Beatrice Warde
Encyclopedia
Beatrice Warde was a communicator on typography
. She was the only daughter of May Lamberton Becker
, a journalist on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune
, and Gustave Becker, composer and teacher.
Beatrice was educated at Barnard College
at Columbia University
. At the age of eleven she had developed a love of calligraphy
, and this grew in her college years to an interest in the history of letter forms. She became acquainted with Bruce Rogers, the typographer, and, on his recommendation, on graduation was appointed to the post, under Henry Lewis Bullen of assistant librarian to the American Type Founders Company
, in Jersey City, where she concentrated on self-education and research. While there she became acquainted with eminent typographers including Daniel Berkeley Updike
and Stanley Morison
, who later played a highly influential part in her professional life.
She remained there from 1921–1925, and in 1922 married Frederic Warde
, printer to Princeton University, a gifted typographic designer, and fully familiar with the possibilities of mechanical typesetting. The Wardes moved to Europe in 1925, but their marriage ended in separation in November 1926, soon followed by an amicable divorce.
design of type, and published the results in The Fleuron under the pen-name Paul Beaujon. Beatrice Warde recalled she had given 'Paul Beaujon' persona 'a man of long grey beard, four grandchildren, a great interest in antique furniture and a rather vague address in Montparesse.'
After publishing her discovery of Garamond's origin, "Paul Beaujon" was in 1927 offered the part-time post of editor of the Monotype Recorder, and Warde accepted—to the astonishment of Lanston Monotype Corporation
executives in London, who were expecting a man. She was promoted to publicity manager in about 1929, a post she retained until her retirement in 1960 on her 60th birthday. She thought of herself as an outsider, working in a man's world, but she gained respect for her work and her personal qualities.
NOT TO VARY WITH THE WRITER'S HAND
BUT FIXED IN TIME HAVING BEEN VERIFIED IN PROOF
FRIEND YOU STAND ON SACRED GROUND
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
. She was the only daughter of May Lamberton Becker
May Lamberton Becker
May Lamberton Becker was a journalist and literary critic. She was born in New York and at the age of 20 she married the pianist and composer Gustave A. Becker in 1893. Their only daughter Beatrice was born September 20, 1900. By 1908 the marriage had broken up and later ended in divorce...
, a journalist on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
, and Gustave Becker, composer and teacher.
Beatrice was educated at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. At the age of eleven she had developed a love of calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
, and this grew in her college years to an interest in the history of letter forms. She became acquainted with Bruce Rogers, the typographer, and, on his recommendation, on graduation was appointed to the post, under Henry Lewis Bullen of assistant librarian to the American Type Founders Company
American Type Founders
American Type Founders was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85% of all type manufactured in the United States...
, in Jersey City, where she concentrated on self-education and research. While there she became acquainted with eminent typographers including Daniel Berkeley Updike
Daniel Berkeley Updike
Daniel Berkeley Updike was an American printer and historian of typography.Updike was born at Providence, Rhode Island. In 1880 he joined the publishers Houghton, Mifflin & Company, of Boston as an errand boy. He worked for the firm's Riverside Press and trained as a printer but soon moved to...
and Stanley Morison
Stanley Morison
Stanley Morison was an English typographer, designer and historian of printing.Born in Wanstead, Essex, Morison spent most of his childhood and early adult years at the family home in Fairfax Road, Harringay...
, who later played a highly influential part in her professional life.
She remained there from 1921–1925, and in 1922 married Frederic Warde
Frederic Warde
Frederic Warde was a typographic designer. He was born in Wells, Minnesota, enlisted in the United States Army in 1915 and attended the Army School of Military Aeronautics at the University of California, Berkeley during 1917-1918...
, printer to Princeton University, a gifted typographic designer, and fully familiar with the possibilities of mechanical typesetting. The Wardes moved to Europe in 1925, but their marriage ended in separation in November 1926, soon followed by an amicable divorce.
Monotype employment
Beatrice Warde spent time investigating the origins of the GaramondGaramond
Garamond is the name given to a group of old-style serif typefaces named after the punch-cutter Claude Garamond . Most of the Garamond faces are more closely related to the work of a later punch-cutter, Jean Jannon...
design of type, and published the results in The Fleuron under the pen-name Paul Beaujon. Beatrice Warde recalled she had given 'Paul Beaujon' persona 'a man of long grey beard, four grandchildren, a great interest in antique furniture and a rather vague address in Montparesse.'
