The Crystal Goblet, or Printing how cleverly it is weighted; you feel nervous lest it should tip over.

nervous lest it should tip over. There are ways of setting

lines of type which may work well enough, and yet keep the reader subconsciously worried
Should Be Invisible by the fear of “doubling” lines, reading three words as one, and so forth.

Now the man who first chose glass instead of clay or metal
Beatrice Warde to hold his wine was a “modernist” in the sense in which I am
going to use that term.That is, the first thing he asked of his
Imagine that you have before you a particular object was not “How should it look?” but “What must
flagon of wine. You may choose your it do?” and to that extent all good typography is modernist.
own favourite vintage for this imaginary
demonstration, so that it be a deep Wine is so strange and potent a thing that it has been used in the central ritual of religion
shimmering crimson in colour. You have in one place and time, and attacked by a virago with a hatchet in another. There is only
two goblets before you. One is of solid one thing in the world that is capable of stirring and altering men’s minds to the same
gold, wrought in the most exquisite pat- extent, and that is the coherent expression of thought. That is man’s chief miracle, unique
terns. The other is of crystal-clear glass, to man. There is no “explanation” whatever of the fact that I can make arbitrary sounds
thin as a bubble, and as transparent. which will lead a total stranger to think my own thought. It is sheer magic that I should be
Pour and drink; and according to your able to hold a one-sided conversation by means of black marks on paper with an unknown
choice of goblet, I shall know whether person half-way across the world. Talking, broadcasting, writing, and printing are all quite
or not you are a connoisseur of wine. literally forms of thought transference, and it is the ability and eagerness to transfer and
For if you have no feelings about wine receive the contents of the mind that is almost alone responsible for human civilization.
one way or the other, you will want the
sensation of drinking the stuff out of If you agree with this, you will agree with my one main idea, i.e. that the most important
a vessel that may have cost thousands thing about printing is that it conveys thought, ideas, images, from one mind to other minds.
of pounds; but if you are a member of This statement is what you might call the front door of the science of typography. Within
that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of lie hundreds of rooms; but unless you start by assuming that printing is meant to convey
fine vintages, you will choose the crystal, specific and coherent ideas, it is very easy to find yourself in the wrong house altogether.
because everything about it is calculated
to reveal rather than hide the beautiful Before asking what this statement leads to, let us see what it does not necessarily lead to.
thing which it was meant to contain. If books are printed in order to be read, we must distinguish readability from what the
optician would call legibility. A page set in 14-pt Bold Sans is, according to the laboratory
Bear with me in this long-winded and tests, more “legible” than one set in 11-pt Baskerville. A public speaker is more “audible” in
fragrant metaphor; for you will find that that sense when he bellows. But a good speaking voice is one which is inaudible as a voice.
almost all the virtues of the perfect It is the transparent goblet again! I need not warn you that if you begin listening to the
wine-glass have a parallel in typogra- inflections and speaking rhythms of a voice from a platform, you are falling asleep. When
phy. There is the long, thin stem that you listen to a song in a language you do not understand, part of your mind actually does
obviates fingerprints on the bowl. Why? fall asleep, leaving your quite separate aesthetic sensibilities to enjoy themselves unimpeded
Because no cloud must come between by your reasoning faculties. The fine arts do that; but that is not the purpose of printing.
your eyes and the fiery heart of the Type well used is invisible as type, just as the perfect talking voice is the unnoticed vehicle
liquid. Are not the margins on book for the transmission of words, ideas.
pages similarly meant to obviate the ne-
cessity of fingering the type-page? Again: We may say, therefore, that printing may be delightful for many reasons, but that it is
the glass is colourless or at the most important, first and foremost, as a means of doing something. That is why it is mischievous
only faintly tinged in the bowl, because to call any printed piece a work of art, especially fine art: because that would imply that its
the connoisseur judges wine partly by first purpose was to exist as an expression of beauty for its own sake and for the delec-
its colour and is impatient of anything tation of the senses. Calligraphy can almost be considered a fine art nowadays, because its
that alters it. There are a thousand primary economic and educational purpose has been taken away; but printing in English will
mannerisms in typography that are as not qualify as an art until the present English language no longer conveys ideas to future
impudent and arbitrary as putting port generations, and until printing itself hands its usefulness to some yet unimagined successor.
in tumblers of red or green glass! When
a goblet has a base that looks too There is no end to the maze of practices in typography, and this idea of printing as a
small for security, it does not matter conveyor is, at least in the minds of all the great typographers with whom I have had the

