Blue Pencil no. 31—The Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design: B entries

The Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design
(London: Phaidon Press Limited and New York: Phaidon Press, Inc., 2012)

Commissioning editor: Emilia Terragni
Project editors: Alanna Fitzpatrick, Andrew Ruff and Davina Thackara

CARDS
B [c. 1800 to 1899]
B001
Printers’ Fist | various | symbol | international | c. 1800
[Caroline Archer]
images: 3
text: 4
apparatus: 3

The front image of an array of 88 fists is nice, but not as graphically compelling as a single fist would have been (or even three stacked up)—assuming one wants to frame the card. (Neither is it as visually exciting as the assembly of fists on the Domus cover that is image no. 4 on the back.) The impression that the image gives is of a single page from a type specimen book. But that is unlikely to be the case since at least one is identifiable as being the work of Will Bradley (4th row, third from the right). But if it is a collection of fists from different sources and eras, then it would be nice to have each one identified. Missing are the calligraphic ones Hermann Zapf included in Zapfino, among which are—according to Zapf—the first female fists as well as the “four extravagant mutton fists” Andrew Tuer commissioned from Joseph Crawhall, the  “range of mutton fists” produced by Eric Gill for the Monotype Corporation, and the Letraset sheets of the 1970s. The latter three items are all explicitly described by Archer.

The other images are of an undated guardbook, a “request card for a lamp delivery” and the cover of Merz 1. Only the latter is of much interest. Why no page from a 19th c. type specimen book? Or a Dada poster? Or, more importantly, an example of a manicule? Archer calligraphic pointing hands in manuscripts without identifying them as manicules or providing any specific instances, such as those used by Bartolomeo Sanvito in the 15th century.

Archer talks about “mutton fists” without explaining the origin of the term.

B002
Bill Posters | various | poster | international | c. 1800–1900
[Mike Esbester]
images: 4
text: 4
apparatus: 5

This item should have been entitled “Broadsides” or “Placards” rather than “Bill Posters” as the latter is ambiguous. I initially read it as referring to someone who pastes up bills or placards (known as a bill poster or bill-sticker) rather than to the placards themselves. This misreading is abetted by image no. 2 on the back which shows two men (c. 1876) pasting up posters. It is surprising that James Orlando Parry’s famous painting “A London Street Scene” (1835) is not shown. Contrary to Esbester’s claim that color was not feasible before the 1870s, yet Parry’s painting shows several posters with type printed in red.

The front image and image no. 1 on the back are of broadsides, the first from 1892 and the second from 1859. There are none from the early days of bill posters, which Esbester says is the 1820s, and none from countries other than England, though he mentions the explosion of such posters in Berlin.

“…[T]he explosion of new typefaces, particularly sans serif after c.1810, produced more eye-catching designs…,” writes Esbester. Why single out sans serifs? They are vastly outnumbered by fat faces and slab serifs in the two broadsides shown (and in most that I have seen). I wish that Esbester had discussed the sedimentary typography of the broadsides—the mixing of typefaces by line—since that is the aspect that makes them memorable.

B003
Pie Chart | William Playfair | information design | self-commissioned | 1801
[Katherine Gillieson]
images: 4
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Why did Alan Rapp contribute the entry on Playfair’s The Commercial and Political Atlas (A018) and Gillieson wrote this one on the introduction of the pie chart in Playfair’s The Statistical Breviary instead of one individual writing both? This is not a criticism of Gillieson’s text as it is very good.

The front image (uncredited), contrary to the impression given by the title block, is not from the Breviary but from Playfair’s translation of Denis François Donnant’s Statistical Account of the United States of America (1805). Image no. 1 on the back is the only pie chart from the Breviary. It is too small to be easily read as are the other two back images, especially the one labelled Octroi de Paris by Jacques Bertillon (1889). Neither of these other images is mentioned by Gillieson. At the same time she notes Florence Nightingale’s “coxcomb” charts (1858) which are neither explained nor illustrated.

The Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design needs to have cross-references as part of the information on each card. In this case, there could be cross-references to A018 The Commercial and Political Atlas as well as to F041 International Picture Language which Gillieson also cites.

B004
Manga | Katshusika Hokusai | book | self-commissioned | 1814–1878
[Laura Ayett]
images: 5
text: 4
apparatus: 5

I know nothing about manga. Why is the title of this entry manga rather than the title of the work discussed by Ayett: Denshin kaishu Hokusai Manga? If several volumes were produced after Hokusai’s death then why doesn’t the designer credit read “Katsushika Hokusai et al” as other entries do where multiple people contributed to a design? Although the images shown are all by Hokusai (dated from 1814, presumably the year of the first volume—though Ayett does not say so—to 1849, the year of his death), the dates of the title block are 1814 to 1878.

Ayett makes no mention of manga as the name for modern Japanese comics. Was the name taken from Hokusai’s book?

B005
Braille | Louis Braille | information design | self-commissioned | 1829
[Alison Barnes]
images: 4
text: 5
apparatus: 4

The caption for the front image is not the one originally designed by Louis Braille, but an unidentified later version (note the inclusion of w off to the side). The image on the back is a photograph of actual, tactile braille which is essential. But it is not the same thing as being able to feel braille. Most likely cost kept Phaidon from embossing a braille alphabet as part of the entry.

