The Kynoch Press - A Bulletin on Types, Birmingham, 1939
The Kynoch Press, along with Curwen, is one of my favourite 'fine printers' of the mid-20th century and this is a delightful slip of a thing. The Press had, in 1939, not long escaped a very fallow period in the mid-1930s following the 1933 departure of Herbert Simon, one of the great names of British printing at the time (and still one of the great names I suspect). The manager from 1933 - 38 had sadly allowed the Press to decline both as the 'in-house' printer for the ICI empire it belonged to as well as its reputation to external clients. In 1938 Michael Clapham, from the Bradford based Lund Humphries, took over the reins and helped restore the reputation of Kynoch even in the midst of what was to become wartime pressures.
One of the casualties of 1939 was the proposed issuance of an updated type specimen book to include some of the newer typefaces that Clapham had acquired and was to have been issued in late 1939/40. Needless to say this didn't happen. Oddly as a stop gap, at Easter 1939 as this little brochure states, the Press issued a "Bulletin on Typefaces" to show an abridged selection of 'faces and sizes available. It is a slim booklet of only eight pages in these grey rag paper covers with this simple title vignette on the cover. Hmm, the excellent history of Kynoch (by Archer) doesn't say a lot about this item and so I'm not sure who 'did this' for them. It has a feel, in some ways, of Reynolds Stone, but it also has a lightness of touch fo say, Ravilious. Over to you all....
The Kynoch Press - A Bulletin on Types, Birmingham, 1939
The Kynoch Press, along with Curwen, is one of my favourite 'fine printers' of the mid-20th century and this is a delightful slip of a thing. The Press had, in 1939, not long escaped a very fallow period in the mid-1930s following the 1933 departure of Herbert Simon, one of the great names of British printing at the time (and still one of the great names I suspect). The manager from 1933 - 38 had sadly allowed the Press to decline both as the 'in-house' printer for the ICI empire it belonged to as well as its reputation to external clients. In 1938 Michael Clapham, from the Bradford based Lund Humphries, took over the reins and helped restore the reputation of Kynoch even in the midst of what was to become wartime pressures.
One of the casualties of 1939 was the proposed issuance of an updated type specimen book to include some of the newer typefaces that Clapham had acquired and was to have been issued in late 1939/40. Needless to say this didn't happen. Oddly as a stop gap, at Easter 1939 as this little brochure states, the Press issued a "Bulletin on Typefaces" to show an abridged selection of 'faces and sizes available. It is a slim booklet of only eight pages in these grey rag paper covers with this simple title vignette on the cover. Hmm, the excellent history of Kynoch (by Archer) doesn't say a lot about this item and so I'm not sure who 'did this' for them. It has a feel, in some ways, of Reynolds Stone, but it also has a lightness of touch fo say, Ravilious. Over to you all....