The Not-So-Golden Age of Zero Tolerance

From Joseph Moxon's Mechanick Exercises or the Whole Art of Printing, 1683-4. Letterpress broadside on paper towel, 1980.

When I was an undergraduate student and stumbled onto a course called Introduction to Graphic Design, one of my first assignments was to typeset — yes, with cold metal type — a quote by Joseph Moxon. As a typographic rookie, my understanding about the principles (let alone the nuances) of designing with letterforms was negligible, as were my research skills. Better investigative strategies might have led me to discover that Moxon was a seventeenth-century printer whose puritanical upbringing was reflected in a kind of zealous precision with regard to everything he touched...

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