Barnes says that the idea for braille began with Charles Barbier [no date provided] rather than Louis Braille, but no image of Barbier’s system is provided. Also, there are no examples of the braille codes for mathematics or music that she mentions.

• Why is braille, the system not the man, capitalized in the text?]

B006
Morse Code | Samuel Finley Breese Morse | information design | self-commissioned | 1838
[Alison Barnes]
images: 4
text: 5
apparatus: 5

• If Morse code succeeded because it “assigned the shortest sequences to the most frequently used characters in the English language”, then how well does it work for other languages? Was it changed when it was “standardized” in 1851?
• “Samuel Finley Breese Morse” is pretentious; “Samuel F.B. Morse,” as he signed his name, is preferable.

B007
Punch | Mark Lemon et al | magazine and newspaper | self-commissioned | 1841–2002
[Paul Dobraszczyk]
images: 3
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Why does Mark Lemon, the editor, get top billing as the designer of Punch? Is the design of Punch as a magazine worthy of inclusion in the Archive? The four spreads shown on the back are no different from scores of other magazines before and after it. Instead, Punch is famous for its cartoons, its rendition of Punch and its masthead. The masthead, engraved by Richard Doyle and first used in 1849—as Dobraszczyk notes—is shown only in a 1915 incarnation. There are no images of Punch from the 1840s and 1850s—supposedly its heyday, in the Archive. The earliest are a cover from 1882 and three pages from 1879. But, like all of the back images, they are too small to be of any value. Three images are spreads from 1954—including one of advertising!

Dobraszczyk makes no mention of Archibald Henning who designed the covers of Punch from its inception in 1841 until the middle of 1842.

• Why is Punch described as “self-commissioned” if the idea was originated by Henry Mayhew and Ebenezer Landells (not mentioned by Dobraszczyk)?

B008
Bradshaw’s Monthly Railway Guide | George Bradshaw | information design | self-commissioned | 1841–1961
[Mike Esbester]
images: 3
text: 5
apparatus: 4

Why are all of the images (one on the front and four on the back) all from 1939 when the dates in the title block are 1841–1861? Not only should the “pioneering” version of 1841 be shown but possibly also the 1912 edition which Esbester says represented a leap in size that negated Bradshaw’s original portability. Worse yet, the images from 1939 are all too small for anyone to be able to judge the actual design. Esbester says that Bradshaw’s eventually “became known for its illegibility” and incomprehensibility.

B009
Clarendon | Robert Besley | typeface | Fann Street Foundry | 1845
[Emily McVarish]
images: 3
text: 3
apparatus: 1

McVarish says that Clarendon is, “Attributed to the Fann Street Foundry’s owner, Robert Besley, in collaboration with his punch-cutter Benjamin Fox….” yet most sources credit Fox with the design not Besley. And if it was a collaboration, then Fox at least deserves co-billing in the title block.

The images (one page on the front and six on the back) are all from an unidentified specimen book issued by “Reed & Fox, Late Robert Besley & Co.”. An online copy has a price list dated 1873. It also includes better examples of Clarendon, such as those of the brevier, nonpareil and pearl sizes that support McVarish’s contention that Clarendon “was especially useful for references, such as dictionary entries, and was so effective that the Clarendon name became synonymous with bold type.”  The text for the brevier size reads: “The most useful Founts that a Printer can have in his Office are the CLARENDONS: they make a striking Word or Line either in a Hand Bill or Title Page, and do not overwhelm other lines. They have been made with great care, so that while they are distinct and striking, they possess a very graceful outline, avoiding on one hand the clumsy inelegance of the Antique or Egyptian Character, hitherto in use among Printers, and on the other, the appearance of an ordinary Roman Letter thickened by long use under the machine.”

McVarish fails to mention the two interpretations of Clarendon in the 20th century that revived interest in the typeface: Haas Clarendon (1953) by Hermann Eidenbenz and Craw Clarendon by Freeman “Jerry” Craw for ATF (1955). She merely states that, “In the 1950s Clarendon was revived by English [?] and US type foundries….” (Haas was a Swiss foundry; perhaps McVarish is referring to Stephenson Blake’s Consort (1956), based on Fox’s Clarendon?)

• contrary to Phaidon policy McVarish includes a quote—from Walter Tracy—in her text.

B010
Physikalischer Atlas | Heinrich Berghaus | book | self-commissioned | 1845, 1848
[Sony Devabhktuni]
images: 4
text: 4
apparatus: 0

The front image (a four panel fold-out page?) from the Physikalischer Atlas needs to be rotated and enlarged so that its text is easier to read. There are no captions.

Devabhaktuni’s text, one of the best to this point in the Archive, makes no mention of Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas published by Container Corporation of America in 1953.

• The dates of the Physikalischer Atlas are listed online as 1837–1848 with Verlag von Justus Perthes as the publisher (volume 1 in 1845 and volume 2 in 1848).
• “Sony Devabhktuni” should be “Sony Devabhaktuni”

B011
The Elements of Euclid | Oliver Byrne | book | William Pickering | 1847
[Katherine Gillieson]
images: 4
text: 4
apparatus: 0

Gillieson’s text is generally excellent. She notes “the odd Victorian flourish or drop cap” as disrupting the air of modernity that the colored blocks impart to Byrne’s Euclid. But she ignores the use of Caslon as the text type, the blackletter heading and the arabesque headpiece which also contribute to the book’s visual disjunction. But the true missing element from her text is the absence of any mention of the difficulties involved in printing the colored designs. Byrne’s Euclid is an amazing feat of registration.

