COLLECTION NAME:
Artists' Book Collection
Record
Title:
Specimens of Diverse Characters
Creator:
Maret, Russell
Description:
Artist statement: "The type specimen is a curious hybrid in the history of the book. Born of a base necessity—the need to sell type—the specimen quickly took on a life of its own and fulfilled a parallel need to delight and entertain. Part portfolio, part brag sheet, the type specimen allows the designer to present the best-case scenario for a specific typeface, to show off its finer aspects while presenting an ideal method of use. In this way, the type specimen is flight of fancy and style manual combined, an exercise in utility heightened and illuminated by extravagance. Some of the more elaborate type specimens, like those of William H. Page and Co., are suffused with a playful futility, a special knowledge that, once sold, the types displayed will never be treated with the same reverence or care. But all type specimens, to some degree, are conceived in that rare instance in which commerce plays second fiddle to imagination, when the demands of industry and utility enhance, rather than diminish, the expression of a creative impulse."
Subject:
Graphic design (Typography)
Subject:
Quotations in art
Subject:
Type and type-founding
Date:
2011
Language:
English
Language:
French
Language:
Latin
Type:
Still Image
Extent:
116 unnumbered pages : color illustrations ; 42 cm
Format/Medium:
Artists' books
Format/Medium:
Foundry type
Format/Medium:
Handmade paper
Format/Medium:
Hardcover books
Format/Medium:
Letterpress printing
Format/Medium:
Offset lithography
Format/Medium:
Photopolymer plates (printing plates)
Format/Medium:
Screen prints
Source:
Specimens of Diverse Characters, in Artists' Books Collection at SCAD Library, Atlanta, Savannah College of Art and Design.
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Identifier:
b12977676
Identifier:
i12429284
SCAD Location:
SCAD Library (Atlanta)
