#john fell

[theartofthecover]

Aliens: Special (One-Shot) [Textless] (1997)

Art by: Frank Teran, John Fell and Chris Horn

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

Yesterday and today I met with students in Typography classes at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD).to discuss the historical development of Roman letter forms and typography from the 5th century to the present. Of course I used materials from UWM Special Collections to demonstrate. Part of the discussion focused on the abysmal state of British typography from the 15th to 17th centuries because of rigorous state control over printing in the country. The main bright spot for British typography during this time was the renovation and reorganization of the Oxford University Press, and the acquisition by its director Dr. John Fell of not only distinctive Dutch typefaces, but also the punches and matrices in the early 1670s. The so-called Fell Types transformed British typographic expression, and when the laws that were hyper-controlling printing and typography in Great Britain were allowed to lapse in the mid-1690s, it opened a floodgate of innovations, including William Caslon’s designs for the first truly British national typeface in the 1730s.

Dr. Fell’s types, punches, and matrices are still preserved. This presentation is from the small letterpress book, The Roman Italic & Black Letter bequeathed to the University of Oxford by Dr. John Fell, printed from the Fell Types as a keepsake in 1951 for the Typophiles by Charles Batey, printer to Oxford University, in an edition of 475 copies. Our copy is a gift from our good friend Jerry Buff.

View more posts about the Fell Types.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts.

-- MAX, Head, Special Collections

[theartofthecover]

Aliens: Special (One-Shot) (1997)

Art by: Frank Teran, John Fell and Chris Horn