Vol. XLVII · No. 136 London, Saturday Price Sixpence
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The Grimes
Illustrated Review

A Weekly Miscellany of Pictures, Print & Professional Particulars

Special Number · The Career of Rick Grimes, Art Editor
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Mr. Rick Grimes

Magazine Art Editor · Clerkenwell, London

Engraved for this Review after a photograph; the sitter declined to smile.

The Publisher's Foreword

I have spent 14 years arranging pictures and type for London magazines, most recently as art editor of a weekly with a circulation of 62,000. I run a desk of 6 illustrators and engravers and put a cover to press every Thursday without fail. I hold the view that a good masthead outlives every editor who works under it.

Table of Contents

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The Weekly Cover, and How It Is Made p. 3

Being an account of the Author's present post as Art Editor, The Ludgate Illustrated Weekly, London, 1889–present

  • Directs a department of 6 illustrators and 2 engravers; 52 covers and roughly 1,100 interior plates delivered each year.
  • Redrew the contents page and running heads in 1891; newsstand sales rose from 54,000 to 62,000 copies within 3 quarters.
  • Cut the average plate-to-press time from 9 days to 5 by scheduling engravers against the printer's Tuesday deadline.
Apprentice Among the Engravers p. 11

Recollections of the Author's years as Deputy Art Editor, Merriweather's Monthly Magazine, London, 1883–1889

  • Commissioned and corrected some 480 illustrations across 72 monthly numbers.
  • Introduced a standing grid of 3 columns for the review pages, reducing composition errors flagged by the printer by half.
  • Managed a plate budget of £1,400 a year and closed each volume within £20 of it.
A Junior Hand at the Type Case p. 19

The Author's first situation as Layout Assistant, Pemberton & Vole, Printers, Clerkenwell, 1880–1883

  • Set and proofed layouts for 11 trade periodicals on a weekly and fortnightly rota.
  • Kept the specimen book of the house's 38 typefaces current; it is, the Author is told, still in use.
Correspondence from the Provinces p. 24

Selected freelance commissions, 1884–1892, undertaken with the proprietors' consent

  • Designed mastheads for 7 regional weeklies, from Aberdeen to Truro; 5 remain in print unaltered.
  • Delivered 2 lectures a year on periodical design at the Clerkenwell Institute of Printing, to classes of about 40.

Schooling & Letters

Certificate in Wood Engraving & Design

Clerkenwell Institute of Printing, 1880

Grammar Schooling

St. Aldhelm's School, Southwark, to 1877

The Author's Instruments

  • Page architecture, mastheads, contents pages
  • Commissioning & correcting illustration
  • Wood engraving; early process blocks
  • Press scheduling; plate budgets
  • Type specimen keeping; proof marks

Where the Author May Be Found

4 Albion Court, Clerkenwell, London

By wire: 555-0136 (LON)

By post: r.grimes@example.com

Specimens: www.example.com/grimes

Notices & Distinctions

  • Silver Medal, Printers' Guild Exhibition, 1890, for cover design
  • Judge, Trade Periodical Awards, 1891 & 1892
  • Member, Society of Magazine Craftsmen (elected 1888)

Printed & published for the Author at 4 Albion Court, Clerkenwell. References supplied on application. All contents of this Number are fictional.