CENTAUR Bruce Rogers

“I have often been asked what I think of CENTAUR ...My opinion, then, is whatever its intrinsic merits may be, it is too definitely

AN ITALIAN RENAISSANCE LETTER, which I have tried to suggest by the classic column in my initial drawing. It is a little

TOO ELEGANT AND THIN FOR,OUR MODERN PAPERS AND METHODS OF PRINTING and seen at its best when printed on dampened hand-made or other antique papers, with more

impressions than you can ordinarily get a pressman to put on it. The three qualities [named] sharp, hard, and definite, are no doubt admirable ones in their place; but

Centaur does not take them too readily and naturally, and profits most when somewhat carelessly printed on paper that wouldn’t be passed as perfect in any modern paper mill.”

BRUCE ROGERS, 1949

BRUCE ROGERSAN AMERICAN TYPOGRAPHER

1870-1957

Albert Bruce Rogers, called “B.R.” by friends, was “one of the greatest artificers of the book who ever lived,”1 according to Francis Meynell, the founder of the Nonesuch Press. Rogers was born in Lafayette, Indiana in 1870, and is among the best-known and well-regarded typographers of the twentieth century. He designed some of the finest books ever made, such as the Oxford Lectern Bible, The Centaur, T.E. Lawrence’s famous translation of The Odyssey of Homer, and Fra Luca de Pacioli. If it were not for his typeface, Centaur he would be best remembered as one of America’s greatest book designers. However his design of Centaur placed him among the ranks of America’s great type designers as well.3

From 1896 through 1900, Rogers worked as a book designer at Houghton Mifflin in Boston. There he developed his hallmark style, which, according to his biographer, was characterized by a “direct and forthright approach, a subtle lightness in the seemingly easy placement of words on a page, and above all, a sense of order. Rogers believed that books were meant to be read; his were rarely precious or flamboyant; never objects d’art to be preserved behind glass.”5

In 1900, Houghton Mifflin created a Depart-ment of Special Collections and Rogers was placed in charge of the design and productions of limited edition books. The projects produced by the department were printed exclusively with metal type and not electrotype plates. In his new position, Rogers had complete freedom of conception, design, use of materials, and choice of printing.

2

Left: Title page from The Centaur Types, The October House, 1949

Right: detail of page from The Centaur, The Montague Press, 1916

Next Page: 72 pt metal type Centaur for the letterpress

3

4

FROM BOOKSTO TYPE

ORIGINS OF THE TYPEFACE

Rogers’s first attempt at type design, around 1903, resulted in the Montaigne face. Nicolas Jenson’s 15th century types served as inspiration for Roger’s typeface. “At an exhibition of books at the Boston Public Library, I saw for the first time a copy of Nicolas Jenson’s Eusebius of 1470,” he later recalled. “I was at once impressed by the loveliness of its page, indifferently printed though as they were. The early judgment was confirmed for me many years later (though by then it needed no confirmation) when Berkeley Updike wrote of them: ‘to look at the work of Jenson is to think but of its beauty, and almost to forget that it was made with hands.’”6

In hindsight, it was Rogers’s belief that the Montaigne typeface was not entirely satisfactory. It did, however, pave the way for his next type-face design, produced between 1912 and 1914 and ultimately named Centaur.

In creating Centaur, Rogers once again turned to the work of Jenson and the Da Evangelica Præparatione for inspiration. Rogers thought the design of Centaur to be of historic importance because it exemplified “an original design of cultivation and grace. Because of its classical elegance and its aristocratic Renaissance ancestry, the type calls for special handling. On the other hand, among the devotees of fine printing, the typeface has been accepted as one of the great type designs, and once the cutting was completed for the Monotype machine, it was welcomed by sensitive designers and printers for many of the best books and ephemera.”8

5

Early uses of Centaur were exclusively for the signage and titling work produced at the Metropolitan Museum in New York as well as for Rogers’s personal book projects. It wasn’t until 15 years later in 1929 that a commercial version of Centaur was made available to machine composition by the English Monotype Company.

In 1928, Rogers finally decided to take on the project to create a digital Centaur. He provided Monotype with new drawings specifically for the company’s typesetting machines. Now living in London, Rogers also served as design director, personally editing the proofs of the various font sizes. The process took almost a year, and the new fonts were first used to set The Trained Printer and Amateur in 1929. The most famous use for the type, however, came six years later when a special 22-point size was cast to set the 1,238 page Oxford Lecturn Bible.

