Champion of newspaper design and veteran API discussion leader dies at 93

Long acknowledged as the "father of newspaper design," Edmund C. Arnold, 93, died Feb. 2, 2007, in Roanoke, Va. Arnold made his first API appearance as an industry educator in 1959. Over a period of more than 25 years, Arnold dedicated his time to giving future generations of designers the tools to move beyond the accepted boundaries of newspaper design and in the process became the most frequent API discussion leader with 208 appearances at API seminars.garmstrong@americanpressinstitute.org

As chronicled in the book Seminar: The Story of the American Press Institute by Don E. Carter and Malcolm F. Mallette (1992), Arnold was editor of the Linotype News in Brooklyn when he was first invited to lead a session at API. When the scheduled discussion leader became ill, Executive Director Monty Curtis called Arnold on short notice to conduct a typography session for a women's editors seminar. That was the beginning of an Arnold-API association that continued during his professorships at Syracuse University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Arnold was a master teacher. He espoused fundamental principles. "Principles do not change," he said. "Teach others to look for and follow principles." Arnold's guiding principle in design was that of functionalism: Every typographical element should serve a useful purpose or be discarded. If the element already served a useful purpose, then the challenge was to find a way to serve the purpose better.

Arnold not only taught, but he also entertained. In a deep voice that rattled the windows, he brought notoriety to the town of Frankenmuth, Michigan, where he one ran the weekly Frankenmuth News. To break up the monotony of long presentations, Arnold turned to humorous stories about town residents who were of German extraction. The mere mention of his stories would produce giggles from his audiences. "And that reminds me of Frankenmuth," he would begin. His characters, described in a Bavarian accent, were "all real, and they are all fictional."

There was, for example, Ludwig Pfaffelhuber of the Frankenmuth News. "Ludwig," Arnold would say, "was not really my right-hand man; he was my only man. And he was my second choice; anyone else would have been my first."

Then there was Waldemar Veitengruber who ran Waldemar Veitengruber's Emporium & General Store. "He was our biggest advertiser, two-by-five ad every week. He was the only man I ever knew who would mark 'Wrong Font' on a period. And he did it, regularly. But he never did it on a proof. He waited until the paper came out. Every week without fail, at 12:54 Thursday afternoon, he would walk in our front door. He had stopped at the post office and picked up the Frankenmuth News.

"'Boys, the Frugenmoot Noose have made a small mistake on my adwertising. I think you better take a little off my bill.'"

Arnold was master teacher, stand-up comic, author, and wearer of outrageously loud jackets. Although one would never suspect, he claimed to be a basically shy person. In 1988, he described a situation in which he was a salesman for the Linotype Company and sat in his car for 45 minutes gathering the courage to make a call.

None of that bashfulness showed at API where he once made 11 presentations in one year. In 1980, after leading his 200th API discussion, Arnold was honored by the API staff at a luncheon. He said he had met so many people in so many places that recall was often a problem. "Perhaps," he said, "I should take the advice of Jack Dempsey and call everybody 'Champ.'"

It is he who should be called "Champ," for Arnold was certainly a champion of typography, functional design and quality journalism. He changed the way we experience newspapers, and he changed us.

Mary Peskin is an associate director of the American Press Institute in Reston, Va. E-mail: mpeskin@americanpressinstitute.org

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