A Type Tool For You

Carl Shank • February 21, 2023

A Type Tool and An Offer

I remember the "good old days" of type and typesetting and layout tools mailed to you by different companies. I still have many of those type spec tools in my layout drawer. I have constructed a Type Tool for your use and enjoyment. It has been a labor of love, constructing the inch ruler, centimeter ruler and pica & point rulers. These have been done from hand by using standard measuring tools. I also put on a fractional equivalency chart, a useful dingbats reference, and an inside pull slider giving some samples of popular font choices and amazing ampersands.


I am including the construction method of this Tool below for your use and fun. You will need a program that can produce an 11 x 8.5 image and download the PDF from here. I am also offering through our Store the Type Tool and a thumb drive of all the blogs I have posted up to this date. They are catalogued using Adobe InDesign's program, employing the Minion Pro font and Formata Bold as well. Quite a bit of work went into these instruments of typography and graphic design tools, so I hope you are able to order and use them freely. They are copyrighted, so please do not remake them as your own.


Most of all, enjoy!

Successful Layout & Design

The Legibility Group

By Carl Shank • July 29, 2026
The Legibility Group. This group of typefaces comes from the The Mergenthaler Linotype Company was a company founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine, a system to cast metal type in lines (linecaster) invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. The company became the world's leading manufacturer of newspaper and book typesetting equipment. The Legibility Group is a series of serif typefaces intended for use in newspapers on Linotype's hot metal typesetting system. They were developed in-house by Linotype's design team, led by Chauncey H. Griffith and released from 1925, when the first member, Ionic No. 5, appeared. The family became a large group due to the creation of slightly different designs for different printing conditions, such as levels of inking used in different newspaper production processes and versions with different x-heights. [6] [b] Linotype carried out a survey of optometrists as part of their research processIt consisted of Ionic No. 5, Textype, Excelsior, Opticon, Paragon and Corona. Although not part of the family, Linotype marketed its sans-serif family Metro and slab serif face Memphis as effective complements for headings.

English Penman Calligraphic Fonts

By Carl Shank • July 13, 2026
George Bickham the Elder (b. 1684) was one of the most influential English engravers, calligraphers, and writing masters of the eighteenth century. Although he was a capable print engraver, his lasting significance lies in his role in preserving and popularizing English Round Hand (later known as Copperplate script) through beautifully engraved writing manuals. His work shaped business handwriting, penmanship education, typography, and ornamental lettering for generations. He trained as both a writing master and an engraver, two professions that were closely linked before the advent of modern printing. Rather than merely copying handwriting, he engraved elaborate penmanship examples onto copper plates, allowing thousands of identical, highly detailed specimens to be printed. He became renowned for his extraordinary ability to translate handwritten originals directly onto copper plates with exceptional fidelity, a skill admired by his contemporaries.
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