![De Vinne 1876 - Punch and matrix](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/De_Vinne_1876_-_Punch_and_matrix.jpg)
Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional
typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), ...
to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making
metal type
In typesetting, a sort or type is a block with a typographic character etched on it, which is lined up with others to print text. In movable-type printing, the sort or type is cast from a matrix mold and assembled by hand with other sorts be ...
.
Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp
matrices
Matrix most commonly refers to:
* ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise
** ''The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film
** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchis ...
into copper, which were locked into a mould shape to
cast type. Cutting punches and
casting
Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...
type was the first step of traditional
typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...
.
The cutting of letter punches was a highly skilled craft requiring much patience and practice. Often the designer of the type would not be personally involved in the cutting.
The initial design for type would be two-dimensional, but a
punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
has depth, and the three-dimensional shape of the punch, as well as factors such as the angle and depth to which it was driven into the
matrix, would affect the appearance of the type on the page. The angle of the side of the punch was particularly significant.
Process
![Cutting a punch for a Qu ligature](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Cutting_a_punch_for_a_Qu_ligature.jpg)
The punchcutter begins by transferring the outline of a letter design to one end of a steel bar. The outer shape of the punch could be cut directly, but the internal curves of a small punch were particularly difficult as it was necessary to cut deep enough and straight into the metal. While this can be done with cutting tools, a counterpunch, a type of punch used in the cutting of other punches, was often used to create the
negative space
Negative space, in art, is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and s ...
in or around a
glyph.
A counterpunch could be used to create this negative space, not just where the space was completely enclosed by the letter, but in any concavity (e.g., above and below the midbar in uppercase "H").
Of course, the counterpunch had to be harder than the punch itself. This was accomplished by
annealing (softening) the punch blank, and
hardening and
tempering the counterpunch. Such a tool solved two issues, one technical and one
aesthetic, that arose in punchcutting.
Often the same counterpunch could be used for several letters in a
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are thousands o ...
. For example, the negative space inside an uppercase "
P" and "
R" is usually very similar, and with the use of a counterpunch, they could be nearly identical. Counterpunches were regularly used in this way to give typefaces a more consistent look. The counterpunch would be struck into the face of the punch. The outer form of the letter is then shaped using files.
To test the punch, the punchcutter makes an imprint on a piece of paper after coating the punch with soot from an open flame. The
soot
Soot ( ) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolysed ...
left by the flame acts like ink to create an image on the paper (a smoke proof).
Once the punches are ready a
mold
A mold () or mould () is one of the structures certain fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of spores containing fungal secondary metabolites. The spores are the dispersal units of the fungi. Not ...
could then be created from the punch by using the punch on a softer metal (such as
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
) to create a
matrix. Then,
type metal
In printing, type metal refers to the metal alloys used in traditional typefounding and hot metal typesetting. Historically, type metal was an alloy of lead, tin and antimony in different proportions depending on the application, be it individ ...
, an
alloy
An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductilit ...
of
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
,
antimony
Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
, and
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
, flows into the matrix to produce a single piece of type, ready for typesetting.
One characteristic of type metal that makes it valuable for this use is that it expands as it cools (
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
,
silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ta ...
and
bismuth
Bismuth is a chemical element with the symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs ...
are other substances that expand on freezing), keeping the accurate dimensions of letters. This characteristic is shared by the
bronze used to cast
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
s, but copper-based alloys generally have melting points that are too high to be convenient for typesetting.
Punched matrices were not easy to create for large fonts since it was hard to drive large punches evenly. Alternative methods such as casting type or matrices in sand, plaster or lead were used for these.
From the nineteenth century, several new technologies began to appear that displaced manual punchcutting.
Punchcutters
During the early years of printing, during which the craft and tastes were rapidly evolving, printers often cut or commissioned their own punches.
Many early printers entered the trade from metalworking and would therefore have had the skills to cut their own types:
Johannes Gutenberg came from a metalworking background, as did
Nicolas Jenson. As the sale of type evolved into a major, separate trade, punchcutting became a craft principally practiced by the owners or employees of type foundries, or sometimes specialised itinerant craftsmen.
