ate in 1995 my good friend Dave Farey told me he had acquired certain rights to the Golden Cockerel typefaces that Eric Gill had designed in 1929. He asked me if ITC would be interested in marketing them. Unlike Dave, I was barely aware of these types--a somewhat small showing of Golden Cockerel Roman in a 1962 copy of The Encyclopaedia of Type Faces was my only point of reference. It was explained that Gill had been commissioned by Robert Gibbings, proprietor of the Golden Cockerel Press and an accomplished wood engraver, to design a typeface for a special edition of the Four Gospels (New Testament). Apparently his brief was to produce a design that would harmonise with the style of wood engravings with which Gibbings intended to illustrate the book.
Caslon Old Face was the typeface normally used by the private presses of the day but Gibbings felt it a little too delicate for this project which required type of a more substantial nature. Because Gill saw that much of the elegance of the roman he had designed for the main text was lost in larger sizes, he reworked his original drawings, reducing the weight of both horizontal and vertical strokes, to develop a titling font for use in the production of the book at 24 point and 36 point. In addition to these, an italic, which was attributed to Gill, was also designed but never actually used by the Golden Cockerel Press in the production of the Four Gospels. This series of types was to be the first that Gill had undertaken as a fully-fledged type designer and the first in which he had full control: assuming responsibility that his drawings were converted to metal, sized on the body, spaced correctly and tested in page formats.
I realised the historical significance of these faces but would they be appropriate for contemporary typography set on a computer? The truly classic style and generous proportions of the roman and its ‘robust nature’, as Gill described it, left me in no doubt that the answer was most certainly yes. With the ITC Review Board expressing similar enthusiastic views, I told Dave Farey that ITC was indeed interested and work on the project began almost immediately.
It was agreed that Dave and his partner, Richard Dawson at HouseStyle Graphics, would be responsible for design development and I would art direct. As it transpired, it was an almost redundant role for me, Dave having graduated from the ‘Letraset school of type design excellence’ where sensitive interpretation of enlargements direct from cast type originals and well-honed drawing skills were a pre-requisite for sustained employment.
In addition, at our disposal for consultation we were most fortunate to have printing historian John Dreyfus, Sebastian Carter, designer and proprietor of the Rampant Lions Press, and James Mosley, Chief Librarian at the St Bride Printing Library, all three of whom are leading authorities on Gill and the private press movement.
The first task was to source the very best references available from the original cast type founts. Sebastian Carter had had exclusive use of the Golden Cockerel roman and titling versions at the Rampant Lions Press since 1974. He duly responded to our request, supplying a number of ‘pulls’ from the 18 point roman and the 24 point and 36 point titling on a variety of papers for study so that comparisons with the original letterpress printing on hand-made dampened paper could take place.
During further research at London’s St Bride Printing Library, we learned from James Mosley that the Library had a small case of the 14 point italic lower case in its possession. No capitals were designed because it was intended that the lower case italic should be used in the same way as the first italic types of the 15th and 16th century, with roman capitals. Needless to say, a set of italic capitals would be required for today’s market.
Although they were not in such good condition as the roman and titling founts, letterpress proofs of the italic were taken and, together with the roman and titling, enlarged for analysis to provide the basis from which Dave Farey would produce the finished drawings for digitising. Before work proper commenced, one further piece of research was undertaken: we had been told by John Dreyfus that the original patterns and matrices of the type manufactured by H.W. Caslon and Co. Ltd. for the Golden Cockerel Press were kept in the vaults of the Cambridge University Library. In order to confirm that our interpretation of the originals was accurate, Dave visited the Library where he took measurements of the metal masters and made visual comparisons with the letterpress references and some initial drawings he had produced.
Confident that all avenues of research had now been explored, work began in earnest on the digital development of these fonts. We started with the roman which, given the excellent quality of the original pulls, left little to do in terms of interpretational decision making. I, perhaps for my own peace of mind more than anything else, emphasised on more than one occasion the importance of capturing accurately the beautiful shallow curves and the unrestrained manner in which the straight line of the stems gently flow into them--a feature I felt was very much a Gill trademark. However, I need not have worried, Dave and Richard captured everything perfectly.
Much more consideration was required to correct the inconsistencies within the titling font caused, apparently, by some indifferent work during the creation of the original matrices. Working under advice from Sebastian Carter, all of the inconsistencies were addressed and eventually corrected whilst sensitively retaining the overall integrity of the original.
