Book designers looking to spruce up an otherwise dreary page often turn for help to a group of typographic glyphs known broadly as ornaments. Among the most common glyphs in this group are borders, cartouches, rules, tail-pieces and, the subject of today's post, fleurons (aka printers' flowers):
Fleuron refers specifically to stylized forms of flowers or leaves (what Robert Bringhurst called horticultural dingbats), as demonstrated in the examples above (most of which were cut by Robert Granjon), and in the more close-up examples below:
Few good histories of the fleuron exist. Among these are John Ryder's A Suite of Fleurons, which was later revised, enlarged and published as Flowers and Flourishes (both titles are depicted below, via The Happy Dragons' Press)...
and Mark Arman's Fleurons: Their Place in History and in Print:
Of course, more general works about typographic ornament usually also include quite lengthy sections on fleurons, even though the focus in these often is less on history and more on cataloging specimens:
For folks interested less in the history and more in actual specimens, any number of early type specimen books include pages of fleurons and other typographic ornaments, and many outstanding examples of fleuron usage continue to be printed. For a real treat, track down a copy (only 36 were printed) of Leonard Baskin & Sidney Berger's Fleuronologia: Divers etchings formed from fleurons (Gehenna Press, 1996). Similar specimens of fleurons and other typographic ornaments have been published by such distinguished printers as Richard Hoffman and David Esslemont (to name but two of the more recent). (Fine presses in general are a great source for books that showcase fleurons. As this post is being typed, many fine press collectors are anxiously awaiting the debut of a title that likely will bring renewed fame to printers' flowers.)
(By the way, the poster below, by Paul Grabowski for the 54th Type Directors Club Show, only appears to incorporate typographic glyphs such as fleurons and other ornaments. Look closer....)
Closer...
(Clicking on an image will usually enlarge the image for you....)
Recent Comments