B012
Fette Fraktur | Johann Christian Bauer | typeface | Englische Schriftschneiderei und Gravieranstalt | 1850
[Frank DeRose]
images: 1
text: 1
apparatus: 1

DeRose shows a lack of understanding of the difference between fraktur as a category of typefaces, equivalent to blackletter or gebrochene schrift, and fraktur as a specific subset of that category. Fette Fraktur is a fraktur typeface in both senses, but the lettering of The New York Times masthead—shown as the sole image on the back—is a textura and thus fraktur only in the second meaning. DeRose implies the first however when he states that, “The New York Times [sic] has long used Fraktur for its masthead.” Similarly, he says that, “The Nazi regime endorsed the use of Fraktur, when the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, outlawed modern sans-serif type due to its identification with the Bauhaus and Bolshevism. By 1941, however, Fraktur was deemed questionable in its origins and the typeface [my italics] was banned.” In reality the Bormann circular (3 January 1941) makes no mention of fraktur, but instead refers to “gotische Schrift und Schwabacher Judenlettern”. No individual typefaces were banned. Earlier, as Hans Peter Willberg points out, sans serif types were not banned per se but pressure was applied to typographers and publishers not to use them. They still appeared in Gebrauchsgraphik and other places in the late 1930s, including graphics for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The blackletter that the Nazis favored were not frakturs such as Fette Fraktur but mechanized texturas such as Deutschland and Tannenberg.  See “Fraktur and Nationalism” by Hans Peter Willberg in Blackletter: Type and National Identity (1998), especially pp. 44–48.

The unlabeled image on the front is a digital rendition of Fette Fraktur not an historical sample.

In his focus on “fraktur” and the Third Reich, DeRose skips over the full history of Fette Fraktur. He does not explain how it marks a change from preceding frakturs such as Breitkopf Fraktur or Walbaum Fraktur, how it relates to Fat Faces, or why it is the fraktur typeface most commonly used by non-German graphic designers (e.g. Push Pin Studio) since the end of World War II.

The exact origins of Fette Fraktur are a bit murky. Albert Kapr, author of Fraktur: Form und Geschichte der gebrochenen Schriften (1993), p. 168 makes no mention of Johann Christian Bauer and says that the face was designed sometime between 1830 and 1840. He shows a cut dating to 1867 from AG Schriftgießerei. The face does not appear in  Chronik der Schriftgiesserei (1928) by Friedrich Bauer, nor in Handbuch der Schriften (1926) by Albrecht Seeman. It is not included in the Klimsch Kartei or the VdS Kartei. Das Buch des Setzers (1948) by Fritz Genzmer lists versions designed in 1908 by D. Stempel AG and 1909 by Gebr. Klingspor but nothing under Bauer. DeRose’s information, I suspect, stems from Rookledge’s International Handbook of Type Designers (1991), but its source is unknown.

Google Books offers a type specimen book from the “Original Englische Schriften aus der Schriftgiesserei, Schriftschneiderei und Graviranstalt” of Edward Haenel in Berlin which they date to 1847, though it has no title page. That date sounds suspiciously early given the delicate styles of type shown. And one specimen page says “Specimen of Fancy Types being cut for the Exhibition of Industry of all Nations London May till September 1851” as part of a showing of Midolline types while another has the date 1863 as part of an ornamental design. The specimen book shows what appears to be Fette Fraktur, labeled II. Grad. (Tertia), on a page headed Musirte Fracturen.

Perhaps the mystery behind the origins of Fette Fraktur explain Phaidon’s use of a digital version on the front of the card.

B013
The Grammar of Ornament | Owen Jones | book | Day and Son | 1856
[Anne Odling-Smee]
images: 5
text: 4
apparatus: 0

The three images (all uncaptioned) from The Grammar of Ornament (title page on the front and two internal pages on the back) are sufficiently large to enjoy. Unfortunately, that leaves no room for any images from Jones’ earlier Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of the Alhambra (1842–1845) which Odling-Smee calls the “first significant example of chromolithography to appear in Britain”. Her text is very good, though she does not enumerate any of Jones’ 37 propositions of design.

B014
Napoleon’s March | Charles Joseph Minard | information design | self-commissioned | 1861
[Daniel West]
images: 3
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Minard’s diagram of Napoleon’s disastrous Russian march in the winter of 1812–1813 has become famous from Edward Tufte’s books, lectures and reproductions of it. (See The Visual Display of Quantitative Information [2001].) Its long shape requires it to be rotated, both to fit better on the card and to be more easily deciphered. But the images of Minard diagrams on the back—of cotton and wool imports, the emigration of people, and Hannibal’s march on Rome—suffer even more from their small size. Minard’s swooping colored lines are meaningless when one cannot read the accompanying legends.

• The true title of Minard’s diagram is “Carte Figurative des pertes successives en hommes de l’Armée Française dans la Campagne de Russie 1812-1813”
• It is dated 1869. There is no explanation in West’s text for the title block date of 1861.
• The temperature line is not in Celsius but in the Réaumur scale.
• Contrary to Phaidon policy, West quotes both E. J. Marey and Edward Tufte.

