Part 4

Mr. Long read the report--thoughtfully, I believe--talked with his art editors, and finally decided the suggestions were too radical. But had Mr. Hearst been in New York, and had the report gone to him, his _Cosmopolitan_ and _Good Housekeeping_ would have led the field in adopting principles of illustration that are now universal.

When asked to provide a new lay-out for _McClure’s_ magazine, then a recent purchase by Mr. Hearst, I reveled in an opportunity to apply the suggestions presented in the report. Making photographic enlargements of available illustrations and eliminating all non-essentials I used full pages and spreads and prepared the dummy with a new note in typographic headings. Ray Long looked at it and gasped. “Will,” he said, “a magazine like that would outshine and humble _Cosmo_.” Mr. Hearst was still in California. Too bad! I had made suggestions of worth and Mr. Hearst, running true to form, would have weighed their values--not for a revived _McClure’s_, perhaps, but for his other magazines.

* * * * *

And now there is little more to tell, unless you want to listen to the way I enthuse about our present-day illustrators, their delightfully imaginative composition and masterly use of color. They are grand campaigners! God love them and the editorial lads who give them opportunity and encouragement. They are making an old man mighty happy--yes, making him envy their fun while he is relegated to sheer laziness in the siesta sun of California.

Before final retirement I managed to lay out a new _Delineator_, a new Sunday magazine for the _Herald Tribune_ (about 1925), and a lay-out suggested by early New England news-sheets for the _Yale Daily_, and ... well, I guess that’s about all. No! Listen. In these last three lay-outs I continued to use my beloved Caslon!

TODAY IN 1954

Do conditions today give the ambitious young designer and printer the same opportunities I enjoyed back in the late Victorian period? Not the same, of course, but even greater.

While it is true that the Nineties were literally made to order for a boy who had acquired only such training as was to be had in the sparsely equipped print-ship of a weekly newspaper in a pioneer iron-mining town, today is made to order for the ambitious young designer and printer who is availing himself of the training to be had by even the small-town beginner.

Back in my boyhood days a study of such examples of design and printing as now reach even the most remote out-posts of the printing industry, would have taught me more than I learned during a year in the art department, so-called, of the publishing house of Rand McNally in Chicago.

The inspiration to be derived from the text and advertising pages of our standard magazines, together with the creative art of school children and the art magazines, quite unknown at the turn of the century, supplies a liberal education teaching the beginner how to appreciate and use the printing and designing advantages of today.

What are these advantages, and why do they open a door to exceptional opportunities not known in the Nineties? First, and perhaps of greatest importance, is the typographic consciousness now prevalent, especially in the advertising and business world, where it is universally recognized that effective typography and design increase sales.

Another advantage is to be found in the significant mechanical advances of the last few years, the significance of the growing importance of offset printing, presenting so many opportunities yet to be grasped by the designer. And, an infant industry now, but one of vast possibilities, is commercial silk-screen printing.

But upon my return to New York after many years in California I think my greatest thrill came when I witnessed the mechanical setting of type by photography. Always I have liked the feel of putting type into the stick, and I liked to see the composition growing on the galley. In all my years of working with type I have never made a preparatory lay-out, except when the composition had to be done by another, which happened only on magazine headings after a style had been determined in advance.

But this is an age of lay-outs, and in this new photographic process with the use of photographic enlargements, there are possibilities for display composition of any required size, and great variety, presenting intriguing possibilities for the creative designer and typographer.

All such steadily growing advances present opportunities which were nonexistent back in my own youthful days. Together with the superior training enjoyed by the youth of today, they have changed conditions into a new world fraught with wonderful opportunities far beyond any I knew in the Nineties.

w b

Short Hills, New Jersey May, 1954

A CHRONOLOGY

This brief biography of the man called Dean of American Designers by _The Saturday Evening Post_ and Dean of American Art Editors by _Publishers’ Weekly_, is amplified from its earlier compilation and printing as a Typophile keepsake in 1948. It was first distributed at a birthday luncheon held in New York, for Mr. Bradley’s eightieth.

1868 Born in Boston, July 10, son of a cartoonist on a Lynn daily newspaper.

1874 First finger in the “pi”--on being presented a box of characters brought home by his father for a small printing press Will bought with his own savings as a delivery boy.

