This Just In: Linotype Master Drawings

Luke Freeman

Really great article thought I’d share from Letterform Archive

Once threatened by dispersal, over 60,000 letter templates from the British Linotype company now have a home at Letterform Archive. Written by Stephen Coles

https://letterformarchive.org/news/linotype-drawings

Kent Lew

One thing that some folks here might be interested to note: the British L&M (Linotype & Machinery) drawings are likely to vary subtly from corresponding drawings by the American MLCo (Mergenthaler Linotype Co.) of the same face & size.

In particular, MLCo consistently applied Standard alignment throughout their library, whereas L&M did not adopt Standard alignment until later and apparently did not apply it as consistently.

I have a photocopy of a letter from C.H. Griffith to Jackson Burke that touches on this topic and mentions a few specific examples.

I pointed this out in a note I sent to Stephen. In that message, I said that I thought this was less likely to be true of American designs sent to L&M as it would be for British designs coming to MLCo, where they would have been redrawn to conform.

But, I just took a closer look at those few Electra images posted with the news release, and they don’t seem to conform to standard alignment. So L&M might have been in the habit of redrawing American designs on different alignment for their market as well.

I don’t have any copies of MLCo drawings of Electra in my collection, so I can’t compare directly. But the dimensions that I see don’t jibe with the table of Standard alignments that I have.

The practical result of these differences would be seen in subtly different ascender & descender heights between equivalent faces from the two manufacturers.

Stephen Coles

Thanks, Kent! I have been gathering info about how the drawings differ between the two companies. 

I have also been wondering why some of the L&M drawings are right-reading. (See the Caledonia, Electra, and Metro in the blog post.) This does not seem to correspond to any specific period. This, unfortunately, is what made many of these individual drawings appealing to retail customers as wall art.

Kent Lew

I have no idea why some would be right-reading. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern among what you’ve posted (an admittedly small sample). But, for instance, the Electra italic is reverse, as I would have expected.