Color separated film strip type font

A method of preparing color separated components and characters of a film strip type font in registration for photo composition. Positive proofs of the characters of a type font adaptable for multicolor printing are arranged in linear spaced relation. An overlay strip is formed for each supplementary color component of the type font characters to be printed. The several linear strips are arranged on a flat plane in superposed identically spaced parallel relation. A single negative film strip is formed from the assembled character and component strips for contact printing on photo sensitive paper of selected characters and components on the negative film.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
1. Field of the Invention 
The present invention relates to graphic design and more particularly to a 
method of preparing camera ready commercial art containing type font 
characters to be printed in color. 
In preparing camera ready advertising layouts, or the like, containing 
characters of a type font to be printed in color it has been the practice 
to prepare overlays of the supplemntal components of each type font 
character, to be printed in color, by hand cutting a peel-away section of 
film to leave only that portion of the film on the sheet for 
photoengraving and printing the colors of the respective characters. 
Obviously, this is a time consuming task requiring considerable skill on 
the part of the artist in making the color separation overlay so that one 
or more color plates will register with the respective characters. 
2. Description of the Prior Art 
It is well known in graphic arts to use commercial dry transfer sheets 
containing characters of the alphabet to form cuts or headings on artwork 
ready for photoengraving or photography. One advantage of the dry transfer 
sheets is that the spacing between the characters, both linear and 
vertically with respect to a reference line, may be adjusted by the artist 
to achieve balance or a desired effect, however, if the characters are to 
be printed in color, it has heretofor been necessary, to obtain color 
registration, to manually cut or form overlay sheets of the supplemental 
component of each character to be printed in color. Since this procedure 
is a time consuming and tedious task, the characters to be printed in one 
or more colors is generally limited to titles, headings, or the like. One 
example of forming registerable color separations of the characters of a 
type font is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 2,105,555 which utilizes the 
matrix of a keyboard-operated type setting machine, or the like, in which 
the respective matrix contains the outline of the respective character and 
a color component so that a selected series of the matrix forms a word or 
words to be photographically reproduced for subsequent printing in a 
conventional manner. The principal disadvantage of the use of such matrix 
for color separation is that the spacing between the characters forming a 
word can not be adjusted to decrease the spacing between any two 
characters, to achieve a desired balance, less than the physical thickness 
of the matrix portions between two or more characters on juxtaposed 
matrixes. 
It is also known to form a negative film strip of the characters of a type 
font, the characters being arranged linearly on an elongated strip of film 
or on an endless circular strip of film, such as disclosed by U.S. Pat. 
No. 3,821,770. The linear or circular strip of film may be used by either 
manually or by a photocomposing machine in successively exposing selected 
characters of the type font on photographic paper to obtain the desired 
message and subsequent photoengraving. Such film strips increase the 
versatility of composing camera ready artwork, however, if the characters 
printed from the film strip are to be reproduced partially in color it 
becomes necessary to manually cut overlay strips containing the color 
separated components of the respective character. 
This invention overcomes the above disadvantages by forming a film strip of 
a linear arranged type font which contains at least one superposed strip 
of supplemental color components of each character for accurate 
registration when printing the characters in more than one color. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
A positive proof of a selected type font arranged in linear form, with 
register marks at least at the respective ends thereof, is modified in any 
well known manner to design supplemental components of the characters of 
the type font to be printed as background or shaded areas in color. A 
color separation overlay, including cooperating register marks, is 
prepared for each of the color components of respective characters. The 
positive proof of the type font and each of the strips of color separated 
overlays are arranged in a flat plane in superposed parallel relation. A 
negative film strip is then made of the type font and color separation 
overlays. A strip of positive film of the positive proof of the type font 
is formed integral with the negative film and coextensive with one 
longitudinal edge thereof which serves as a guide in spacing between the 
characters of the type font when printing words or the characters forming 
words. The negative film strip is contact printed by simultaneously 
exposing selected characters of the type font and the respective color 
separated components thereof to form a message. The resulting contact 
print when developed is used in combination with a graphic design to form 
camera ready artwork or for photoengraving. Obviously, the type font and 
its color separated components may be arranged on an endless section of 
circular film for use in mechanical, optical or coded composing machines 
for spacing between the selected characters and words wherein the 
predetermined vertical spacing between the base characters and the color 
separated components on the film strip remain constant to insure accurate 
registration of the color components when printing cuts or lithographic 
plates formed therefrom. 
The principal object of this invention is to provide negative film strips 
of type fonts having color separation components of each character thereon 
in identically spaced superposed relation with respect to each character 
for accurate printing registration of photoengraved color plates with base 
plates.

BACKGROUND OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
Like characters of reference designate like parts in those figures of the 
drawings in which they occur. 
In the drawings: 
In carrying out the invention, a type font is selected, preferably using 
both upper and lower case characters, which are modified manually or by 
using any known graphic modifier of type fonts, for example, my U.S. Pat. 
No. 3,927,942. 
