Searching for Morris Fuller Benton: Discovering the Designer Through His Typefaces

Chicago: Sherwin Beach Press, 2011. Hardcover. Fine. Hardcover. Number 74 of 75 copies. Signed by author. Morris Fuller Benton was the most prolific type designer of the hot metal era, but unlike Frederic Goudy, Bruce Rogers, or William Dwiggins--whose ideas about type design are well documented -- Benton wrote nothing about his own work, nor was it the subject of analysis by others. Benton (1872-1948) headed the design department of American Type Founders for over forty years and designed hundreds of typefaces. Juliet Shen has made a meticulous study of his work, including a new enumeration of designs appropriately attributed to him. She gained access (truncated) to papers from the ATF library, now housed at Columbia University. Shen places Benton in the context of American life at the turn of the 20th Century, when branding, advertising, and marketing were first becoming major factors in the economy. She compares his typefaces to similar ones from the same period, discovering the elements which he found important. There are dozens of reproductions of typographic specimens from Europe and North America. As Roger Black says in the introduction, "Benton's lean, driving, consistent style took over American printing in the pre-war era, and remains the bedrock of American typography." The book is designed by Robert McCamant, set in Cloister Oldstyle cast by the Dale Guild Type Foundry from ATF matrices and typeset by Art Larson and Rose Wisotzky at Horton Tank Graphics. It is printed on Mohawk Superfine, with letterpress by Michael Russem of Kat Ran Press, and offset illustrations and captions by Capitol Offset. Trisha Hammer designed and executed the black cloth binding with red stitching to open spine. In fine condition. 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches. 58 pages. PRI/012725. (Inventory #: 37770)