Discussion

By Joe Treacy on Aug 07, 2024

Excellent, Frank.

This landmark book is such an important turning point in the typographic industry. I’m so glad you’ve acquired it for the Romano Library.

And it was phenomenal to see and talk with you again, and to browse your amazing Museum of Printing again. It cannot be overstated what a terrific educational resource it is.

It is sometimes frustrating to see how specifications from the “web design” world have overtaken some of the nomenclature in type-specing history. Such as how “line-spacing” infiltrated into “line leading” territory, as we all suddenly had to understand and grapple with html and css.

From the time that I entered the design world, Agate measurement always seemed like the most odd holdover to me, although newspaper workers who read that will likely be shocked.

From my perspective, the modern design world already had inches and millimeters, as well as points and picas. Wasn’t that surely enough?

And yet, when I was given ROP newspaper ads to design and got used to the sheer speed and simplicity of the Agate system, I came to better appreciate it.

The Museum is an outstandingly well organized, modern presentation of graphic arts history.

It should be a required must-visit for everyone in the graphic arts, no matter your station within it.

How the exhibits tell the complete story of how we got here is truly great.

It showcases the amazing risk-taking creativity and engineering of the machines and mechanism drivers behind the history of global communication, itself.

Thank you for all the thought and work that has gone into planning and assembling the Museum and the Romano library, and continues to go into this impressive new center of the graphic arts universe.

Visiting and browsing the Museum really makes me proud to be working in the graphic arts.

Joe Treacy
President & Director of Typography
Treacyfaces.com