B015
Snellen Chart | Herman Snellen | information design | self-commissioned | 1862
[Alison Barnes]
images: 5
text: 4
apparatus: 4

It is unclear if the image on the front is Snellen’s original eye chart since it is unlabeled. An online search turned up a chart described as his first that is substantially different from this one—seven lines reading A | CE | GLN | PRTS | VZBD4 | FHKOS3 | UTACEGL2—but it is undocumented. Dr. H. Snellen’s Probebuchstaben zur Bestimmung der Sehschaerfe by Herman Snellen (1863) shows how Snellen designed his letters on a 4×5 grid but does not include a vertical eye chart. Snellen apparently changed his chart several times between 1862 and 1875. Barnes does not describe the letters of Snellen’s original chart, only those of the chart as it has become standardized. Unfortunately, Google Books has no preview for Snellen’s Test-Types for the Determination of the Acuteness of Vision (1868). The back of the card has eye charts for astigmatism (c. 1872) and for Japanese (1873). Both of these are intriguing, but their presence leaves no room for the “Tumbling E” chart—noted by Barnes—developed by Snellen in 1868 for testing illiterates.

Barnes says that, “Since Snellen produced his eye chart, few major developments in measuring visual acuity have been made.” But this is contradicted by the summary of the subject in “Visual Acuity” by A.J. Jackson and I.L. Bailey in Optometry in Practice vol. 5 (2004), pp. 53-70. Her concluding sentence is off the mark when she claims that Snellen “in the systematic precision of his letterforms” can be seen as a precursor to Paul Renner and Herbert Bayer. If anything, his grid-based letters are a forerunner of letter experiments by Theo van Doesburg c. 1919–1921.

B016
The Red Cross | Dr. Louis Appia and Gen. Henri Dufour | information design | International Committee of the Red Cross | 1863
[Nick Bell]
images: 4
text: 5
apparatus: 5

Bell says that the ICRC has sanctioned red crescent and red lion alternatives to the red cross for Muslim countries and that a red crystal symbol was adopted in 2005, but none of these are shown.  The latter omission is particularly unfortunate as it is hard to visualize. One of these alternatives could have replaced the uninformative photograph of a regional blood center. The remaining images are all excellent, though I miss Ludwig Hohlwein’s World War I poster for the Rote Kreuze.

B017
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll | Sir John Tenniel | book | Lewis Carroll | 1865
[Anne Odling-Smee]
images: 4
text: 5
apparatus: 0

This is a rare instance where the text actually refers explicitly to the accompanying images; in this case Odling-Smee says that they are all from the 1886 “People’s Edition” of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland rather than the original 1865 edition (as indicated by the text block). The inclusion of the book in the Archive is a bit muddled. The front image is of the justly famous “Mouse’s Tale” but Odling-Smee’s text, not surprisingly, emphasizes Tenniel’s illustrations. She only gets around to Carroll’s typographic play in her last two sentences. Meanwhile, the two back images are of the cover and opening of chapter 1 which both showcase Tenniel’s work. But illustration is not graphic design and the only other instances of it being emphasized in the Archive, Punch (B007), Calaveras (B026) and The New Yorker (E028) seem to me to be equally problematic. An example of Tenniel’s drawings do need to be included, but more of Carroll’s typography would have been welcome. Otherwise, let’s include Thomas Bewick, Thomas Nast, James Gillray, Honoré Daumier and more in the Archive.

B018
Rizla | unknown | packaging graphics | Pierre Lacroix | 1866
[Lawrence Zeegen]
images: 2
text: 3
apparatus: 5

Zeegan says that “The Rizla packet is one of the world’s longest-running typographic trademarks.” and that is virtually unchanged since its introduction nearly 150 years ago. That logo is “Riz La+”—French for “rice” plus a rebus for “Lacroix”—but the cross mark is not indicated in the title block of the entry. Despite the 1866 date none of the eleven images (two advertisements and nine packaging designs) are earlier than 1938 with the front one dated to 1954. The packaging designs do display differences in color, scale and—in one instance—lettering style (sans serif instead of slab serif). They do not all sport “bold serif gold lettering” as Zeegan claims. Only four do.

• If the logo was changed to remove the space between “Riz” and “La+” in 1954 then the Dutch advertisement (image no. 1 on the back) is incorrectly labeled as being c. 1955.

B019
Periodic Table of Elements | Dmitri Mendeleev | information design | self-commissioned | 1869
[Aaron Seymour]
images: 3
text: 5
apparatus:  3

The unlabeled front image of the periodic table visually lively but it is not the original design by Mendeleev in which the periods were arranged vertically and the elements horizontally. It is a later Russian version. It includes a photograph of Mendeleev which makes the independent photograph of him on the back extraneous. Similarly, there seems to be little reason to include a “Modern Periodic Table” or a page from the “First English translation of the Principles of Chemistry, 1891” on the back.

Fortunately, Seymour’s text is far better than the accompanying images, succintly and eloquently explaining the importance of Mendeleev’s table beyond its visual appeal to graphic designers.

B020
Japanese Flag | unknown | information design | Japanese Government |1870
[Nick Bell]
images: 4
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Bell is unclear about the historical differences between the “rising sun” flag which has lines radiating from the red disc versus the Hinomaru or “sun disc” flag. He calls the former “a wartime variant” when in fact it was used by the Japanese military from 1870 to 1945. Its design—even if it is considered offensive in some countries—is as iconic as the Hinomaru. It is shown in image 1 on the back, though it is not identified as such.

