About the printer

Paul Moxon, a graduate of The University of Alabama MFA in Book Arts program, is a fine press printer and book designer. He has taught workshops on letterpress and Vandercook Maintenance at universities, art schools and book arts centers across the U.S. He also maintains the Vandercook resource website and blog Vandercookpress.info.

About the press

Fameorshame Press is the private imprint of Paul Moxon. Established in 1991, it issues limited edition letterpress printed books and broadsides of contemporary literature. His work is included in several public and private collections.

Custom design and printing for hire is produced under the name Think Letterpress.

Origin of the press name

The naming of the press was inspired by this passage in Jan Tschichold's The Form of the Book:

The author fears the typesetter, the printer fears the binder, the designer is afraid of all four. He feels responsible. Yet, in spite of eagle eyes and the greatest circumspection, like the body guard of a dictator, he knows that mistakes will happen. He's been there. So he leaves both fame and shame to the pedestrians who, in naïve self love, line themselves up on the page of particulars and wish to be noticed even before a single line of text has been read.

Source: Hartley & Marks, 1991.

The Fameorshame mark

The Fameorshame mark is based on the “orb and four”, a traditional sign used by some early printers. A related sign the “orb and cross” —literally the earth surmounted by the cross— is also the alchemical symbol for antimony an ingredient in type metal. Long before the development of printing, the 4 had been a mark of merchants to identify their wares. Several authorities, including the great lettering artist Rudolph Koch also associate the 4 with Hermes, the god of scribes, tradesmen, and travelers. Additionally, in The Book of Signs Koch provides an illustration of a 4 being represented in a medieval monogram for the Christian name Paul.

Thus in the Fameorshame mark, where the components are 4, F, and M, the 4 may also be read as a reversed P, the F for Fameorshame, and the M for Moxon. M in its curvilinear form suggests a heart, a shape featured in several “orb and cross” marks.

Twentieth-century master bookmen who have adapted the “orb and four” include: Warren Chappell and Fritz Kredel, while Koch, and Giovanni Mardersteig, among others, chose the “orb and cross”.

 
Fameorshame Variations

A letterpress broadside showing the Fameorshame mark done in different styles.

Sources:
Davies, Hugh William. Devices of the early printers, 1457-1560: their history and development, with a chapter on portrait figures of printers. Folkstone, Kent: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1974.

Koch, Rudolph. The Book of Signs. New York: Dover, 1955.

McKerrow, Ronald B. Printers' and publishers' devices in England and Scotland 1485-1640. London: Printed for the Bibliographical Society at the Chiswick Press, 1913.

Notable printers’ marks

Historically, a printer's mark is a symbol identifying a particular printer, such a mark was often an element of a larger pictoral image called a device.The marks below are examples of two motifs: the “orb and cross” and the “orb and four”. In some instances, in order to clearly represent these marks at sizes useful for comparision it was necessary to delete the florid borders, illustration, and mottos from devices. Where so edited, an asterisk follows the printer's name. The informed reader is welcome to note, via email, errors of fact and omission, and to recommend other marks for inclusion.

 

Joannes de Colonia Venice, 1481	Petrus Paris, 1486	Georg Wolf Paris, 1494	B. Rembolt & U. Gering Paris, 1498
*de Bougne, publishers* Angers, c. 1500	Ugo de Rugerius Reggio d’Emilia, 1501	*Julian Notary* London, 1507	*Jacques Myt* Lyon, 1515
*Jean Granjon* Paris, 1517	*Richard Grafton* London, 1547	Elkins Mathews, publisher Design by Frederick York Powell London, 1890	Village Press New York, 1912
Laboratory Press Pittsburgh, 1923	William Edwin Rudge Mount Vernon,1925	Officina Bodoni Verona, 1927	Fritz Kredel Offenbach, 1933
Warren Chappell np, nd	Gallimard publishers Paris,1952?	Plain Wrapper Press Verona, 1966	Four Demons Press engraved by Andy English NYC, 2005

Sources:
Barr, John. The Officina Bodoni. Books Printed by Giovanni Mardersteig on the Hand Press 1923–1977. London: The British Library, 1978.

Chappell, Warren. A Short History of the Printed Word. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Cinamon, Gerald. Rudolph Koch: letterer, type designer, teacher. New Castle DE: Oak Knoll, 2000.

Davies, Hugh William. Devices of the early printers, 1457–1560: their history and development. Folkstone, Kent: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1974.

Gallimard/NRF Publishers, Paris

Goudy, Frederic W. The Alphabet. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1922.

Library Quarterly, vol 72, no. 1, pp118-120.

McMurtrie, Douglas C. The Book: the story of printing & bookmaking. New York: Oxford University Press, 1957.

Jeffrey Loop. Four Demons Press.

Richard-Gabriel Rummonds. Plain Wrapper Press.

see also:

Printers Marks Stone Facade, Iowa State University

Printers Marks Windows, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library