature and ideal beauty. The axis of shading in the rounded shapes is inclined, which is why we speak of “a dynamic” Roman. Aer 1620, in Sedan, Jean Jannon re-engraves the original Garamond’s punches, giving them a Late Renaissance, even more dynamic form.

The Baroque period is the time of great development of the letterpress technique, paper is finer and letters sharper. The type area sometimes extends deep into the margins, various proportions are tested. The character of a type face is noisier, the x-height of lower-case letters is enlarged, the axis of shading is straightened. Every Baroque title page produces a theatrical effect; its bold, narrowed upper case letters look dramatic. Engravers of typefaces increase the contrasts inherent in letters, as well as the contrasts between Roman type faces and italics; bookbinders increase the contrasts between the fine paper and the heavy binding of a book. ey all indulge in rounded, succulent and full forms, going hand in hand with Baroque painters and poets. The intensity of the aesthetic experience, in concise hyperbole, stirs all the senses. Experts speak of a “transitional” period, but as a matter fact this is one of the peaks. Aer 1760 John Baskerville in Birmingham closes this brilliant period; but it is only aer the lapse of one hundred and fiy years that he becomes a synonym of High Baroque.

All of a sudden, everything must be reasonable, serious; even the minute details of serifs are now rectangular, subordinated to an “idea”. The composition of a book comes closer to architecture; everywhere there is an abundance of blank space; the casting of both type faces and cannons advances towards perfection. The lack of emotions gave rise to desperate Romanticism, which did not manifest itself in book typography at all, as if the division of work in art had marked the industrial revolution. At the same time, at the beginning of the 19th century, when Caspar David Friedrich paints his snow-covered graves with forked, mutilated trees, Justus Erich Walbaum sits quietly in his Weimar workshop, establishing the German branch of Neo-classical typography. Beside Didot and Bodoni, Walbaum seems to stand rather on the margin of glory. His typeface, when judged according to the Neo-classical rules, is even a little bit “impure”. But this is precisely the reason why it is much more legible, soer and more humane than it would have been, if it had merely, blindly, aimed at an ideal.