So how did it work on lead/antimony/tin typefaces where you can’t really negative kern because of the rectangular type body? Would type come in pairs on a separate block like ligatures would? Or was that not even a thing with physical typesetting?
Subscripts and superscripts can be done on a typewriter, by adjusting the vertical distance by half a line/one “click”, distance to small for a lever. Of course, the characters remain the same size.
For anyone interested in this subject, and near Boston, I highly recommend the Museum of Printing in Haverhill. Lots of exhibits and artifacts from pre-Colonial bibles through photo typesetting and some rare computers. They even do demos of a working Linotype machine.
The raised letter does not sit centrally on the slug block like on a typewriter, but would be against the edge or even extending slightly over. According to the Wikipedia article, the overhanging bit (they illustrate a capital T) is what is actually called the kern, hence the name.
After being diagnosed with lead poisoning*, I donated my type moulds and matrices to Sky Shipley at Skyline Type Foundry.
*at age 70, the symptoms are pretty much identical to turning 70. Nevertheless I was cautioned to limit my exposure to lead. Still trying to find gloves I can set 8 point type in without going stir crazy… 6 point is hopeless, but not something I used very often.
I AM GLAD YOU ASKED.
TL;DR: negative kerning (or any custom kerning, really) wasn’t much of a thing in the world of physical type. That would have been the province of lettering. Custom logo engravings and things like that.
Multiple different approaches were applicable depending on whether you you’re talking about handset type or machine-set type, and in the latter case whether you’re talking about Linotype or Monotype machines.
Handset type: depending on the quality of the type design and the complexity of the purchased font, there could be multiple kinds of ligatures, but in reality, when setting at book or newspaper sized text, the typesetter optimized for speed and used the regular individual character sorts for almost all uses. The type designer just did their best given the limitations, and of course the width of the sort varied dependent on the character, so that was good enough. Even today, nobody’s hand kerning body text extensively. That said, the really good stuff could be artful about how the character fit on the body of the type, so it could have overhangs from the factory, so to speak. My additional understanding was that stuff was fragile as hell.
With handset type for display usage, like posters, large ad headlines, whatever, you could use a type saw to miter the body of the type to create overhangs that would allow one letter to snug up to the next more than the out-of-the-box sorts would go.
Machine set: the Linotype was even more constrained than handset to a certain degree, because you cast an entire line at a time, meaning that you couldn’t get fancy with a saw. And while there would be common ligatures, there weren’t that many, and once again, they really slowed the typesetter down. But again, these machines were used for newspapers and books primarily, where volume and speed outweighed art.
The Linotype had one limitation that really presented a challenge to the type designers. Each individual matrix used to cast the type, representing a single letter or punctuation mark, had two actual molds on it. For example, it might have the regular and the italic version of that letter. Or maybe regular and bold.
In any case, this made things tough as you could imagine that in a perfect world, a bold capital E might want to be wider than a regular E. But no, they had to be the exact same width because they had to sit on the same matrix. But the designers did well and you’d be hard pressed to really see the compromises.
The Monotype: My white whale. I want one of these have not been able to find one. It’s the closest to fine typesetting that the machine world could provide. The operator sat at a bizarre keyboard, making all kinds of decisions about copy fitting and kerning. Everything the operator typed made it on to a punched paper tape. That tape was then fed into the casting unit that did various kinds of magic to make everything fit as it should. Not only have I not been able to get my hands on one of these, I haven’t even ever seen one in real life. So this is all somewhat hypothetical.
Nice! I’ve met Sky a few times. When I was still casting type, I got blood tests every year. Fortunately I never showed any evidence of exposure. TBH I was much more worried about the asbestos around the crucible.
I’m afraid that’s a lost cause.