A Brief Visual Exploration ofA Dictionary of Typography

Taking inventory

This project is a short visual exploration of the differences between the two editions of Southward’s Dictionary viewed as a single alphabetical list of terms. The first difference explored is a simple inventory of the terms and color coding them based on whether they were in the first edition, second, or both.

Combining all the terms from both editions into a single alphabetical list and only showing the first letter of each term creates a snapshot of which ones were removed, added, and kept as the dictionary evolved from the first to the edition.

The most common terms that were removed for the second edition were types of equipment named for others such as Caxton machine and Degener’s press though a few were kept such as Hoe’s machines or added such as Athol screw press. The most notable change was the removal of Type founding which was a main topic throughout both editions yet only appeared in the first.

Looking at the distribution of terms across the letters of the alphabet shows that most terms began with P or S due in large part to several terms starting with the same word such as Press boards, Pressing, and Presswork or Short accent, Short letters, and Short pages. No terms in either edition started with Y.

1. a
2. b
3. c
4. d
5. e
6. f
7. g
8. h
9. i
10. j
11. k
12. l
13. m
14. n
15. o
16. p
17. q
18. r
19. s
20. t
21. u
22. v
23. w
24. x
25. y
26. z

Connecting mentions

As is common in dictionaries, there were many mentions of other terms throughout both editions. These mentions were conveyed via three methods:

• explicit references as in Short accent which simply stated, “See Accents;”
• the abbreviation “q.v.”—short for the Latin “quod vide,” telling the reader to “see elsewhere”—which appeared after terms, as in Obelisk; or
• indirectly as Jobbing office which instructed the reader to seek out several terms listed in the definition.

Lining up all the terms alphabetically on a line running from left to right — and drawing arcs for both first and second editions connecting the terms and their mentions creates a busy “hairball” illustrating the mentions throughout both editions.

Interestingly, more than a few terms mention others that don’t exist. Most notably, despite being left out of the second edition, Type founding was explicitly mentioned several times—see Justifier, as an example. These mentions of nonexistent terms are indicated white ticks (|||) on the following chart for the terms that mention them.

There were significantly more terms mentioned in the second edition due to the addition of many new terms that simply acted as pointers to others. Jobbing office contained the most terms mentioned in both editions (40 in the first, 42 in the second). The number of terms varied slightly because not all words mentioned existed as separate entries. Type founding and Machine were mentioned the the most (10 each) in the first edition while Proof had the most mentions (11) in the second edition. These terms can be see by clusters of lines converging on points along the above chart near the beginning, middle, and end.

Highlighting differences

The definitions underwent significant changes between the two editions as well and they can be illustrated by comparing word counts for each. The following diagram is a more abstract illustration showing these differences by arranging all the terms alphabetically and then dividing up the available space by how many words were in each definition.

• Columns are the letters A–Z proportionately sized by the total of all the words from all the terms beginning with that letter.
• Rows are terms starting with the letter of that column sorted alphabetically and sized by the total of words from both editions.
• Blocks within each row are divided into one or two parts depending on how many words are in each definition.

• First edition only
• More words in first edition
• Equal words in both editions
• More words in second edition
• Second edition only

The resulting diagram takes on an almost futuristic look which is a fun outcome considering it depicts information written in the nineteenth century.

There were a wide variety of differences between the two editions. Most notably were the removal of all the engraved illustrations of machines. The first edition included beautiful intricate illustrations for Composing machines, Degener’s press, Duncan’s press, and more but these were left out and described in less detail in the second edition. The few illustrations that remained in the second edition were specimens of type like Antique, Grotesque, and Sanseriff. The biggest illustrative addition to the second edition was a full page example of proof reading marks added to Proof reading. Other differences include minor grammatical changes, the addition or removal of short histories, and moving parts of definitions from one entry to another as in the Annals of printing which had a timeline of the history of printing that was moved to Printing in the second edition.

Exploring words

Finally, the words themselves are intriguing to explore because the vocabulary around typography is unique and varied with terms like Octavo, Dipthongs, and Quoins. Pairing each term with a representation of the number of words in its definition in both editions and color coding them creates an interesting long-form visual to explore.

The list that follows is a complete alphabetical list of every term in both editions color coded by the edition it appears in and followed by a series of slashes ( / ) based on how many words are in its definition in both editions.