Apologies for the absence of new posts on my blog recently but I have had my shirt sleeves permanently rolled up whilst out in my letterpress workshop (the ‘Typoretum’), working on many and varied bespoke printing projects.
One of these recent projects involved typesetting a wedding invitation in Garamond Italic with swash capitals and alternate terminal letters. My collection of Garamond is quite extensive (8pt through to 72pt) and originates from the Cambridge University Press, where it was cast, and I have spent many hours acquainting myself with the incredible selection of ligatures and swash characters in the collection. My only issue with my casting of Garamond Italic (Monotype) is that the capital W is cast on almost a full width body with very little overhang, necessitating work to remove part of the body to enable kerning.
To remove portions of the type bodies, I used a hand mitre machine (also known as a ‘bowler’) set at 45 degrees and images of the kerned letters can be viewed below. Interrobang Letterpress have posted a set of Flickr photo’s here showing how they have kerned Garamond Italic using a circular saw.
5 Comments
Thank your for this report and your pictures! I had the same problem with the Futura and made the same like you some time ago:
http://www.blog.druckerey.de/?s=tag&t=unterschneiden
Thanks, Justin. I never thought of mitreing with a bowler plane before. I’ll have to give it a try. A comp’s saw is great for that job, but I don’t have access to one any more.
The mechanical translation of Alt- in InDesign?
Thanks for the link to my method on Flickr.
I highly recommend the use of a composing room saw for this sort of activity, and I always cut two sets of kerns while I’m at it.
I should add that prior to being given the Hammond Glider, I used a Rouse Miterer to bevel-kern characters.
The former methods propensity to “tectonic” slippage makes the parallel kerns of a comp saw preferable IMO. Tight square lockup with no triangular shims involved.