MTSU Book and Printing Arts and History

This week, the book we’ve chosen is a celebration of the renowned book designer and typographer, Bruce Rogers (1870-1957). Rogers worked for publishing houses, such as Riverside Press and Mount Vernon Press, and is best known for his Centaur Type.

This book by Frederick Warde was published in 1925 and offers an overview of Rogers work up until that time. Bruce Rogers saw himself as continuing the tradition of early modern printers; he avoided Modernist trends, like sans serif typefaces and asymmetrical compositions. Nevertheless, the spareness and clarity of his layouts, his effective use of negative space, and his clever arrangements of printers’ ornaments give his otherwise traditional designs a Modern twist.

Warde’s book contains numerous illustrations and specimens that showcase Rogers’s work over the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Below are some examples from the book, especially images that show off Rogers’s genius with printers’ ornaments.

Bruce Rogers still had over 30 years of his career left at the time this book was published. Some of his most important books were still to come, including his edition of Thomas More’s Utopia (1934) and his World Bible (1949).