• The official name of the sun disc flag is the Nisshoki.
• If the date of the text block is going to be 1870—rather than 1999 when the design was officially designated as the national flag—then the “client” should be the Meiji Government, Japan to indicate the era.

B021
Orphée aux Enfers | Jules Chéret | poster | Théâtre de la Gaité | 1874
[Graham Twemlow]
images: 4
text: 5
apparatus: 4

The main question regarding this entry in the Archive is why show Orphée aux Enfers as the example of a Chéret poster rather than one with his characteristic brush strokes such as the well-known Loïe Fuller (1897)—it appears on the back of Folies Bergère–Fleur de Lotus (B028)—or one with a “Chéret girl” such as Job (1889). The only “typical” poster of his included on the card is the 1888 Palais de Glace poster on the back. Image no. 1 on the back is the 1866 revised version of his 1858 Orphée aux Enfers poster which makes sense as a companion to the front image. But image no. 3, Recoloration des Cheveux (1893), is neither familiar nor very distinctive—and it is not mentioned by Twemlow.

B022
Venn Diagram | John Venn | information design | self-commissioned | 1886
[Anne Odling-Smee]
images: 3
text: 4
apparatus: 4

The front image Venn diagrams used to represent Boolean Operators is not labeled. It is not by Venn since the typeface employed is Times New Roman, thus dating it to 1932 or later—long after his death.

Odling-Smee neglects to mention that Venn referred to his diagrams as “Eulerian Circles”, although they differ from those invented by Euler by being more restrictive; nor does she note that the term “Venn Diagram” was coined in 1918 by Clarence Irving Lewis in A Survey of Symbolic Logic.

• “Leonard Euler” should be “Leonhard Euler”

B023
Coca-Cola | Frank Mason Robinson | logo | The Coca-Cola Company | 1886
[Riikka Kuittinen]
images: 3
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Kuittinen’s text is generally excellent, though incorrectly describes the lettering as “Spencerian script” and does not mention the revisions of it carried out over the years. There are significant differences between the undated logo on the front—it is not the current one nor is it the original one—and those on the back. None are the logo that Robinson devised in 1886. For a better visual survey see The History of the Coca-Cola Logo. Kuittinen includes the Coca-Cola “white curve” in her text, but it is missing from the images.

B024
International Code of Symbols and International Maritime Flags | unknown | information design | British Board of Trade | 1887
[Alan Rapp]
images: 4
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Why is this entry dated 1887 when Rapp says that, “…in 1855 the International Code of Signals… was drawn up by the British Board of Trade and published two years later.”?  Wikipedia says that the code was published in 1857 as the Commercial Code and revised in 1887. Neither it or other online sources call it the International Code of Symbols as is done here.

What did the original Commercial Code symbols look like? The earliest image of the flags I have located online is from c. 1903. The flags on the front of the card are undated.

[Why no semaphore flags in the Archive? Or at least a mention here.]

B025
General Electric | unknown | logo | General Electric | c. 1890
[Natalia Ilyin]
images: 4
text: 3
apparatus: 4

Which version of the GE logo is on the front? It is not the current one, nor does it seem to be the original design. There is no caption for it. The logo is barely visible in image no. 1 (a 1939 advertisement) and skewed in image no. 3 (a detail of a 1940s fan) on the back. (There are better three-dimensional examples of the logo online.) Only image no. 3 (packaging for electronic tubes, c. 1976) is helpful for seeing the evolution of the logo. The current iteration (Wolff Olins, 2004) is not shown and neither is the one that Doyald Young did for Landor Associates in 1986. Ilyin does not even include the latter in her text, even though the Wolff Olins version is nearly identical to it.

The GE logo, contrary to common belief and Ilyin’s assertion, is not an example of Art Nouveau but of the sort of lettering and decoration found in the 1870s and 1880s—the era of Artistic Printing. Ilyin does not place the logo in its historical context (e.g. that the script GE is part of the 19th c. trend of “signature” logos such as those for Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s and Cadbury). She says that the logo is, “Considered to be a stylized depiction of the eye of an electric stove….” which I find hard to believe. It seems to me to be closer in appearance to an electric fan—an early GE product which preceded the company’s cooking devices by over a decade—with the curling tendrils reminiscent of fan blades.

B026
Calaveras | José Guadalupe Posada | magazine and newspaper | Antonio Vanegas Arroyo | c. 1890–1913
[Liz McQuiston]
images: 5
text: 5
apparatus: 4

The front image—“La Calavera del editor popular Antonio Vanegas Arroyo”—is undated and uncaptioned. The Public Domain Review says it is from 1917.

• The category is magazines and newspapers but the calaveras of Posada that are shown are broadsides. See others that are also broadsides at The Public Domain Review.

B027
Aristide Bruant | Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | poster | Aristide Bruant | 1892–1893
[Graham Twemlow]
images: 5
text: 5
apparatus: 4

Is the poster of Aristide Bruant the best choice as the only entry in the Archive for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec? There is no doubt that it is a powerful poster—though I prefer the 1893 poster of “Aristide Bruant dans son cabaret”—but it does not seem typical of Lautrec’s work. For that I would nominate Jane Avril (1893) or Divan Japonaise (image no. 1 on the back). But why not show his first ever poster (for Moulin Rouge) which Twemlow says “is seminal”?