After publishing her discovery of Garamond's origin, "Paul Beaujon" was in 1927 offered the part-time post of editor of the Monotype Recorder, and Warde accepted—to the astonishment of Lanston Monotype Corporation
Monotype Corporation
Monotype Imaging Holdings is a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts and specializing in typesetting and typeface design as well as text and imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,...
executives in London, who were expecting a man. She was promoted to publicity manager in about 1929, a post she retained until her retirement in 1960 on her 60th birthday. She thought of herself as an outsider, working in a man's world, but she gained respect for her work and her personal qualities.
The Monotype years
NOT TO PERISH ON WAVES OF SOUNDNOT TO VARY WITH THE WRITER'S HAND
BUT FIXED IN TIME HAVING BEEN VERIFIED IN PROOF
FRIEND YOU STAND ON SACRED GROUND
This period saw the Anglo-American "Typographic Renaissance", since type-casting machines such as the Monotype and the Linotype
Linotype machine
The Linotype typesetting machine is a "line casting" machine used in printing. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o'-type, a significant improvement over manual typesetting....
permitted the revival of historic type faces, and the design of new ones. The Monotype was particularly suited to this work since the types were cast individually, permitting letter fit on par with hand-set type.
The Monotype Corporation had appointed Stanley Morison
Stanley Morison
Stanley Morison was an English typographer, designer and historian of printing.Born in Wanstead, Essex, Morison spent most of his childhood and early adult years at the family home in Fairfax Road, Harringay...
as typographic advisor in 1923, and he used the Monotype Recorder and Monotype Newsletter—the firm's main advertising mediums—as a vehicle for publicising new designs. Morison instigated the production of Monotype broadside
Broadside (printing)
A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side only. Historically, broadsides were posters, announcing events or proclamations, or simply advertisements...
s displaying the full range of a new design in multiple sizes, which could serve as sales literature for printers to show their customers, or be framed for display in their reception rooms. Among the designers whose work the corporation adopted were Eric Gill
Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...
. His Gill Sans
Gill Sans
Gill Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill.The original design appeared in 1926 when Douglas Cleverdon opened a bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where Eric Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif capitals that would later be known as Gill Sans...
of 1928 was widely acclaimed and was followed in 1932 by Perpetua titling capitals, modelled on the lettering on Trajan's Column
Trajan's Column
Trajan's Column is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, which commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate. It is located in Trajan's Forum, built near...
in Rome. Beatrice Warde penned her famous broadside This is a Printing Office, to show this typeface off. It has since been found on the walls of numerous printing offices, has been cast in bronze and is mounted at the entrance to the United States Government Printing Office
United States Government Printing Office
The United States Government Printing Office is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States federal government. The office prints documents produced by and for the federal government, including the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Executive Office of the President, executive...
in Washington, D. C., has been translated into numerous languages and has been parodied.
Other works
In addition to her work with the Monotype Corporation, Warde devoted much time after her retirement to the education of apprentices, tirelessly lecturing at schools of printing, inspiring them to become design-conscious craftsmen.Her achievement
Alan Hutt (see reference) wrote in 1969:- She was an original typographical scholar of the first rank (the 'Paul Beaujon' Garamond and other studies in The Fleuron and The Monotype Recorder); she was a practicing typographer of sure taste and a calligrapher of elegance; for over 30 years she was a brilliant editor of the Recorder and the Monotype Newsletter, as part of her devoted service to The Monotype Corporation as its publicity manager; she was Stanley Morison's inseparable and incomparable lieutenant in the great work of Britain's typographical renaissance; she was beyond peer as a public expositor, and propagandist for, good typography.
Beatrice Warde's writings
The more important ones on printing are listed in 'I am a Communicator' (see reference below)Books
- An American in England (Pen name of Warde), Enjoying England: A book about an enchanted Island, published by the LNER, 1931
- Compiler of Token of Freedom c 1940, (An anthology given to every child who was evacuated to North America during World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
) - The Crystal Goblet: sixteen essays on typography, 1955
- During World War 2 she also contributed to American Outpost Newsletter, and her mother featured her letters about London in the New York Herald TribuneNew York Herald TribuneThe New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
Articles
- "Type Faces, Old and New" in The Library, Fourth Series Vol. XVI. No. 2, September, 1935 p. 121-143.