1877 Moves to Ishpeming, a mining town in northern Michigan.

1880 A job (with a salary of $3 a week) as a printer’s devil, with the _Iron Agitator_ (later _Iron Ore_).

1885 Foreman with _Iron Ore_ at a man’s wages, $15 a week.

1886 To Chicago--and an art department apprenticeship with Rand McNally--sweeping, dusting, running errands, grinding tempera ... at $3 a week.

1887 With Knight & Leonard, Chicago’s leading fine printers, as a full-fledged designer at a salary of $21, and then $24 a week.

1889 Free-lancing in Chicago; studio in the Caxton Building.

1890 To Geneva, Ill., and first recognition through covers for _Harper’s Weekly_; posters for Stone & Kimball’s _Chap Book_; cover designs for the _Inland Printer_ (perhaps the first magazine covers ever to be changed monthly).

1890 The creation of a widely copied type face named “Bradley” by ATF.

1893 An exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair.

1895 To Springfield, Mass., the launching of his Wayside Press, “At the Sign of the Dandelion,” and plans for publication of _Bradley: His Book_ ... his love for Caslon and the beginning of a new Caslon era as a result.

1895 The initial Bradley-designed paper sample book for Strathmore.

1896 Exhibits at Boston Arts and Crafts; Colonial typography attracts national attention.

1897 Caslon types on Strathmore Deckle Edge Papers prove successful; Bradley’s plant is expanded and moved to a loft in the Strathmore mill at Mittineague.

1898 Merges business with University Press, Boston. Opens design and art service in New York; specialty, bicycle catalogs.

1900 Mr. Bok, editor of _Ladies’ Home Journal_, commissions a series of eight full pages of house interiors for the _Journal_. A roman and italic face, used later for _Peter Poodle, Toy Maker to the King_, is designed for American Type Founders. While recovering from illness, _Castle Perilous_ is written, later serialized in _Collier’s_ with Bradley illustrations.

1902 _Collier’s Weekly_ appears with Bradley cover (July 4).

1903 Heads campaign of type display and publicity for American Type Founders.

1904 Writing and designing _Chap Books_ for American Type Founders; setting typographic style for decades.

1906 Writes and illustrates _Peter Poodle, Toymaker to the King_ for Dodd Mead.

1907 Art Editor of _Collier’s_. Introduces new technique in coordinating make-up, art direction and typography. Holiday number becomes collectors’ item.

1910-15 Simultaneous art editorship of _Good Housekeeping_, _Metropolitan_, _Success_, _Pearson’s_, _National Post_. Revises typographic make-up of _Christian Science Monitor_ ... beginning of a series of stories later published as _Wonderbox Stories_.

1915-17 Art supervision of motion picture serials for William Randolph Hearst, including _Patria_, starring Irene Castle.

1918-20 Writing and directing motion pictures independently. Production of _Moongold_, a Pierrot pantomime shot against black velvet, using properties but no sets, shown at the Criterion Theater in Times Square, New York.

1920 Back to Mr. Hearst as art and typography supervisor for Hearst magazines, newspapers, motion pictures, and the introduction, in _Cosmopolitan_, of many typographic innovations.

1923 Writes _Spoils_, a play in free verse for _Hearst’s International_.

1926 Restyles _Delineator_ and Sunday magazine section of New York _Herald Tribune_ (not _This Week_).

1927 Harper & Bros. publish _Launcelot and the Ladies_.

1930 Final, but far from inactive, retirement.

1931 Serves on AIGA “Fifty Books of the Year” jury; delivers address at exhibition opening, New York Public Library.

1950 Rounce and Coffin Club of Los Angeles award, October 28, for “Distinguished Contributions to Fine Printing,” at preview of Huntington Library exhibition, “Will Bradley: His Work.”

1953 New type ornaments (used at chapter-openings in the present book) designed for American Type Founders.

1954 Completion of a new paper specimen in Strathmore’s Distinguished Designers Series, almost sixty years after his first sample book for Strathmore. Introduced at University Club luncheon in New York, March 25.

1954 Award of gold medal by the American Institute of Graphic Arts at Annual meeting, May 19.

“I have never known any guide other than what to me happened to look right.”--w. b.

AN AFTERWORD

Few names in the annals of American typography gleam as brightly as Will Bradley’s. Even fewer have made so varied a graphic contribution as this gentle man, now eighty-six and revered as dean of American typographers.

