old school typography

DE FUNKTstijn@defunkt.nuwww.defunkt.nu

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Lier - November 22, 2004

Old school typography

About a year ago, while they were moving, my granddad gave me a bag with a few envelopes in them. He had always worked as a typesetter with a printer. Even after he retired, he had a small press in a shed in the back of the yard. I often saw him adding one lead letter next to the other, meticulously forming a design for a card or magazine.

So, what was in the bag? A lot of the lessons he had followed when he was an apprentice and the test prints he did then. Info (in Dutch) ranges from paper sizes to setting texts in block and more. I decided to compile them into a PDF you can download from the deFUNKT site. It’s something, I’m sure, that will interest every designer. To learn some basics old style or to learn how people learned typography in the past.

In the back, there’s a complete series of test prints he did while he was an apprentice. It gives a good feel of how it was to design with almost only lead type.

Stijn De Lathouwer