Ana Logar, Tipografija II, 2019/2020, 2. naloga: The Crystal Goblet

privilege of talking, the one clue that can guide you through the maze. Without panes; and this corresponds to what is called “fine
this essential humility of mind, I have seen ardent designers go more hopelessly printing” today, in that you are at least conscious
wrong, make more ludicrous mistakes out of an excessive enthusiasm, than I that there is a window there, and that someone
could have thought possible. And with this clue, this purposiveness in the back has enjoyed building it. That is not objectionable,
of your mind, it is possible to do the most unheard-of things, and find that they because of a very important fact which has to do
justify you triumphantly. It is not a waste of time to go to the simple funda- with the psychology of the subconscious mind. That
mentals and reason from them. is that the mental eye focuses through type and
not upon it. The type which, through any arbitrary
In the flurry of your individual problems, I think you warping of design or excess of “colour,” gets in
will not mind spending half an hour on one broad and the way of the mental picture to be conveyed, is a
simple set of ideas involving abstract principles. bad type. Our subconsciousness is always afraid of
blunders (which illogical setting, tight spacing and
I once was talking to a man who designed a very pleasing advertising type too-wide unleaded lines can trick us into), of bore-
which undoubtedly all of you have used. I said something about what artists dom, and of officiousness. The running headline that
think about a certain problem, and he replied with a beautiful gesture: “Ah, keeps shouting at us, the line that looks like one
madam, we artists do not think — we feel!” That same day I quoted that long word, the capitals jammed together without
remark to another designer of my acquaintance, and he, being less poetically hair-spaces — these mean subconscious squinting
inclined, murmured: “I’m not feeling very well today, I think!” He was right, he and loss of mental focus.
did think; he was the thinking sort; and that is why he is not so good a painter,
and to my mind ten times better as a typographer and type designer than And if what I have said is true of
the man who instinctively avoided anything as coherent as a reason. I always book printing, even of the most
suspect the typographic enthusiast who takes a printed page from a book and exquisite limited editions, it is fifty
frames it to hang on the wall, for I believe that in order to gratify a sensory times more obvious in advertising,
delight he has mutilated something infinitely more important. I remember that where the one and only justifica-
T.M. Cleland, the famous American typographer, once showed me a very beautiful tion for the purchase of space is
layout for a Cadillac booklet involving decorations in colour. He did not have the that you are conveying a message
actual text to work with in drawing up his specimen pages, so he had set the — that you are implanting a de-
lines in Latin. This was not only for the reason that you will all think of; if you sire, straight into the mind of the
have seen the old typefoundries’ famous Quousque Tandem copy (i.e. that Latin reader. It is tragically easy to throw
has few descenders and thus gives a remarkably even line). No, he told me that away half the reader-interest of an
originally he had set up the dullest “wording” that he could find (I dare say it advertisement by setting the simple
was from Hansard), and yet he discovered that the man to whom he submitted and compelling argument in a face
it would start reading and making comments on the text. I made some remark which is uncomfortably alien to the
on the mentality of Boards of Directors, but Mr Cleland said, “No: you’re wrong; if classic reasonableness of the book-
the reader had not been practically forced to read — if he had not seen those face.
words suddenly imbued with glamour and significance — then the layout would
have been a failure. Setting it in Italian or Latin is only an easy way of saying Get attention as you will by your headline, and
‘This is not the text as it will appear.’” make any pretty type pictures you like if you are
sure that the copy is useless as a means of selling
Let me start my specific conclusions with book typography, because that contains goods; but if you are happy enough to have really
all the fundamentals, and then go on to a few points about advertising. good copy to work with, I beg you to remember
that thousands of people pay hard-earned money
The book typographer has the job of erecting a window between the reader in- for the privilege of reading quietly set book-pag-
side the room and that landscape which is the author’s words. He may put up a es, and that only your wildest ingenuity can stop
stained-glass window of marvellous beauty, but a failure as a window; that is, he people from reading a really interesting text.
may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to be looked
at, not through. Or he may work in what I call transparent or invisible typogra- Printing demands a humility of mind, for the lack
phy. I have a book at home, of which I have no visual recollection whatever as of which many of the fine arts are even now floun-
far as its typography goes; when I think of it, all I see is the Three Musketeers dering in self-conscious and maudlin experiments.
and their comrades swaggering up and down the streets of Paris. The third There is nothing simple or dull in achieving the
type of window is one in which the glass is broken into relatively small leaded transparent page. Vulgar ostentation is twice as easy
as discipline. When you realise that ugly typography never effaces itself; you will be able to capture beauty as the wise men capture happiness
by aiming at something else. The ‘stunt typographer’ learns the fickleness of rich men who hate to read. Not for them are long breaths held over
serif and kern, they will not appreciate your splitting of hair- spaces. Nobody (save the other craftsmen) will appreciate half your skill. But you
may spend endless years of happy experiment in devising that crystalline goblet which is worthy to hold the vintage of the human mind.