The technique of punchcutting is similar to that used in other precision metalworking professions such as cutting dies to make coins, and many punchcutters entered the trade from these fields: for instance sixteenth-century theologian
Jean de Gagny when commissioning types for his private press in the 1540s, hired Charles Chiffin, known to have previously practiced as a goldsmith.
Among the most famous punchcutters,
Robert Granjon
Robert Granjon (1513-November 16, 1589/March 1590) was a French type designer and printer. He worked in Paris, Lyon, Frankfurt, Antwerp, and Rome for various printers. He is best known for having introduced the typeface Civilité and for his ita ...
began as the apprentice to a jeweller, although
Claude Garamond
Claude Garamont (–1561), known commonly as Claude Garamond, was a French type designer, publisher and punch-cutter based in Paris. Garamond worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp matrices, the moulds used to cast metal ty ...
wrote of cutting type since his childhood.
Also
Christoffel van Dijck
Christoffel van Dijck (c. 1600-5, Dexheim – November 1669, Amsterdam) was a German-born Dutch punchcutter and typefounder, who cut punches and operated a foundry for casting metal type. Van Dijck's type was widely used at a time when Amsterda ...
was trained as a goldsmith in
Frankenthal
Frankenthal (Pfalz) ( pfl, Frongedahl) is a town in southwestern Germany, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
History
Frankenthal was first mentioned in 772. In 1119 an Augustinian monastery was built here, the ruins of which — known, af ...
.
In the eighteenth century,
William Caslon
William Caslon I (1692/1693 – 23 January 1766), also known as William Caslon the Elder,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was an English typefounder. The distinction and legibility of his type secured him the patronage of the leading ...
took up the craft from engraving ornamental designs on firearms and bookbinders' tools.
A less common background was that of
Miklós Tótfalusi Kis
Miklós Tótfalusi Kis ( hu, Misztótfalusi Kis Miklós) (1650 - March 20, 1702) was a Hungarian letter cutter, typeface designer, typographer and printer. Kis was one of the first printers and letter cutters of the Georgian type letters. He ma ...
, who began his career as a schoolmaster before paying to learn punchcutting while in the Netherlands to print a Hungarian bible.
There was apparently a drop in the number of engravers active in seventeenth-century France compared to the sixteenth, probably due to economic reasons and a saturation of the market with high-quality typefaces cut in the previous century;
Pierre-Simon Fournier
Pierre-Simon Fournier (15 September 1712 – 8 October 1768) was a French mid-18th century punch-cutter, typefounder and typographic theoretician. He was both a collector and originator of types. Fournier's contributions to printing were his cre ...
commented that knowledge of the technique in France degenerated after the sixteenth century to the point that "a man could hardly be found to cut the JJ consonants and UU vowels when the use of them was introduced into France".
The process of punchcutting was apparently sometimes treated as a
trade secret
Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily ...
due to its difficulty and sometimes passed on from father to son. William Caslon was an example of this, according to Nichols teaching his son his methods privately while locked in a room where nobody could watch them.
Manual punchcutting was a slow process that required expertise. It has been estimated that the work rate of experienced punchcutters was about one letter per day.
Some testimony to the London Society of Arts in May 1818, which was given as part of an inquiry into developing new banknote anti-forgery precautions, illustrates this.
Punchcutter
Anthony Bessemer
Anthony Bessemer (1766–1836 or after 1840) was a British industrialist and punchcutter, who spent large portions of his life in the Netherlands and France before returning to live in London and Hertfordshire. His son was Sir Henry Bessemer, th ...
gave testimony by letter that his work rate for punches was about 12 weeks (72 days not counting Sundays) to cut a complete set of 61 punches around or less than 1 punch per day, for 4pt "diamond"-size type. His employer, Henry II Caslon of the
Caslon type foundry elaborated that a font of this size "could scarcely be completed in 7 or 8 months; at present there are only 4 or 5 persons in England who can execute diamond
pttype, owing no doubt to the limited demand for it; and the peculiar style of each of these punch cutters is perfectly well known to persons conversant with letter founding." He estimated that a punchcutter could cut two punches of this size a day although more work would be needed to "get type from the punches".
