The Significance of the Slug

[Dave Hughes]

Saw this c1920 advertisement offered for sale on Ebay.

I just love the old style illustrations that Linotype used round about that period.

And, of course, the whole ad produced using Linotype material.

I also thought it was a good opportunity to test the forum's new image upload system.




I've got to say the image upload worked a treat!

Clicking on the thumbnail gives you the full size image.

[Ken Smith]

Great facelift to "Metaltype" Dave, when I was a compositor I always made the ornaments "flow" in the same direction all around the border of whatever I was setting up.
What do fellow forum members think?.
                 Ken Smith

[Dave Hughes]

Glad you like the facelift Ken 

Yes, I'm sure we also used to do the "flowing" thing. Difficult with the border used on that ad though, it seems to reverse itself.

Did you ever have to set a load of centred matter into the shape of a "Greek Urn" or similar.

[Ken Smith]

I can remember having a bit of "fun" trying to bend slugs into fancy curves without it breaking into two pieces, looking around the comp room for some suitable template or jig to bend the slug around, sometimes a cam on the linotype was of the correct curvature, with the machine stopped of course! a bit tricky with the machine running!!.
Ken