Twemlow’s text is a model of what the texts in the Archive should be: erudite, compact and well written.

B028
Follies Bergère—Fleur de Lotus | Jules Chéret | poster | Folies Bergère | 1893
[Graham Twemlow]
images: 5
text:
apparatus: 1

Chéret’s stunning Loïe Fuller poster has been relegated to the back while the lesser one for Fleur de Lotus is on the front. Twemlow, in his otherwise excellent text, does not explain why. (The caption for the Fuller poster simply says, “Poster, 1893”.)

B029
The Yellow Book | Aubrey Beardsley | magazine and newspaper | Elkin Mathews and John Lane | 1894
[Riikka Kuittinen]
images: 3
text: 5
apparatus: 4

The cover of volume I of The Yellow Book—with a design that uses both front and back—is not used on the front of the card. Instead the inferior cover for volume II is—and the equally lesser one for volume III is on the back. Shown as images for volume I are the title page and a prospectus (neither labeled as such). (The prospectus is not the familiar one with Beardsley’s illustration of a woman perusing a bookstall in the evening.) Digital copies of The Yellow Book can be downloaded from several sites.

Kuittinen’s text is good, though she skims over details of what Beardsley did as art editor of The Yellow Book, simply saying that he “defined the magazine’s vision”. Was he the first person to be an “art editor”?

B030
Tournée du Chat Noir | Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen | poster | Rodolphe Salis | 1894
[Zoe Whitley]
images: 4
text: 5
apparatus: 4

Whitley’s engaging text refers to Steinlen decorating “the exterior signage and ground-floor chimney [of the cabaret] with a large cat motif” but none is visible in the photograph that is image no. 3 on the back of the card. (The caption says “Le Chat Noir” with no date or other information.) Whitley’s list of other versions of the Cabaret du Chat Noir poster (one of which is on the back as image no. 1) leaves out a Greek version which is visible in the photograph of the interior of the club (image no. 2).

B031
The Chap-Book | William H. Bradley | magazine cover | Stone and Kimball | 1894–1898
[Frank DeRose]
images: 5
text: 4
apparatus: 4

“William H. Bradley’s posters and covers for the Chicago-based literary magazine, The Chap-Book, are regarded as the first examples of American Art Nouveau,” says DeRose. He entirely ignores Bradley’s 1894 covers for The Inland Printer some of which preceded his work for The Chap-Book. DeRose rightly points out the influence of Aubrey Beardsley on Bradley, but says nothing about the equal influence of William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement. The “Pegasus” cover of The Chap-Book (1895) (image no. 2 on the back) is more Arts & Crafts than Art Nouveau. Bradley’s first poster for The Chap-Book (image no. 1 on the back of the card) is often referred to as “The Twins”. DeRose incorrectly assigns that name to the Thanksgiving 1894 cover illustrated on the front of the card.

• His name should be “Will Bradley” as he was generally known during his lifetime or “Will H. Bradley” (as he signed two of The Chap-Book images illustrated here) and not “William H. Bradley”.
• Although the category is magazine cover, both images on the back are of posters advertising The Chap-Book. They are ostensibly adapted from cover designs by Bradley but the issue numbers are not identified in the captions.

B032
Story of the Glittering Plain or the Land of Living Men | William Morris | book | Kelmscott Press | 1894
[Chris Brown]
images: 4
text: 2
apparatus: 2

This entry is muddled. The title block bears the date 1894 yet Brown correctly says that The Story of the Glittering Plain was the first book published by the Kelmscott Press in 1891. The problem is that Morris published the text twice, once in 1891 without illustrations, and again in 1894 with illustrations by Walter Crane. Brown does not mention this important fact and the images and captions fail to clarify the situation. The front image (unlabeled) is from the 1894 edition—evident from the use of the Troy type for the text—as is image no. 2 on the back. The “first page printed at the Kelmscott Press, 31 January 1891” (image no. 1) —set in the Golden type—is from the 1891 edition. The “first text page of The Story of the Glittering Plain, 1894” is actually from the 1891 edition as indicated by the presence of the Golden type.

Brown repeats the common canard about the Kelmscott books being “typically dense and crowded” even though an examination of the interior pages of the 1894 edition of The Story of the Glittering Plain would have disabused him of this notion.

There is room for a photograph of Morris but none for a showing of one of his types. Brown’s description of the Troy and Chaucer types as “Gothic” is insufficient, especially in light of Morris’ claim that he was making legible types. They are both rotundas rather than the more familiar texturas (“Old English”).

Brown rightly says that the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896) is “regarded by some [many?] as the greatest of all” Kelmscott books. This makes it puzzling that it is not part of the Archive.

B033
Hamlet | The Beggarstaffs (James Pryde and William Nicholson) | W.S. Hardy | 1894
[Davina Thackara]
images: 5
text: 5
apparatus: 4

Thackara’s comments on the role of lettering in their posters and on the speculative nature of many of them are welcome. However, her generally fine text says nothing about the “JW Beggarstaffs” signature on the Hamlet poster (or on the Kassama poster, shown on the back).

B034
La Revue Blanche | Pierre Bonnard | poster | La Revue Blanche | 1894
[Graham Twemlow]
images: 5
text:
apparatus: 4

Twemlow’s text and the accompanying images are perfectly connected, a rarity in the Archive. Bonnard’s La Revue Blanche poster is on the front. Its commission was spurred by his poster for France-Champagne (1891) which is shown on the back. The woman in this second poster is supposedly Misia Natanson, shown in a photograph on the back. A photograph of her husband, one of the editors of La Revue Blanche, is the last of the images.

