A question about some 1960s single type border units and a question about whether Unicode should encode single type borders

[Asmus Freytag]

If you want to propose symbols, you need to do the legwork and locate 
documents or books that they were used in. And if that positive evidence 
exists, the actual encoding decision would be based on the type of usage 
and the potential for these documents to be digitized for archival and 
other purposes.

There are several places on the Unicode website where you can find 
instructions for submitting an encoding request and information and 
explanation for the types of documentation required -- by you, as the 
submitter.

A./

On 4/22/2024 11:06 AM, William_J_G Overington via Unicode wrote:
>
> I had in mind asking about something in this mailing list that might 
> of itself be off-topic yet which may be of interest to some of the 
> readers of this mailing list. Yet when working out what to write I 
> found myself considering something which may well be possibly directly 
> on topic, but I am not sure whether it is or not.
>
> The original topic is that I remember that in the mid 1960s I was 
> given a few copies of then recent issues of the Monotype Newsletter 
> when visiting the office of the Monotype Corporation at 43 Fetter 
> Lane, London. In one of these, or maybe in a later issue that was sent 
> to me, was an article about a collection of then newly released single 
> type border units, possibly at one of 24 point, 30 point, or 36 point 
> size.
>
> These were ten national emblem designs, five for constructing a 
> straight border and five for corners. They could be used individually 
> or mixed as desired. There was a rose, a thistle, a leek, a daffodil, 
> a shamrock. Two of each, for a straight line and a corner.
>
> At that time the Monotype Corporation sold matrices for use in casting 
> metal type. These matrices could be bought by businesses that used 
> Monotype type casting machines. Some businesses cast type for one-off 
> use in-house for printing, some businesses cast in a harder alloy and 
> sold the type thus cast for repeated use in handset printing to people 
> who used printing machines, whether by way of trade, or as hobbyist 
> Private Press printers. My interest was in hobbyist Private Press.
>
> So whereas the Monotype Corporation offered for purchase a vast number 
> of matrices, each business that bought them only bought a selection of 
> them to suit their needs. So such things as this national emblems set 
> need not necessarily become available to Private Presses that bought 
> type from a typefounder. As far as I am aware, it was not.
>
> So I thought that I would ask in this mailing list as to whether those 
> designs have been, or could be please, released in a digital form. 
> Maybe these days in colour versions too.
>
> And then I thought, could they be encoded in regular Unicode?
>
> And I thought, well I cannot say that they would be used in a run of 
> plain text. So maybe no.
>
> Yet the issue that I then wondered about is that files that are not 
> plain text yet which contain Unicode characters are interchanged.
>
> So where does that fit in?
>
> Should Unicode encode characters that are single type borders that 
> might well be used in a rich text document such as a poem surrounded 
> by a border that is sent from one person to another? Or not.
>
> William Overington
>
> Monday 22 April 2024
>
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