_____
Beatrice Lamberton Warde (September 20, 1900 – September 16, 1969, née Beatrice Becker) was a twentieth century writer and scholar
of typography. As a marketing manager for the British Monotype Corporation, she was influential in the development of printing tastes in
Britain and elsewhere in the mid-twentieth century and was recognized at the time as "[o]ne of the few women typographers in the world".
Her writing advocated higher standards in printing, and championed intelligent use of historic typefaces from the past, which Monotype
specialised in reviving, and the work of contemporary typeface

Ana Logar, Tipografija II, 2019/2020, 2. naloga: The Crystal Goblet

The Crystal Goblet, or Printing
Should Be Invisible
Beatrice Warde Now the man who first chose glass
Imagine that you have before you a flag- instead of clay or metal to hold
on of wine. You may choose your own
favourite vintage for this imaginary his wine was a “modernist” in the
demonstration, so that it be a deep shim-
mering crimson in colour. You have two sense in which I am going to use
goblets before you. One is of solid gold,
wrought in the most exquisite patterns. that term. That is, the first thing he
The other is of crystal-clear glass, thin
as a bubble, and as transparent. Pour asked of his particular object was
and drink; and according to your choice
of goblet, I shall know whether or not not “How should it look?” but “What
you are a connoisseur of wine. For if you
have no feelings about wine one way or must it do?” and to that extent all
the other, you will want the sensation
of drinking the stuff out of a vessel that good typography is modernist.
may have cost thousands of pounds; but
if you are a member of that vanishing
tribe, the amateurs of fine vintages, you Wine is so strange and potent a thing
will choose the crystal, because every- that it has been used in the central rit-
thing about it is calculated to reveal rath- ual of religion in one place and time,
er than hide the beautiful thing which it and attacked by a virago with a hatchet
was meant to contain. in another. There is only one thing in
the world that is capable of stirring and
altering men’s minds to the same ex-
Bear with me in this long-winded and tent, and that is the coherent expression
fragrant metaphor; for you will find that of thought. That is man’s chief miracle,
almost all the virtues of the perfect wine- unique to man. There is no “explana-
glass have a parallel in typography. There tion” whatever of the fact that I can make
is the long, thin stem that obviates fin- arbitrary sounds which will lead a total
gerprints on the bowl. Why? Because no stranger to think my own thought. It
cloud must come between your eyes and is sheer magic that I should be able to
the fiery heart of the liquid. Are not the hold a one-sided conversation by means
margins on book pages similarly meant of black marks on paper with an un-
to obviate the necessity of fingering the known person half-way across the world.
type-page? Again: the glass is colourless Talking, broadcasting, writing, and
or at the most only faintly tinged in the printing are all quite literally forms of
bowl, because the connoisseur judges thought transference, and it is the ability
wine partly by its colour and is impatient and eagerness to transfer and receive the
of anything that alters it. There are a contents of the mind that is almost alone
thousand mannerisms in typography that responsible for human civilization.
are as impudent and arbitrary as putting
port in tumblers of red or green glass!
When a goblet has a base that looks too If you agree with this, you will agree
small for security, it does not matter how with my one main idea, i.e. that the most
cleverly it is weighted; you feel nervous important thing about printing is that it
lest it should tip over. There are ways of conveys thought, ideas, images, from one
setting lines of type which may work well mind to other minds. This statement is
enough, and yet keep the reader subcon- what you might call the front door of the
sciously worried by the fear of “doubling” science of typography. Within lie hun-
lines, reading three words as one, and so dreds of rooms; but unless you start by
forth. assuming that printing is meant to con-
vey specific and coherent ideas, it is very
easy to find yourself in the wrong house
altogether.