B035
Akzidenz-Grotesk | unknown | typeface | H. Berthold AG | 1896
[Alison Barnes]
images: 2
text: 2
apparatus: 1

Although many sources say Akzidenz-Grotesk was issued in 1896, Berthold says it was 1898. In fact, the origins of the face, originally called Accidenz-Grotesk, are murky with some believing it has roots in Royal-Grotesk from the Theinhardt foundry. None of this history makes its way into Barnes’ text, though to her credit she does describe the haphazard creation of the Akzidenz-Grotesk “family” accurately (sans the specific date of 1908).

The features of Akzidenz-Grotesk that Barnes cites as distinctive are correct, though incomplete. She should have added G, c, e and s to her list of curved letters with angled terminals and, more importantly, R (leg), Q (tail) and 2 (curve). But worse than her omissions is image no. 2 on the back of the card, a comparison of “Helvetica and Akzidenz” that uses stair-stepped digital versions of each metal typeface and a word (“Parallax”) that has none of the letters cited by Barnes.

“Akzidenz is still used and widely available, but has lost much of the profile it has in the 1940s and 1950s…,” says Barnes. This is untrue, the face remained very popular among Swiss Style designers well into the 1970s and has gained cult status since the release of Helvetica: the Movie.

The specimen of Akzidenz-Grotesk on the front is unlabeled and undated. It is the fett weight which is not the original design. The first image on the back is another unidentified specimen sheet, this time of the schmal mager cut.

• “Berthold Type Foundry” in the text should be “H. Berthold AG” or “Berthold type foundry”.
• “New Haas Grotesk” should be “Neue Haas Grotesk”.
• “Edouard Hoffmann” should be “Eduard Hoffmann”

B036
Scottish Musical Review | Charles Rennie Mackintosh | poster | The Scottish Musical Review | 1896
[Véronique Vienne]
images: 5
text: 5
apparatus: 3

Vienne, in an otherwise terrific text, says that the poster was “steeped in mysticism” without explaining any of its symbolism.

All of the images are excellent, though the three on the back of the card—“The Creation of Eve” by Herbert McNair (here ponderously called “James Herbert McNair”) and Mackintosh, c. 1893; a sketch for the poster from 1896, and another poster for The Scottish Musical Review by Mackintosh from c. 1898—are not touched upon by Vienne.

Why are the colors of the poster owned by the Museum of Modern Art different from those here? MoMA’s copy has a blue background rather than a brown one behind the female figure. Overall, it appears less muddy.

B037
Jugend | various | magazine and newspaper | Georg Hirth | 1896–1940
[Simon Bell]
images: 3
text: 4
apparatus: 3

If Jugend is principally famous for its role in Art Nouveau, then why list the dates as 1896–1940 (the full lifetime of the magazine) rather than 1896 to 1914—the period that Bell says was its “most iconic”? Certainly, the five images chosen are all from that period, the most recent being 1902. Unfortunately, they are far from being the best covers of Jugend: e.g. see vol. 1, nos. 10, 14 (Otto Eckmann), 22, 26; vol. 2, nos. 4, 14, 26; vol. 3, nos. 11, 16, 23….

Bell points out the diverse nature of the cover designs, with many of them not Art Nouveau at all, accurately describing the changing masthead as “an early object lesson in how to distort a design identity without compromising its integrity.”

The captions identify the issue volume, number and date but not the designer of the covers or, for image no. 1 on the back, the illustrator.

• The publisher should be “G. Hirth’s Verlag” (as indicated at the bottom of the covers shown).

B038
Victor Bicycles | William H. Bradley | poster | Overman Wheel Co. | 1896
[Riikka Kuittinen]
images: 4
text: 4
apparatus: 3

The front image needs to be rotated. It is too bad that image no. 2 on the back is a detail and not the whole image of Bradley’s advertisement (not a poster as the caption states) for Victor Bicycles of women riding bicycles amidst curling floral forms.

• Image no. 1 on the back is dated “c. 1896” but in Will Bradley: His Graphic Art (1974) it is identified as February 1896. It is also an advertisement rather than a poster.
• The background of the Victor Bicycles poster on the front of the card is not “deep purple” as Kuittinen says but lavender.

Kuittinen finds the simple lettering of the principle poster unusual given the Art Nouveau style of illustration, but there is frequently a disjunction in Bradley’s work between the two elements with the lettering often lagging stylistically. (Sometimes, though, he was good at merging lettering into his designs.) She summarizes Bradley’s career in the 1890s but does not discuss the two advertisements by Bradley on the back of the card, nor does she make any comparison of his designs for bicycle manufacturers versus those by contemporary poster designers such as Alfons Mucha, Eugéne Grasset or Théophile Alexandre Steinlen.

B039
Job Cigarette Papers | Alphonse Mucha | poster | JOB | 1896 and 1898
[Liz McQuiston]
images: 5
text:
apparatus: 1

McQuiston does a fine job of setting these two iconic posters in the context of Mucha’s career and of explaining why they are so successful, complete with an excellent description of how he integrated lettering and image in them.