The reference numeral 10 indicates a combination negative and positive film 
strip formed according to the invention by using outline characters of a 
type font which have been modified to provide shade areas for each 
character to be printed in color. The outline characters 12 may be hand 
drawn or obtained from any one of the commercially available conventional 
sheets of film containing dry transfer characters of a type font. The 
characters 12 are arranged in spaced-apart side by side linear fashion 
with the upper and lower case of the characters forming a progressive 
longitudinal series having register marks 14 at least at the respective 
ends thereof. To obtain the film strip 10 an overlay is formed, as by hand 
cutting a film to form a camera reproducible strip 16 of background area 
of each character similarly having register marks 18. Similarly, a second 
overlay is hand cut of each character of the font to form a camera 
reproducible strip 20 of the shadow area of each of the characters 
including register marks 22. The two overlays 16 and 20, each containing 
the register marks 18 and 22, at least at the respective end thereof, 
registrable with the register marks 14 of the outline characters, are 
arranged in a common plane in superposed spaced parallel relation with 
respect to the base character strip 12. A negative film strip, formed from 
the linear arranged outline characters 12, is similarly disposed adjacent 
the outline characters. The combination negative and positive film strip 
10 is photographically produced from the superposed strips of outline 
characters and color separated components wherein the negative portion of 
the film strip contains transparent areas defining the outline characters 
12 and the color separated components 16 and 20 including the respective 
register marks at the ends thereof. The positive portion of the film 
contains opaque areas defining outline characters 12' to serve as a 
spacing guide between adjacent characters, as presently explained. 
Referring also to FIG. 2, the numeral 30 diagrammatically indicates a film 
strip printing apparatus comprising a pair of spaced-apart parallel 
rollers 32 and 34 having an endless beltlike band 36 having a 
phosphorescent coating or film on its outwardly disposed surface entrained 
around one end portion of the respective roller. The rollers are disposed 
within and journalled by a surrounding housing, not shown, for excluding 
light for the reasons readily apparent. 
A roll or strip of photographic paper 38, having a photographically 
sensitive surface, is disposed adjacent one of the rollers, for example 
the roller 34, so that one end portion 40 of the photographic paper 
extends horizontally across the upper peripheral limit of the rollers 32 
and 34 in juxtaposed relation with respect to the band 36. The combined 
transverse width of the photographic paper end portion 40 and the endless 
band 36 is at least equal to the transverse width of the film strip 10 for 
the reasons readily apparent. 
A gate or opening 42, extending transversely of the paper strip 40 and band 
36, between the rollers 32 and 34, is defined by spaced-apart light 
excluding housing plates 44 and 46. The film strip 10 longitudinally 
slidably contacts the upwardly disposed photosensitive surface of the 
paper strip 40 and endless band 36 below the plates 44 and 46. The film 
strip 10 is manually positioned so that a selected character, for example 
the character A, is disposed within the opening 42 and a source of light, 
indicated at 48, is energized a selected duration of time for 
photographically exposing the character A and its color separated 
components defined by the film strip 10. With the light source 48 turned 
off the paper strip 40 and endless band 36 are simultaneously moved, as by 
rotating the rollers 32 and 34 toward the left, as viewed in FIG. 2, to 
position the exposed position of the character A on the paper strip 40 
beneath the plate 44. The positive film character A, as a result of 
exposure to the light 48, remains visible on the band 36 to indicate the 
position of the previously exposed plate covered position of the character 
A on the paper strip 40 so that the film strip 10 may be manually shifted 
longitudinally, in either direction with respect to the paper strip 40 and 
the opening 42, to position the next selected character of the film strip 
10 in position for exposure through the opening 42, for example the letter 
N (FIG. 3). The spacing between the letter N and the position of the 
previously printed letter A, longitudinally of the paper strip 40, is 
determined by the position of the residual impression of the letter A on 
the endless band 36 and the position of the character N on the positive 
portion of the film 10. 
Additional characters are selected and photographically exposed on the 
paper strip 40 in a similar manner according to the requirements of the 
message to be obtained from the film strip 10 in which any one of the 
upper or lower case characters of the film strip type font may be used 
repeatedly as desired. Similarly the register marks 14, 18 and 22 are 
exposed on the paper strip 40 at the respective ends of the message (FIG. 
3). Film guides, now shown, forming a part of the strip printer 30, 
normally guide the film strip 10 in its longitudinal movement so that 
characters printed therefrom are in linear alignment, however, in the 
event the film strip is inadvertently moved, transversely of the print 
paper 40, prior to exposing one of the characters and its color components 
on the film strip 10, the resulting printed character and its separated 
color components will be in register on printing plates made therefrom by 
reason of the vertically aligned spacing between each character on the 
film strip and its color separated components remaining constant. Stated 
another way, in the event any character of a word is slightly displaced, 
either above or below the vertical limits of a word or line of characters, 
the color forming components of that character will similarly be out of 
alignment the exact distance its base or outline letter is out of 
alignment thus assuring accurate registration when subsequently printing 
one color over another. 
An example of words exposed on the paper strip 40 from the film strip 10 
and developed in a conventional manner is shown at 40' (FIG. 3) which is 
used for photoengraving to form a plurality of cuts or plates, one for 
each longitudinal row of the outline letters and two colors to be 
overprinted thereon. Register marks, at the respective ends of the words 
and the color plates, are used for registering the respective plates 
during final printing, such as illustrated in FIG. 4, in which the open 
area or background is printed in yellow with the shading of the character 
printed in red, the colors being indicated by color shading. 
When the developed paper strip 40' is to be used as a portion of a graphic 
design the paper strip 40' is longitudinally divided, between the words, 
as by cutting along the dotted lines 45. The three strips of words and 
color components are then registered with each other on the graphic design 
and its color overlays. 
Obviously the invention is susceptible to changes or alterations without 
defeating its practicability. Therefore, I do not wish to be confined to 
the preferred embodiment shown in the drawings and described herein.