The Typography of the Columns
 

IT WAS announced in our last issue that Columbia Library
Columns had won an Award of Special .Merit from rhe New
York Employing Printers A.ssociation. Since this is the second
time the Colinuns has been honored for its typography by the
Printers Association, it may be of interest to record briefly, before
the facts grow dim in the minds of those who were close to its
beginnings, the story of how we arrived at tlie present format of
the Columns.

The name of the j ournal was borrowed from a defunct Library
staff magazine, "Library Columns," which had flourished for two
years in the nineteen thirties. Inspired by the name, Ashley iMar-
tella, of New York City, designed a distinguished cover which we
clothed in Quaker gray and still find attractive. iMr. iMartella also
made the cuts of Butler and Low Libraries which have become
the familiar guardians of our first page of text.

Typographically, the text of our first issue, set in Linotype
Janson, faltered a bit after the high promise of the cover. There
were consultations with the Manager of rhe Printin<j Office of the
Columbia University Press, Alelvin Loos. iMr. Loos suggested a
slightly larger, hand Janson for the titles, and a Caslon Open initial
for the first letter of rhe articles. At one bound, as our next issue
demonstrated, the Columns achieved the typographic quality
which it has maintained for a decade. Mr. Loos, who thus con¬
ceived the design which you see before you, and who was spe¬
cifically responsible for the November 1958 and February 1959
issues which were honored by the Printers Association, has earned
the thanks of all whose eyes are refreslied by these comely pages.
His collaborators who share the honors are the following presses
—listed with the dates they handled the Columns: George Grady
Press (September 195 i-February 1957), Clarke and Way (March

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