LANSTON FONT | FORUM TITLE FONT

¶ WHILE WORKING ON MY WELLS BOOK LAYOUT, I felt it would be well to have a heading letter for the titles of the different stories and for use on the title-page. I remembered that when in Rome with my wife in 1910 I had been struck with the inscriptional letters on the Trajan Column, on the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, and on stray marble slabs. From one of these slabs I had gotten an interesting rubbing of three or four beautiful capitals, which suggested to me a basis for my new heading letter. With these rubbings to suggest the weight of stems, movement etc., I began the drawings, not trying, however, to copy or imitate them, or in fact any particular inscriptional letter, but simply to get into my drawings something of the feeling of the monumental characters evolved by the stone-cutters of ancient Rome. It was to be an alphabet of capitals only, for lower-case letters didn't come into existence for several hundred years after Roman times. In a sense, therefore, Forum Title is a composite letter: it is, however, original in design. It was not copied from any existing inscription: while it does indeed incorporate a number of features common to all the classic lapidary forms of the first centuries of the Christian Era, no inscription exists that will exactly suggest the face as finally cut in type.

Stanley Morison said of Forum Title that "it is a very handsome letter," and Bruce Rogers, in his article on the "Progress of Modern Printing in the United States' for the London Times Printing Number in 1912, was kind enough to say that" [Goudy] has already produced one or two fonts distinguished by their successful rendering of classic feeling. Of these the capitals known as 'Forum' are the most beautiful, and have been widely used and imitated." Both the Kennerley and Forum drawings were made within one week's time.

That Forum is a patented face did not deter one type founder from putting out a copy under a different name. When Forum was first offered to printers generally I was amused when a man walked into my office on Madison Avenue one morning and asked "is this the place that sells Forum type?" I said it was, and showed him a specimen sheet of the sizes I could furnish. He picked out several fonts and asked to have them wrapped up. The bill amounted to some thirty dollars, and as he didn't have a particularly prosperous look I was surprised when he produced a roll of bills at least two inches in diameter tied with string, from which he handed me the amount of my bill. I asked if he had a card, so I could keep a record of the transaction, and he handed me one of cheap pasted circus bristol, set in five or six types of the 80's. I have often wondered what he wanted my type for, but alas! I have never seen him since.

The Lanston Monotype Company has the sole reproduction rights in this country and the Caslons in London own the English and continental rights to the face. The face sold well and is still selling after thirty-odd years on the market.