When the roman and titling fonts neared completion, work began on the creation of the italic capitals. Once again this could only start after a careful study of Gill’s other typefaces, lettering projects and engraved lettering in stone, to ensure the capitals would be truly representative of Gill’s work and therefore provide an effective complement to the lower case. Again, Dave and Richard rose to the challenge, and similarly as before, I was almost a redundant observer. I did, I recall, manage some input which related to the top curves of the D, P and R that were, I felt, a little ‘flat’. This minor flaw, as the final designs will testify, was duly addressed and corrected.
After almost four months, work on these three typefaces neared completion. All that was left was some basic design work to complete the full font complement and the testing of the typefaces in text settings to ensure these new digital versions were an accurate interpretation of the metal originals, both in the ‘look’ of the characters and the way they were spaced. Time then for Dave and myself to turn our attention to the last phase of the project: the development of an original set of initial letters and a set of ornaments that would make up the content of the fourth and final font, leaving Richard to do the typeface tests.
For the initials, the main objective was to produce a set of letters that would work, not only with the typefaces in the traditional manner, but on their own in limited pieces of word settings. With their exuberant flourished serifs and splendid Lombardic stresses, it is quite obvious that the source of inspiration comes directly from Gill¼s wood engraved letters that form an integral part of the illustrations in the Four Gospels. However, to achieve our objective the letters needed to be both heavier than the originals and redesigned to regularise the widths. A somewhat demanding task, especially when the very essence, or beauty, of the originals is based on their slender, free-flowing elegance.
Whilst Dave was flexing his creative muscles on this task, I had begun to think about the selection for a set of ornaments. The basic idea for these really came from the spacing and line filler devices that Gill had designed and used within the text of the Four Gospels, and from an exquisite leaf pattern designed by Will Carter which adorned the front cover of Alan Tarling’s book Will Carter, Printer, An Illustrated Study. Visits to the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, together with a fine collection of published references amassed at the HouseStyle studio on the life and works of Gill, convinced me that there was indeed a rich vein of material from which to draw upon for the development of an original series of ornaments.
However, if selection was to be representational of all areas of Gill’s repertoire, it was apparent that the fine detail in some of the engraved works meant that, unlike the type, it wasn’t going to be possible to produce faithful reproductions of all the originals in digital form. Indeed, only photographs were available for motifs taken from his stone carvings, so end results at best could only be an interpretation. This said, a great deal of care was taken to ensure that the less complex devices were accurate renditions of the original printed source. Final selection for the collection also included some pieces influenced by others, notably Robert Gibbings and, of course, Will Carter’s ‘leaf’ motifs. Despite all this, embellishments taken from nature and mythology such as the mulberry tree, the Welsh Dragon and the motif used in the Canterbury Tales described by Gill as ‘the inadequate fig leaf’, together with a number of devices and illustrations along an ecclesiastical theme, ensure the collection is unmistakably Gill in essence and in spirit.
Finally, almost abruptly it seemed, the Golden Cockerel project was completed and time to pass the originals to others for the final manufacturing stages. For me it brought to a close a most interesting, enjoyable and rewarding experience. I looked forward with eager anticipation to my regular visits to London where Dave and Richard always had something new to show me. Their enthusiasm was infectious and it was not difficult for me to become a Gill ‘convert’, whereas previously, I had been more an Oldrich Menhart and Imre Reiner disciple.
On reflection, much had been achieved: a digital version based on the original Golden Cockerel Roman in which great care was taken to ensure that the ‘heavy closely massing type’ as Gill had described it, was an accurate interpretation of the images created when printed letterpress on heavy, hand-made dampened paper. A titling font in which the inconsistencies were sensitively eliminated to provide a much improved appearance. A set of italic capitals that were designed and which provide an ideal complement to the original metal lower case, thus ensuring more widespread application. And, for the first time, a truly stunning set of initial letters and ornaments that, as Dave Farey described them, ‘carry the master¼s fingerprint’.
Colin Brignall is a type designer with a number of popular typefaces to his credit. He was also Letraset’s type director from 1980 until 1995, responsible for the content of the dry transfer ranges and more recently, the award-winning Fontek Library of Digital Type. Brignall is now a type consultant with International Typeface Corporation.
Dave Farey trained at Letraset in the early 1960s. He is currently type adviser to a group of publishing houses. He has designed alphabets and letterforms for twenty-five years and has contributed articles to typographic journals.
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Look at samples of the typefaces:
ITC Golden Cockerel™ Roman
ITC Golden Cockerel™ Italic
ITC Golden Cockerel™ Titling
ITC Golden Cockerel™ Initials and Ornaments