Wood Type Posters: 19th century and Today

The history of the wood type letterpress poster begins around 1828 with Darius Wells' development of wood type--a welcomed alternative to metal type which was only successful and practical for smaller-size print productions. As the demand for large-scale posters grew, so did the need for larger size type. Wood type could be made at any size, without the problems associated with creating large-scale metal type, such as surface unevenness due to uneven cooling of poured metal, the heavy weight of the type, and the overall expense of its creation. As I mentioned, the development of wood type solved these and other problems for printers. Below are some examples of both 19th and 21st century posters.

19th Century Posters

This (left) undated 19th century poster uses a variety of typefaces that make the poster chaotic and overwhelming to the viewer. The emphasis of this piece appears to be the word 'Gems' since it is both the the largest size and the lightest value text on the poster. The typeface used for 'Gems' seems to be a decorative version of a serif fat-face font and is used only once on the poster. Other fat-face fonts are also seen on this poster including regular and wide versions. Egyptian serif fonts are also used in both wide and regular versions. The poster also includes Egyptian sans serif fonts in regular and condensed types. 'The Secret' is printed in a variation on Robert Besley's type design that was an early form of Clarendon, as described by Meggs (p.136).

This poster is a later 19th century example of a wood type poster dated 1870. This poster contains about six or seven different fonts and font variations including both serif and sans serif fonts. The top font is a condensed Egyptian serif font, or at least a form of one, as classified by the abrupt, geometric serifs. This font shows up in other parts of the poster as well, including some less important textual information as well as the most prominent text in the piece, ‘Aurora Floyd.’ The second most important information is printed in again an Egyptian font, but as a sans serif instead of a serif. The most prominent sans serif type is used for ‘Friday Evening,’ as well as the names of the stars of the show. The regular (non-condensed) version of the Egyptian sans serif can be seen in the third line of type. So far I have counted four different type styles for the poster: Egyptian serif, both condensed and regular, and Egyptian sans-serif, both condensed and regular. A fifth type style on this poster is a fat face type style, as is evidenced by the thick-thin contrast with the strong, triangular serifs. This style is found on the second and fourth lines of type and is used when referencing the ‘Corps de Ballet’ near the middle and at the bottom of the poster. The next type used is the textual serif, possibly a Caslon or Garamond font or something similar. The text of this page is arranged in horizontal lines of information, each individual line using the same type throughout the line (except for ‘Ada Hart as Aurora Floyd’ where ‘as’ is a different typeface). The type style also changes from line to line, further separated by lines, making it difficult for the piece to have a strong cohesion. Emphasis is difficult to determine because there is so much text and so many different type styles and fonts, even if some are related. The fact that most of the type is the same weight also makes it difficult to find the emphasis as it all blends together.

The final 19th century poster, dated 1888, is much more visually organized than the 1870 poster described above. The designer limited the typeface palette to only two or three main typefaces, with perhaps a fourth used for textual information at the bottom of the poster. This poster has a clear emphasis, located at the top of the poster as opposed to the bottom half as in the prior example. The designer listed the most important information in descending order, and the less imperative the information, the less space and the lower its hierarchy in the organization. The poster is still sectioned off with lines as in the previous pieces, but maintains its unity due to the strong sense of hierarchy established in the design. The type used includes a regular Egyptian serif and a condensed version, as well as a couple versions of a fat face type. The textual information is done in a serif font, but I am not sure what kind.

Today's Wood Type Posters

This is an example of a modern-day wood type poster, one obviously created to advertise a community event, sharing a common purpose with the 19th century posters previously discussed. This poster is interesting compared to the previous posters in that it uses mostly sans-serif type where the old posters use mostly serif. In this poster, the sans-serif type is used for the main textual information--the part that is meant to stand out most--while the secondary information is done in serif fonts. In the 19th century posters, the serif fonts are used for primary information, while sans serif fonts were used f0r secondary information. This poster also uses several typefaces including a sans-serif used consistently throughout the piece for emphasized information, a serif for secondary and textual information, Cooper Black for 'Old Frenchtown Field,' and another used for some of the textual information that I cannot remember the name of (but I know I've seen it before). In layout, this piece is similar to the older posters in that it uses line dividers to separate part of the information, but they are used only to frame 'Frenchtown Community Day.' This piece is much more organized than the older posters, as it organizes the information in hierarchical order, making it much easier to quickly grasp the poster's message.

This poster shows the difference in how type is treated today in graphic design versus how it was treated in poster design of the 19th century. In this modern poster, type is treated not only as a communication tool, but as a design element. The way the text interacts makes the piece visually interesting but not in a way that is distracting from the ad's message.