Ana Logar, Tipografija II, 2019/2020, 2. naloga: The Crystal Goblet

Before asking what this statement leads triumphantly. It is not a waste of time
to, let us see what it does not necessarily to go to the simple fundamentals and
lead to. If books are printed in order to reason from them. In the flurry of your
be read, we must distinguish readability individual problems, I think you will not
from what the optician would call legi- mind spending half an hour on one broad
bility. A page set in 14-pt Bold Sans is, and simple set of ideas involving abstract
according to the laboratory tests, more principles.
“legible” than one set in 11-pt Basker-
ville. A public speaker is more “audible”
in that sense when he bellows. But a I once was talking to a man who designed
good speaking voice is one which is in- a very pleasing advertising type which
audible as a voice. It is the transparent undoubtedly all of you have used. I said
goblet again! I need not warn you that something about what artists think about
if you begin listening to the inflections a certain problem, and he replied with a
and speaking rhythms of a voice from a beautiful gesture:
platform, you are falling asleep. When
you listen to a song in a language you do
not understand, part of your mind actu- “Ah, madam, we artists do not think
ally does fall asleep, leaving your quite
separate aesthetic sensibilities to enjoy — we feel!” That same day I quoted
themselves unimpeded by your reasoning
faculties. The fine arts do that; but that that remark to another designer of
is not the purpose of printing. Type well
used is invisible as type, just as the per- my acquaintance, and he, being less
fect talking voice is the unnoticed vehicle
for the transmission of words, ideas. poetically inclined, murmured: “I’m
not feeling very well today, I think!”
We may say, therefore, that printing may
be delightful for many reasons, but that
it is important, first and foremost, as a He was right, he did think; he was the
means of doing something. That is why thinking sort; and that is why he is not
it is mischievous to call any printed piece so good a painter, and to my mind ten
a work of art, especially fine art: because times better as a typographer and type
that would imply that its first purpose designer than the man who instinctive-
was to exist as an expression of beauty ly avoided anything as coherent as a
for its own sake and for the delectation reason. I always suspect the typograph-
of the senses. Calligraphy can almost be ic enthusiast who takes a printed page
considered a fine art nowadays, because from a book and frames it to hang on the
its primary economic and educational wall, for I believe that in order to grat-
purpose has been taken away; but print- ify a sensory delight he has mutilated
ing in English will not qualify as an art something infinitely more important. I
until the present English language no remember that T.M. Cleland, the famous
longer conveys ideas to future genera- American typographer, once showed me a
tions, and until printing itself hands its very beautiful layout for a Cadillac book-
usefulness to some yet unimagined suc- let involving decorations in colour. He
cessor. did not have the actual text to work with
in drawing up his specimen pages, so he
had set the lines in Latin. This was not
There is no end to the maze of practices only for the reason that you will all think
in typography, and this idea of printing of; if you have seen the old typefoundries’
as a conveyor is, at least in the minds of famous Quousque Tandem copy (i.e. that
all the great typographers with whom Latin has few descenders and thus gives
I have had the privilege of talking, the a remarkably even line). No, he told me
one clue that can guide you through the that originally he had set up the dullest
maze. Without this essential humility “wording” that he could find (I dare say
of mind, I have seen ardent designers it was from Hansard), and yet he discov-
go more hopelessly wrong, make more ered that the man to whom he submitted
ludicrous mistakes out of an excessive it would start reading and making com-
enthusiasm, than I could have thought ments on the text. I made some remark
possible. And with this clue, this pur- on the mentality of Boards of Directors,
posiveness in the back of your mind, it but Mr Cleland said, “No: you’re wrong; if
is possible to do the most unheard-of the reader had not been practically forced
things, and find that they justify you to read — if he had not seen those words
suddenly imbued with glamour and sig- terest of an advertisement by setting the
