serratia marcences type spec

A display typeface that grew itself.

(type-founder)
Joseph Fry (1728 – 27 March 1787),
was an English type-founder and
chocolate maker and founder of the
Bristol branch of the Quaker Fry
family.
He was the eldest son of John Fry
(d. 1775) of Sutton Benger, Wiltshire,
author of ‘Select Poems,’
1774, 4th edition, 1793.
He was educated in the north of
England, and afterwards bound
apprentice to Henry Portsmouth of
Basingstoke, an eminent
doctor, whose eldest daughter,
Anna, he afterwards married.
He was the first member of his
family to settle in Bristol, where he
acquired a considerable
medical practice, and ‘was led to
take a part in many new
scientific undertakings’.
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The success of John Baskerville
caused Fry to turn his attention
in 1764 to type-founding, and he
entered into a partnership with
William Pine, the first printer of
the newspaper Bristol Gazette, who
had a large business in Wine Street.
Their new type may be traced in
several works issued between 1764
and 1770. The manager of Messrs.
Joseph Fry & Wm Pine was Isaac
Moore, formerly a whitesmith at
Birmingham, after whose speedy
admission to partnership the
business (Bristol Letter Foundry of
1764–1773) moved and went to
London. He carried on as “Isaac
Moore & Co., in Queen Street, near
Upper Moorfields”. Philip Luckombe
mentions Moore as one of
three London founders. In 1774 the
London firm produced a fine
folio bible, and in 1774–1776 a
well-printed edition in 5 vols. Fry’s
first founts were cut in imitation
Baskerville’s, the punches being
engraved by Isaac Moore. About
this time they somewhat abandoned
their earlier Baskerville style of
letter, to follow the more popular
Caslon character.
Joseph Fry’s firm became Joseph Fry
of London (1773–1776).
In 1774 Pine printed at Bristol a
bible in a pearl type, asserted to be
‘the smallest a bible was ever printed
with.’ To all these editions notes
were added to escape the penalty of
infringing the patent.
Fry took two of his sons, Edmund
(d. 1835) and Henry, into
partnership in 1782, and bought the
sale of James Foundry on the death
of Rowe Mores. The business was
removed to Worship Street, where
in 1785 was issued ‘A Specimen
of Printing Types made by Joseph
Fry & Sons, Letter-founders and
Marking Instrument Makers by the
King’s Royal Letters Patent.’ In the
advertisement the proprietors
‘flatter themselves’ that the types
which are called new ‘will mix with,
and be totally unknown from, the
most approved founts made by
the late ingenious artist, William
Caslon.’ The next year they
published another ‘Specimen,’ with
new founts, and including seven
pages of oriental types. They now
called themselves ‘Letter-founders
to the Prince of Wales.’
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Fry died after a few days’ illness caused by an infected wound on 29
March 1787, aged 59, having father and grandfather he was a member of
the Society of Friends, and was buried in the burial-ground at the Friars,
Bristol.
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Serratia marcescens is a species of
rod-shaped gram-negative bacteria
in the family Enterobacteriaceae.
A human pathogen, S. marcescens
is involved in hospital-acquired
infections, particularly catheter-associated
bacteremia, urinary tract
infections and wound infections,
and is responsible for 1.4% of HAI
cases in the United States. It is
commonly found in the
respiratory and urinary tracts
of hospitalized adults and in the
gastrointestinal system of children.
Due to its abundant presence in
the environment, and its preference
for damp conditions, S. marcescens
is commonly found growing in
bathrooms (especially on tile grout,
shower corners, toilet water line,
and basin), where it manifests as a
pink, pink-orange, or orange discoloration
and slimy film feeding off
phosphorus-containing materials or
fatty substances such as soap and
shampoo residue.
In humans, S. marcescens can
cause infection in several sites,
including the urinary tract,
respiratory tract, wounds, and the
eye, where it may cause
conjunctivitis, endophthalmitis, and
tear duct infections.
It is also a rare cause of
endocarditis and osteomyelitis
(particularly in people who use
intravenous drugs recreationally),
pneumonia, and meningitis.
Most S. marcescens strains are
resistant to several antibiotics
because of the presence of
R-factors, which are a type of
plasmid that carry one or more
genes that encode resistance; all
are considered intrinsically resistant
to ampicillin, macrolides, and
first-generation cephalosporins
(such as cephalexin).
Some pathogenic microorganisms
when propagated in culture
medium give distinctive colors of
their colonies. Such pigmentation
comes in a variety of hues, and
often provides important diagnostic
clues in laboratories for the
identification of the isolates. These
microbial pigments also play a role
in disease pathogenesis by
interfering with host immune
clearance mechanisms or by
exhibiting pro-inflammatory or
cytotoxic properties.
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These letters were grown in the microbiology
labs at the University of
the West of England over a period
of 8 weeks. The bacteria Serratia
Marcencens as you can see produce
a bright red pigment.
The inspiration for this typeface
came from living in a student
house with five male housemates.
I witnessed first hand how mould
grew in cups of tea and how it
could be manipulated by putting
different items inside of the cup.
This whole project would not have
happened if not by chance after a
street party my friend came back
with star shaped glitter covering his
forehead. During the evening most
of these stars detached themselves
from his pva glued covered face
and scattered themselves around
our house.
Several days later I noticed that
one of these stars had landed in
a tea cup left to go mouldy by the
laziness of the collective of 5 lads
happy to live in filth.
The bacteria in the milky tea
were producing a pale blue sporus
texture typical of yeast bacteria
replication. The skin flora from
my friends face on the star had
changed to a lighter yellow and
the mouldy coloured star was very
distinctively outlined within the tea
cup.
Bacteria could be controlled and
manipulated into shapes so why not
type? Over the next few weeks I
tried to replicate to the process
using laser engraved petri dishes
with the engraving filled with milk
to try to control the shapes the
mould would grow but with little
success.
After a consultation with the Staff
at the University of the West of
Englands microbiology labs we
initially tried to grow the first letters
using a bacteria called Proteus
mirabilis. It is a Gram-negative,
facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped
bacterium.

It shows swarming motility and
urease activity. P. mirabilis causes
90% of all Proteus infections in
humans. It is widely distributed in
soil and water. Its swarming motility
is the effect I thought might work
initially. As my hope would be that
the letters would grow from a light
font through to a regular as the
bacteria multiplied and then into a
bolder version as the
bacteria matured and consumed all
of the nutrients in the Agar. Proteus
Mirabilis sadly produces is a very
light yellow almost cream like
pigment and didn’t show up enough
when photographed. We changed
the agar to try to manipulate the
Proteus Mirabilis to turn black
but sadly this affected its ability to
swarm.
I swapped to Serratia Marcencens
after researching famous typefaces
and typographers related to Bristol.
I found that Joseph Fry partnership
the business Bristol Letter Foundry of
1764–1773 and brought the Baskerville
typeface to the United Kingdom
to use on his printing presses. He
never managed to finish re setting the
typeface for his printers before dieing
from a infected wound on the 29th
March 1787, aged 59.
.Serratia Marcencens is the bacteria
previous mentioned that causes
wounds to become infected. Hospital
acquired infections back in the 1700s
were a very common cause of death.
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Special thanks to the university of the west of
englands microbiology staff. Without your help
and guidance this project would never have
grown into itself.
By Arthur Perry Third year graphic design at
the university of the west of england.
scan the code to find the downloadable version
of the font.
19/04/2016
www.grizlypears.com
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