#typefounding

[ia-designarchives]

An essay on the forgotten art of the punchcutter

1965 :: USA :: R. Hunter Middleton

An essay that was published as a keepsake alongside a talk given by R. Hunter Middleton to the School of Library Service of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

Language: English

[ia-designarchives]

WAD to RR: A Letter about Designing Type

1940 :: Cambridge, Massachusetts :: William Addison Dwiggins

An essay in the form of a letter, expanded and edited for publication, from William Addison Dwiggins to Rudolph Ruzicka on the subject of typeface design. It is especially interesting because it explains Dwiggins' own process and goes slightly beyond abstract "design" and outlines the interactions between Dwiggins and the type development organization at Mergenthaler Linotype. "G," mentioned in the text, is Chauncey H. Griffith, typeface designer in his own right, but also the vice president in charge of typeface development at the Mergenthaler Linotype

Language: English

Printer: Gordon Taylor Inc.

Publisher: Harvard College Library Department of Printing and Graphic Arts

[adventuresintypefounding]

The first stage of punchcutting equipment.

I've just begun acquiring tools and equipment for cutting punches by hand; specifically, I've just bitten the bullet and ordered £820 of precision files and gravers (mostly made by the Swiss company Vallorbe). Worryingly, this is only the start... Of course, none of this would be possible without the generous support of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, so I'll be thinking of that every time I use them.

[adventuresintypefounding]

QEST Scholarship

I'm extremely delighted to say that I've been award a scholarship by the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, which will allow me to travel to the US for a month's tuition with Micah Currier, proprietor of the Dale Guild Type Foundry.  Given Micah's recent setbacks, I hope that my spending time with him will be beneficial to both of us: a little income on arriving at his new premises for him, and some tuition in, and experience of, running & maintaining pivotal casters, and engraving new matrices.

In the long term, I hope that these skills will enable me to establish The Type Archive as a working type foundry, able to cast revivals of historic typefaces from our collection of matrices, and to cut matrices for entirely new typefaces.

And, with any luck, I hope I'll be able to blog about all these things as they become more real.  Wish me luck...