nificance — then the layout would have simple and compelling argument in a
been a failure. Setting it in Italian or face which is uncomfortably alien to the
Latin is only an easy way of saying ‘This classic reasonableness of the book-face.
is not the text as it will appear.’” Get attention as you will by your head-
line, and make any pretty type pictures
you like if you are sure that the copy is
Let me start my specific conclusions with useless as a means of selling goods; but if
book typography, because that contains you are happy enough to have really good
all the fundamentals, and then go on to a copy to work with, I beg you to remember
few points about advertising. that thousands of people pay hard-earned
money for the privilege of reading quietly
set book-pages, and that only your wild-
The book typographer has the job of est ingenuity can stop people from read-
erecting a window between the reader ing a really interesting text. Printing de-
inside the room and that landscape which mands a humility of mind, for the lack of
is the author’s words. He may put up a which many of the fine arts are even now
stained-glass window of marvellous beau- floundering in self-conscious and maud-
ty, but a failure as a window; that is, he lin experiments. There is nothing sim-
may use some rich superb type like text ple or dull in achieving the transparent
gothic that is something to be looked at, page. Vulgar ostentation is twice as easy
not through. Or he may work in what I as discipline. When you realise that ugly
call transparent or invisible typography. typography never effaces itself; you will
I have a book at home, of which I have no be able to capture beauty as the wise men
visual recollection whatever as far as its capture happiness by aiming at some-
typography goes; when I think of it, all thing else. The ‘stunt typographer’ learns
I see is the Three Musketeers and their the fickleness of rich men who hate to
comrades swaggering up and down the read. Not for them are long breaths held
streets of Paris. The third type of win- over serif and kern, they will not appreci-
dow is one in which the glass is broken ate your splitting of hair- spaces. Nobody
into relatively small leaded panes; and (save the other craftsmen) will appreci-
this corresponds to what is called “fine ate half your skill. But you may spend
printing” today, in that you are at least endless years of happy experiment in
conscious that there is a window there, devising that crystalline goblet which is
and that someone has enjoyed building worthy to hold the vintage of the human
it. That is not objectionable, because of mind.
a very important fact which has to do
with the psychology of the subconscious Printing demands a humility of mind, for
mind. That is that the mental eye focuses the lack of which many of the fine arts
through type and not upon it. The type are even now floundering in self-con-
which, through any arbitrary warping scious and maudlin experiments. There
of design or excess of “colour,” gets in is nothing simple or dull in achieving
the way of the mental picture to be con- the transparent page. Vulgar ostentation
veyed, is a bad type. Our subconscious- is twice as easy as discipline. When you
ness is always afraid of blunders (which realise that ugly typography never effac-
illogical setting, tight spacing and too- es itself; you will be able to capture beau-
wide unleaded lines can trick us into), of ty as the wise men capture happiness
boredom, and of officiousness. The run- by aiming at something else. The ‘stunt
ning headline that keeps shouting at us, typographer’ learns the fickleness of rich
the line that looks like one long word, men who hate to read. Not for them are
the capitals jammed together without long breaths held over serif and kern,
hair-spaces — these mean subconscious they will not appreciate your splitting
squinting and loss of mental focus. of hair- spaces. Nobody (save the other
craftsmen) will appreciate half your skill.
But you may spend endless years of hap-
And if what I have said is true of book py experiment in devising that crystalline
printing, even of the most exquisite limit- goblet which is worthy to hold the vin-
ed editions, it is fifty times more obvious tage of the human mind.
in advertising, where the one and only
justification for the purchase of space is
that you are conveying a message — that
you are implanting a desire, straight into
the mind of the reader. It is tragically
easy to throw away half the reader-in-

Ana Logar, Tipografija II, 2019/2020, 2. naloga: The Crystal Goblet