Punchcutters did not necessarily conceive the designs they worked on. Indeed, G. Willem Ovink, a Dutch printing executive and historian of printing, noted in 1973 that he was struck by "the absolute lack of creative talent in all the most skilled punchcutters of this century" with regard to creating their own designs, although presumably many punchcutters of the past designed and conceived the work they engraved.
New technologies
New technologies displaced manual punchcutting from the mid-nineteenth century.
Electrotyping from the 1840s is a technology used to form matrices of copper by
electrodeposition around engravings of a letterform. This letterform could be in any metal, so engraving increasingly began to be done by cutting a letterform in soft typemetal. This allowed an explosion in variety of typefaces, especially
display typeface
A display typeface is a typeface that is intended for use at large sizes for headings, rather than for extended passages of body text.
Display typefaces will often have more eccentric and variable designs than the simple, relatively restrained ...
s that did not need to be cast so often and for which only a few matrices were needed, and allowed the regeneration (or, often, piracy) of types for which no punches or matrices were available.
Pantograph
A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...
engraving is a technology where a cutting machine is controlled by hand movements and allows type to be cut from large working drawings. It was initially introduced to printing to cut
wood type
In letterpress printing, wood type is movable type made out of wood. First used in China for printing body text, wood type became popular during the nineteenth century for making large display typefaces for printing posters, because it was l ...
used for posters and headlines.
In the 1880s, the typefounder
Linn Boyd Benton
Linn Boyd Benton (1844 in Little Falls, New York – 1932 in Plainfield, New Jersey) was an American typeface designer and inventor of technology for producing metal type.
The son of Congressman Charles S. Benton, he was named for his fathe ...
adapted the technology to cutting very small matrices and steel punches.
This gave very precise results and transferred the place of individual creativity completely away from the engraving stage towards a drawing office.
Some punchcutters did continue to hold prestige for their artisanal work into the early or mid-twentieth century.
These included
Edward Prince, who cut many types for
Arts and Crafts movement fine printers,
Charles Malin in Paris,
Otto Erler in Leipzig and
P. H. Rädisch at
Joh. Enschedé in Haarlem, who cut the types of
Jan van Krimpen
Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to:
Acronyms
* Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN
* Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code
* Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group
* Japanese Article Numb ...
.
Type designer
Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is a British type designer.Christophe_Plantin.html" ;"title="y Christophe Plantin">y Christophe Plantin' in typography's golden age was in perfect condition (some muddle aside) long withPlantin's accoun ...
, who learned punchcutting from Rädisch while at an internship at Enschedé, has added commentary to a silent film of Rädisch at work in the 1950s.
The French
Imprimerie nationale
The Imprimerie nationale (), known also as IN Groupe brand, is a company specialized in the production of secure documents, such as identity cards and passports, and a supplier of public utility identification applications. Owned by the French st ...
was one of the few institutions to continue employing punchcutters into the twenty-first century, to demonstrate the historic technique and to fill out the character set of historic typefaces.
Contemporary punchcutter Nelly Gable of the French Imprimerie Nationale is one of the few female practitioners of the art.
See also
*
Amoretti Brothers
The Amoretti (, 18th to 19th centuries) were a family of type-engravers, printers, mechanics, and blacksmiths of the Duchy of Parma. They were initially friends and pupils of the printer Giambattista Bodoni, although they ultimately parted ways ...
*
Bradford Industrial Museum
*
Commemorative coin
Commemorative coins are coins issued to commemorate some particular event or issue with a distinct design with reference to the occasion on which they were issued. Many coins of this category serve as collectors items only, although some countries ...
*
Letterpress printing
Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker com ...
References
* Baines, Phil and Haslam, Andrew (2002). ''Type and Typography''. Watson-Guptill. .
*
External links
Punchcutting demonstrationby Stan Nelson
Gravers & Files—The lost art of type punch cutting- a silent film of punchcutter P. H. Rädisch at Enschedé, one of the last working punchcutters, in 1957, by which time the process was already a niche activity. Narration and commentary by
Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is a British type designer.Christophe_Plantin.html" ;"title="y Christophe Plantin">y Christophe Plantin' in typography's golden age was in perfect condition (some muddle aside) long withPlantin's accoun ...
, who was taught by him.
{{Typography terms
Typesetting
Engraving