You can sum up Bradbury Thompson's design philosophy in one word: Form. He was a practical designer, with a knack of using the materials available and creating something more, something better and using materials and design to improve the project, to make the (design) world a better place.
From 1939 - 1961 Bradbury Thompson worked for Westvaco Inspirations, which was a publication demonstrating printing papers. With the constraints of a limited budget, Thompson used the materials available in new and different ways. For example, he would enlarge a halftone screen so large it became a design element. (1)
In 1949 Bradbury Thompson created Alphabet 26 after seeing his son struggle with an early reader. He realized nineteen of our twenty six letter alphabet had dissimilar upper and lower case symbols and set out to make an alphabet with one symbol for each letter. Mr. Thompson recommends fifteen of the nineteen letters use their upper case design and four letters use their lower case design (a, e, m, n.) Seven letters already have only one design for their upper and lower case symbol. He was careful to choose the right typeface to introduce Alphabet 26. To choose a modern typeface would have increased the risk of his innovative alphabet being rejected. Thompson chose Baskerville type for several reasons. Baskerville is a traditional (transitional) typeface. It has a lower caser main body and a small cap body that aligned with each other. It also seemed appropriate to use because John Baskerville was considered innovative in his day. (2)
Later in Bradbury Thompson's career, he became more concerned with readability, sense, and harmony. One of his major innovations was with the design of the Washburn College Bible. The concept was to print the lines broken down according to the cadence of speech; with the theory being reading would be easier and thus, meaning clearer. (3) Type was set flush left, ragged right, in single columns of Sabon Antigua (a Tschichold typeface based upon the 1540 designs of Claude Garamond.) (4) Bradbury had a great talent for combining the modern with the traditional.
From 1939 - 1961 Bradbury Thompson worked for Westvaco Inspirations, which was a publication demonstrating printing papers. With the constraints of a limited budget, Thompson used the materials available in new and different ways. For example, he would enlarge a halftone screen so large it became a design element. (1)
In 1949 Bradbury Thompson created Alphabet 26 after seeing his son struggle with an early reader. He realized nineteen of our twenty six letter alphabet had dissimilar upper and lower case symbols and set out to make an alphabet with one symbol for each letter. Mr. Thompson recommends fifteen of the nineteen letters use their upper case design and four letters use their lower case design (a, e, m, n.) Seven letters already have only one design for their upper and lower case symbol. He was careful to choose the right typeface to introduce Alphabet 26. To choose a modern typeface would have increased the risk of his innovative alphabet being rejected. Thompson chose Baskerville type for several reasons. Baskerville is a traditional (transitional) typeface. It has a lower caser main body and a small cap body that aligned with each other. It also seemed appropriate to use because John Baskerville was considered innovative in his day. (2)
Later in Bradbury Thompson's career, he became more concerned with readability, sense, and harmony. One of his major innovations was with the design of the Washburn College Bible. The concept was to print the lines broken down according to the cadence of speech; with the theory being reading would be easier and thus, meaning clearer. (3) Type was set flush left, ragged right, in single columns of Sabon Antigua (a Tschichold typeface based upon the 1540 designs of Claude Garamond.) (4) Bradbury had a great talent for combining the modern with the traditional.
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