In May, 1954, he was awarded the coveted gold medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. The citation, necessarily brief around the rim, recalled one phase of his accomplishments: “To Will Bradley for a half-century of typographic achievement.”

A more revealing summary would be found in the commendation of the Rounce and Coffin Club award, presented at the Huntington Library in October, 1950. The Club held its special meeting to honor Mr. Bradley (then living in nearby Pasadena), and preview the Huntington retrospective Bradley exhibition, which included examples of his book design and illustration; articles and stories written; cover and poster design; type and type ornament for American Type Founders; and printing. Some seventy items were displayed, ranging from the Ishpeming (Michigan) _Iron Ore_ masthead, designed in 1886, to a Christmas greeting drawn in 1948.

The award, for distinguished contributions to fine printing, read: “_Because_ he has for seventy years been a source of creative inspiration in all the varied arts to which he has put his mind and hand; _Because_ he found American printing at the end of the last century in a dreary condition, held up to it the examples of the early colonial printers, revived the simplicity and dignity of Pickering and caused to flourish again the use of Caslon and the other old style types; _Because_ he created a wealth of new ornamentation and by his own demonstration introduced many original uses of ink, paper and bookbinding; _Because_ he redesigned the American magazine and gave to it the charm of a new outer garment with each appearance; _Because_ he cast the illumination of his talents upon the art of the poster, the children’s book, and even the motion picture; _Because_ his great direct aid and even greater inspiration have been acknowledged by many American typographers, including such leaders as Frederic W. Goudy, W. A. Dwiggins, Oswald Cooper and T. M. Cleland; _And finally_ because he has not ceased to be for the printers of our day, as for those of two previous generations, an inexhaustible fountain of kindly encouragement and new discoveries.”

Despite their glow, these words spell a clear appraisal of this man’s talents and graphic spirit. Ahead of his times, Mr. Bradley proved a pace-setting pioneer whose work was so fresh that its vitality is as measurable in the specimens of Strathmore and ATF, as in the Hearst periodical pages. Particularly when compared with that of his contemporaries, as Walter Dorwin Teague points out in his perceptive introduction.

Mr. Bradley was born in Boston in 1868. His father, a newspaper cartoonist, died when he was eight. Four years later his mother moved to Ishpeming, a small iron-mining town in northern Michigan. Here, he became a printer’s devil on the local newspaper.

The brief chronology of events in his legendary career (pp. 92-96) reveals pertinent details of the early years as art department apprentice with Rand McNally, Chicago map-makers, and as free-lance artist. He soon won recognition for his cover designs and drawings for _Harper’s Weekly_ and _The Inland Printer_, and posters for Stone and Kimball’s _Chap Book_.

In 1895 he returned to New England to set up his Wayside Press in Springfield, Mass. He was twenty-seven then, had just designed his first sample book for Strathmore, and developed publishing plans for _Bradley: His Book_. Volume one, number one was dated May, 1896; the subscription price, one dollar the year. The cover was a poster treatment of a tree on a grassy hilltop; the frontispiece was by Edward Penfield, himself the subject of a lead article. Center spread pages, decidedly in the Kelmscott manner, were devoted to a poem by Harriet Monroe, with a floriated border surrounding the text in caps. The body type was the ATF version of the Morris Golden face.

_Bradley: His Book_ was planned as an art and literary magazine, and also “a technical journal for those engaged in the art of printing.” Seven issues comprised its life span; the first four varied slightly from the initial 5¼ × 10½ inch size; the last three (of volume two) were 8 × 11 inches. A note indicated that “advertisements are newly prepared for each number without extra cost.” Products promoted included writing and printing papers, type, ink, periodicals, a “talking” machine, auto tires, baking and washing powder, and soap. A further note evidenced concern for design and typography, mentioning that “advertisements may be appropriately illustrated by any artist, provided the character of design and execution are suitable for pages of this magazine. Text on electrotypes will be reset in type from _Bradley: His Book_ fonts.”

From this point on, the Bradley career moved into high gear. In 1900 he was commissioned by the _Ladies’ Home Journal_ to design eight full pages of house interiors; he also designed a roman and italic type.

