{"id":2737,"date":"2013-04-22T11:50:51","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T11:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/22\/angles_on_the_h\/"},"modified":"2019-08-08T13:13:16","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T17:13:16","slug":"angles_on_the_h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/22\/angles_on_the_h\/","title":{"rendered":"Angles on the head of a pin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>An old foundry trick<\/strong> for showing off the precision of punch-cutting and typecasting abilities is to make something at a breathtakingly small size. This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.typophile.com\/node\/102099\" target=\"blank\" title=\"Calypso PF free download\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Typophile discussion<\/a> about <a href=\"http:\/\/typofonderie.com\/gazette\/post\/roger-excoffon-a-part-of-the-mythology-of-french-typography\/\" title=\"Roger Excoffon, a part of the mythology of French typography\">Roger Excoffon<\/a>\u2019s beautiful, bonkers typeface <a href=\"http:\/\/www.letterfountain.com\/extras_e.html#C000\">Calypso<\/a> reminded me to dig out Monotype\u2019s own example of punch-cutting prowess: the Lord\u2019s Prayer on a 12-point square piece of type:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Lord's Prayer\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/cam\/lords_prayer.jpg\" height=\"480\" vspace=\"5\"><\/p>\n<p>According tot he accompanying leaflet, each letter measures .008 inch from top to bottom. Monotype&#8217;s manufacturing methods were famously precise, holding tolerances down to .0001 inch. Those tolerances at every stage are part of the showmanship here. Producing a piece of type with such fine detail is the last stage of a process that starts with a 10-inch drawing that  is reduced to a 4-inch copper pattern that is reduced to a full-size steel punch that is struck into a brass matrix that is used to cast the lead type. And that&#8217;s just the bare-bones explanation of what&#8217;s involved.<\/p>\n<p>A sharp eye will notice that the text on the face of the piece of type is right-reading, while a typical piece of type will be in reverse so that it prints properly. This small piece of lead was meant to be seen through a magnifying glass, a bit of showing off \u2014 not for printing. If you look at a printed sample through the same magnifier, you can see that printing the type was much a much sloppier affair than cutting or casting it:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Lord's Prayer printed\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/cam\/lords_prayer_print.jpg\" vspace=\"5\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The Lord's Prayer sample\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/cam\/IMG_1357.jpg\" vspace=\"5\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IMG_1358.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/cam\/IMG_1358.jpg\" vspace=\"5\"><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A look at another version of that leaflet, including the explanatory text:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Marvels 1.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/img\/Marvels%201.jpg\" width=\"100%\" vspace=\"5\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Marvels 2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/img\/Marvels%202.jpg\" width=\"100%\" vspace=\"5\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Marvels 3.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/img\/Marvels%203.jpg\" width=\"100%\" vspace=\"5\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Marvels 4.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/img\/Marvels%204.jpg\" width=\"100%\" vspace=\"5\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An old foundry trick for showing off the precision of punch-cutting and typecasting abilities is to make something at a breathtakingly small size. This Typophile discussion about Roger Excoffon\u2019s beautiful, bonkers typeface Calypso reminded me to dig out Monotype\u2019s own example of punch-cutting prowess: the Lord\u2019s Prayer on a 12-point square piece of type: According &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/22\/angles_on_the_h\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Angles on the head of a pin&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultratypographic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2848,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions\/2848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}