Both of Rogers’ earlier versions of Centaur were roman-only designs, but at Rogers’ request, the Monotype version added an italic based on drawings by Frederic Warde. Warde’s italic is an interpretation of the work of the 16th century printer and calligrapher, Ludovico degli Arrighi.M

6

The Happy HypocriteA FAIRY TALE FOR TIRED MEN

The Happy HypocriteA FAIRY TALE FOR TIRED MEN

Opposite Page: detail of the title page of The Happy Hypocrite, John Lane Company, 1922. Designed by Bruce Rogers.

Left:Book, Bag and ExhibitionCatalogues from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today the museum uses a number of digital old-style typefaces that share several characteristics of Roger’s early museum press capitals and other fonts that he used in his book designs.

7

The Happy HypocriteThe Happy Hypocrite

8

A MONOTYPE MASTERWORK

CHARACTERISTICS OF

DIGITAL CENTAUR

In the 1990s, Monotype produced digital fonts based on the original drawings of Rogers and Warde, adding new bold and bold italic weights and a suite of alternate and swash characters. The Centaur type continues to be generally acclaimed as the best revival of Nicolas Jenson’s original design–a true Monotype masterwork.

Centaur an Oldstyle-style typeface is characterized by Roman proportion, organic contrast of line weight—from brush or pen drawing—an angled, or oblique axis in the curved forms: and a small x-height defining the lowercase letters. The font also has large apera-tures and several other defining characteristics, which are displayed on the following page.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV

WXYZ

abcdefghi jk lmnopqrs tuv

wxyz

1234567890!@#$%^&*()-_+=[

]{}; ’ : ” ,< .>?\|

A a OSlab Serif and curved Fillet Large Aperature

The tail of the uppercase J descends below baseline and points down.

The ball of 9 does not close. The bowl of the lowercase e has a diagonal bar.

There is a serif on the center bar of the uppercase E.

The uppercase M’s upper serif of the are single-sided and point outwards.

M J E e 9

9

Diagonal Axis

10

Jj JjCentaur & Adobe Jenson

Centaur & Centaur Italic

COMPARISONSCENTAUR, CENTAUR ITALICS

& ADOBE JENSON

Aa Aa AaForm & Detail

Form & Detail

Centaur 36 pt

Adobe Jenson 36 pt

Centaur Italic 36 pt

JjForm & Detail

11

Both Bruce Roger’s Centaur and Adobe Jenson were inspired by Nicholas Jenson’s1475 Laertis, which is considered the model for the modern Roman alphabet.

The Italic of the Centaur family was designed by Frederic Warde, based on Ludovico Arrighi’s 1520 chancery face.

Centaur Centaur ItalicAdobe Jenson

1 Joseph Blumenthal, Art of the Printed Book 1455-1955 (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973), 48.

2 Joseph Blumenthal, Bruce Rogers: A life in Letters, 1870-1957 (Austin: W.T. Taylor, 1989), 3.

3 “Centaur”. Monotype Imaging. November 10, 2009 <www.fonts.com/FindFonts/HiddenGems/Centaur.htm>.

4 Ibid, 5.

5 Ibid, 10.

6 Ibid, 13.

8 Ibid, 33.

13 Bruce Rogers, The Centaur Type (Chicago: October House, 1949), 13.

All the above taken from:Sheilah M. Barrett, Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classic Typefaces (New York: RC Publications), 72-79.

REFERENCES Carter, Sebastian. Twentieth Century Type Designers. Great Britain: Lund Humphries, 2002 (A&A: Z250 A2 C364 1995 and Vault )

Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style. Vancouver: Hartley and Marks, 1997.(A&A: Z246 B745 1996 and Vault)

Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classic Typefaces, essays by Carolyn Annand ... [et al.]; edited by Philip B. Meggs and Roy McKelvey, New York: RC Publications, 2000.(A&A: Z250.R45 2000)

www.linotype.comwww.fonts.comwww.rightreading.com

BIBLIOGRAHY

This book was created byAlexandra Odiamar

in Typography Fall 2009.Fonts used

in this book include:Titles-Centaur 32pt

Subtitles-Centaur 12 ptBody-Centaur 10 pt

Captions-Centaur 8pt

The Story Behind The Typeface