Three years later, at thirty-five, he headed a typographic and publicity campaign for ATF (1903), and wrote and designed their famous _Chap Books_. In 1907 he was art editor of _Collier’s_; and from 1910 to 1915 the simultaneous art editor for _Good Housekeeping_, _Metropolitan_, _Success_, _Pearson’s_ and _National Post_. Then in his early forties, he dipped into the field of the motion picture as art supervisor of serials for William Randolph Hearst. In 1918 he was writing and directing motion pictures independently. Two years later he rejoined the Hearst organization as art and typographic supervisor for their newspapers, magazines and motion pictures. In 1930, age sixty-two, he retired to southern California.

* * * * *

Of the Bradley renaissance a quarter-century later, a single design accomplishment seems significant: The 1954 Portfolio in the Strathmore distinguished designer series, begun in California in 1951, completed early in 1954 and introduced at a luncheon sponsored jointly by the Typophiles and Strathmore, held at the New York University Club. The date was just a few months short of sixty years from that significant day when the first paper-use specimen was issued by Strathmore in Mittineague.

Among the speakers paying tribute were Edwin H. Carpenter of the Huntington Library; Thomas Maitland Cleland, designer and artist; A. Hyatt Mayor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Frederic G. Melcher, dean of American publishers; Carl Purington Rollins, printer emeritus to Yale University; Walter Dorwin Teague, industrial designer, F. Nelson Bridgham, Strathmore president, and the undersigned reporter, who served as toastmaster.

* * * * *

The first-hand account of the fabulous years recorded in this book has been assembled from separate papers written by Mr. Bradley at different times since 1949. No attempt has been made to unify the varying tenses, or modify the sometimes first-person sometimes second-person style of the author in these different memoirs. An attempt _has_ been made to connect these papers into one continuing narrative. To this end, some editing of over-lapping material and cutting of repetitious passages seemed essential.

The sources: A booklet titled _Memories: 1875-1895_, printed for the Typophiles and other friends by Grant Dahlstrom in Pasadena, 1949; another titled _Picture of a Period, or Memories of the Gay Nineties_, printed for the Rounce and Coffin Club of Los Angeles (also by Dahlstrom) in 1950; the Huntington Library hand list, _Will Bradley: His Work_, 1951 (again printed by Dahlstrom). The fourth source item is “Will Bradley’s Magazine Memories,” from the _Journal_ of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (Vol. III, No. 1, 1950).

Like most Typophile projects, this has been in process for many months. Though obviously a cooperative effort, much of the muscle and mind needed to shape and form it has been contributed by Peter Beilenson. He not only attended to the design and printing at his Peter Pauper Press, but also helped materially in its editing.

The alluring prospect of additional illustrations for these pages was reluctantly passed by. Our physical limitations and resources proved inadequate to reflect the qualities, and the scope and variety of Mr. Bradley’s work. Examples of his colorful designing and illustrating may be seen in the comprehensive collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. A brief selection is shown in _The Penrose Annual_, 1955.

Despite his years, Mr. Bradley generously offered to develop the typographic plan of this book, and rewrite the entire text to further illumine certain passages. He also suggested he make new drawings to replace those on chapter pages, which were drawn in 1949 to enhance the solid text pages of the _Memories_ booklet (The type ornaments on these pages were drawn in 1953 for ATF.) This considerable task seemed an unnecessary burden, particularly since Mr. Bradley had reflected with characteristic charm and candor the recollections of his great years. Like every artist and craftsman of stature, he remains his own severest critic.

Numerous other friends have helped with this book: Among them, Arthur W. Rushmore and Edmund B. Thompson in its early planning; Robert B. Clark, Jr., and his colleagues at Strathmore; Nicholas A. Meyer, David Silvé, Stevens L. Watts and Robert H. Wessmann--each has been quick to answer every call, as has Will Bradley. For myself, it has been a memorable and rewarding book-making experience to work with these good friends, as it is a privilege to record here the indebtedness of The Typophiles for their invaluable and generous assistance.

PAUL A. BENNETT

Typophile Chap Books: 30

This thirtieth Chap Book in the Typophile series has been designed by Peter Beilenson, and printed on Strathmore Courier at his Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, New York. The type face is Waverley; the binding is by the J. F. Tapley Company, New York.

This edition comprises four hundred copies for Typophile subscribers and contributors and 250 copies for general sale.

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using the original cover and is entered into the public domain.