• The 1898 Job poster on the back was either printed crookedly originally or is a skewed image.
• JOB was the brand of rolling papers not the client who was Jean Bardou. JOB represents his initials with a diamond between them (see the patterned background to the 1898 poster).

B040
Simplicissimus | Thomas Theodor Heine et al | magazine and newspaper | 1898–1944
[David Barringer]
images: 4
text:
apparatus: 5

Since the title block dates covers the entirety of Simplicissimus’ history, the images should include a cover or interior from 1933 to 1944, the period that Barringer says it was under Nazi control. His text stresses the magazine more than the famous 1907 growling bulldog cover design by T.H. Heine. Although, it is a good text it is indicative of the confusion about magazine and magazine cover entries in the Archive: are the items included because a single cover is iconic, as here, or because the entire run (or a portion) of its life is visually significant? Of the five additional covers on the back, only image no. 4 (a 1927 cover by Karl Arnold) is striking. (It is nice to see the designers of each cover credited in the captions.)

B041
Tropon: L’aliment le plus concentré | Henry van de Velde | identity | Tropon | 1898
[Graham Twemlow]
images: 5
text: 5
apparatus: 5

The Tropon poster is famous so it is surprising to see it included in the Archive under the rubric of identity. But Twemlow’s essay makes a good case for seeing it in this larger context. Thus, the back of the card includes packaging for Tropon (a label and a can) as well as a less essential photograph of Van de Velde himself. At the same time, Twemlow’s explication of the poster itself is a model of concision. This is what the Archive entries should all aspire to.

B042
Michelin Man | Marius Rossillon | logo | Michelin | 1898
[Véronique Vienne]
images: 5
text: 5
apparatus: 3

The collage of Bibendum images on the front is uncaptioned. Did Phaidon assemble them or is this a page from a Michelin publication? It seems to be signed “Ortiz” but is undated. The first poster (1898) to feature Bibendum is on the back but the artist—identified by Vienne as Marius Rossillon—is not credited in the caption.

Vienne does an excellent job of setting forth the history of Bibendum (the “Michelin Man”) and the changes in his physiognomy, though the accompanying images do not go beyond 1911. She says that his first appearance was as a cardboard cut-out in 1894 but the type block has the date 1898.

B043
Ver Sacrum | Alfred Roller et al | magazine and newspaper| Vienna Secession | 1898–1903
[Graham Twemlow]
images: 5
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Twemlow points out that Ver Sacrum was set in an “old-face serif” [sic] but does not explain how radical this was in 1890s Austria where blackletter was still the dominant style of type for literary and cultural works. (By the way, I believe the typeface used was Bookman or a German copy of it.) He also notes the “creative use of page layout and typography” without indicating that Ver Sacrum was the ostensibly the first magazine to use a square format. And as with most-Anglo/American scholarship about the Vienna Secession, Twemlow neglects the contribution of Rudolf von Larisch, the group’s lettering advisor. It is relevant here because Ver Sacrum’s masthead—like that of Jugend—was not fixed but changed from issue to issue. Moreover, the lettering was not only different each time, but in contrast to Jugend it was of a consistently high quality and always well integrated with the illustrations.

The front image is of the cover of the first issue of Ver Sacrum while the back has five other covers and a double-page spread. The 1901 spread by Koloman Moser (the caption leaves out volume and issue) is an excellent choice, though another spread with the work of Gustav Klimt would have been welcome—or the calendar pages from 1901. The cover choices, although diverse, are not the best—with the exception of the glorious cover by Moser for volume 4, number 2 (1898). (I would suggest volume 1, number 2 by Moser; volume 1, number 5/6 by Klimt; volume 1, number 7 by Roller; volume 2, number 1 by Josef Maria Olbrich; or volume 2, number 8 by Otto Wagner.

B044
His Master’s Voice | Francis Barraud | logo | Gramophone Company | 1899
[Phil Jones]
images: 3
text: 5
apparatus: 2

Can a painting be considered graphic design? The date of the title block is 1899, the year of Barraud’s painting His Master’s Voice, but Jones says it was not used as a logo until 1900. Other than the painting itself, which is relegated to the back of the card, all of the images provided—including the one on the front—are from the era of the LP or post-1948. Jones discusses the modifications the logo underwent as it moved from company to company, but the RCA version that is so well known in the United States is not depicted. (A Dutch version is shown but the caption only reads “Record cover”.) Surely, Phaidon could have found better images—see the 1900 patent office version at designboom—to match the quality of Jones’ text.

B045
Fromme’s Kalendar | Koloman Moser | poster | Carl Fromme | 1899
[Véronique Vienne]
images: 5
text: 4
apparatus: 4

Of all of the possible designs to represent Koloman Moser why choose this? It is not as famous or visually innovative as his 1899 cover for Ver Sacrum (see B043), his 1901 poster for the Jung Wiener Theater, or, especially, his poster for the fifth year of Ver Sacrum (and 13th Secession exhibition)—all of which is acknowledged by Vienne in her text. What it does have going for it is that Phaidon is able to show not only the calendar cover but also an alternate design, a sketch and a related postcard. Vienne’s text is generally excellent, but she does not explain who Carl Fromme was nor does she fully understand the sources of the title lettering (which she mistakenly calls “typography”), likening it to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh rather than looking within the Secessionist group. Mackintosh’s distinctive lettering is much more sober than this and it dates from 1901 onwards; and Wright’s lettering is equally inferior.