The Designer's Point of View
DIRECTOR OF DARTMOUTH PUBLICATIONS
THE world of books - the point of view of the man who designs them.
That is the assignment. Confronting it across the typewriter, I realize that occasion is smiling. Today is the hundredth birthday anniversary of the man who first defined and practised the designing of books as a profession. Let us salute Daniel Berkeley Updike (1860-1942), not so much for the latter half-century of his life as master of the world-renowned Merry mount Press of Boston as for the grateful memory of his early years of exploration in the field of book design. For light on this province in the world of books both sophisticates and tyros can profitably study Updike's background.
Though Berkeley Updike had been addicted to books throughout his Providence boyhood, the idea of becoming involved in the planning and printing of them never entered his early scheme of things. A medieval scriptorium perhaps, but none of your clanking presses or selling of their products, not for a lad so hypersensitive, so painfully shy. All his preparation was indirect, too, and seemingly casual: much reading, gallery-visiting and concert-going, studies of languages, literatures, music and art - a rich liberal arts background without any college. At twenty he went to Boston to take a job, offered through family influence, as errand boy with Houghton Mifflin. In twelve years of service to this firm, mainly in the advertising department but finally at the Riverside Press in Cambridge, his compulsive orderliness combined with a trained eye for types and ornaments became a business asset. His "unerring taste" was recognized by Mr. Mifflin in a farewell letter as Updike, with a large commission in his pocket, took leave of his employers.
A moment ago I proposed saluting Updike as the inventor, so to speak, of book designing as the distinct calling now followed as a career by thousands of men and women working for publishers or printers, or free-lancing. In 1893 he of fered his services to printers. Said the announcement: "When with Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, Mr. Updike had charge of the preparation and arrangement of the catalogues, holiday bulletins, general circulars, advertising pages, posters, and other decorative printing, as well as of some of the books issued by that house. He is now prepared to undertake for such of the trade as desire it the same class of decorative printing and bookmaking." (With more seasoning, Updike would avoid such a term as decorative printing to describe the kind of work he wanted to do.) He continued: "Typography and its design in relation thereto have long been Mr. Updike's special study, and he has also a practical knowledge of the commercial necessities of the work in which he is engaged."
Of course books had always been "designed" more or less, depending upon the knowledge, care, and competence of their printers and publishers. Houghton Mifflin and their Riverside Press had a reputation for excellence soundly built upon the interest, skill, and unremitting diligence of the founder, Henry Oscar Houghton, and supported by enthusiasm and the cultivated taste of the younger partner, George H. Mifflin. Every title page and some sample pages of each book produced had to pass their scrutiny and measure up to a standard deriving largely from the admired output of the Chiswick Press for William Pickering. However, during Updike's later years with the firm, the publishing side of the business so overshadowed the bookmaking depart- ment that he felt his efforts were unavailing and that he must cut loose on his own in order to make them count. He doubtless observed how Arthur B. Turnure, initiator of the Grolier Club and associate of the Gillis Brothers in New York, had earned fat commissions by raiding the Boston market for "artistic" printing orders.
With more than a year of independent experience to draw on, Updike gathered together his ideas on the job in a statement that might well be called the book designer's professional charter. Here is his statement:
"Among the arts and crafts in which persons of taste and cultivation have been increasingly interested during the past few years is that of printing, and design as applied thereto. The modern tendency to specialize the different portions of all work has been nowhere more apparent than in the printer's art, so that to-day the compositor no longer sets the styles of typography, but simply works under the direction of those who have made style in printing a special study. In other words, there are arising on every side, workers whose place is not that of the man by whom a printer's work is used, nor of the printer himself, but of one, who, by a knowledge of the requirements of clients on the one hand, and the abilities of the printer on the other, is able to produce a better result than either could alone...
Since this was a promotional piece, Up dike naturally went on to point out how his own qualifications filled the bill, and to offer his services in carrying books through the press for private customers or acting in the capacity of design and production specialist for printers and publishers.
"Mr. Updike's point of view is that of the amateur," the statement of October 15, 1894 concludes, "but he endeavors to make his execution that of the profes- sional, and so to direct the printer that the book will show the newest and best features of decorative work, with such special touches as make each book individual and suited to its purpose." As things turned out, he gradually organized a press of his own; it was simpler to direct a printer who was his own employe and to produce the better result by using types and materials of his choosing. But the professional typographer-designer, the architect of books, had come into being with him - though perhaps not quite "arising on every side."
Updike was missed by his old employers. He was now gone beyond recall. A young Purdue man, class of 1890, who had recently come on to Boston was available. Mifflin - Houghton was dying - settled Bruce Rogers at the Riverside Press. There, under appreciative and most liberal patronage, he cultivated for sixteen years the field cleared by Updike. The Riverside Press editions produced during this term brought him everlasting renown and the title of "premature old master." BR was a designer of books, never a printer; that is, his long career was based on the Updike charter precisely.
The way into book designing has never been, nor is yet in spite of thousands traveling it and a thick manual devoted to the subject's methodology, a wellmarked route. Many have come to it through a William Morris-activated love of fine printing; Carl Purington Rollins, Printer to Yale University, emeritus, is their acknowledged leader. Dr. Rollins, after Harvard, served an apprenticeship by day under a Boston master and by night sat up reading Kelmscotts. Thus he has been audibly envied as a "profes- sional printer" by such eminent practitioners as those already mentioned who never submitted to that kind of discipline. Another approach, that of Thomas Maitland Cleland, the late W. A. Dwiggins, and Rudolph Ruzicka, is by way of calligraphy, illustration, ornament.
In the younger generation of book designers the diversity of background appears to be at least as broad though they share the common tendency toward a college experience. None in sight seems a better candidate for preeminence than Alvin Eisenman, Dartmouth '43. He had the good fortune, while still an under graduate, to find his vocation; then the opportunity to develop under large-scale publishing conditions, and to mature as Yale's typographer under the benign influence though wisely independent of his renowned predecessor. With him, as with the rest of the most promising men in the field, the "point of view is that of the amateur, but he endeavors to make his execution that of the professional."
Professor Ray Nash, recently named Directorof Dartmouth Publications, is printing adviser to the College. His Graphic Arts Workshop has been the starting point for a number of young designers and printers. He is aneditor of "Print" and is the author of booksand articles about printing design.
