Beatrice Warde

Beatrice Warde was an American typographic expert who was the publicity manager for the Monotype Corporation and editor of the Monotype Recorder and Newsletter for most of her career. She spent time investigating the origins of the Garamond design of type, and published the results in The Fleuron in 1926 under the pen-name “Paul Beaujon”. Her conclusion that many typefaces previously attributed to Claude Garamont were in fact made ninety years later by Jean Jannon was a lasting contribution to scholarship. With the tenet of readability being a key benefit of good typography, Warde worked with Eric Gill to launch and promote Gill Sans. Warde penned her famous broadside “This is a Printing Office”, to show the Perpetua typeface off. Warde’s approach of connecting the craft of typography with the concerns of business through advertisingwere not always welcome, even within Monotype. She exchanged many heated letters with Eric Gill about the nature of this relationship, with Gill denigrating the use of promotional materials to sell his designs.