Last year I was honored to give the 50th Dwiggins Lecture for the Society of Printers in Boston. The recording is now up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4LEnuM0e1U
In the talk I try to capture what gives WAD’s type so much life, and suggest some contemporary designers whose work also has those attributes. Featuring @djrrb, Cyrus Highsmith, Sofia Mohr, John Downer, Franziska Weitgruber, @SandrineNugue, @klim.
Letterform Archive’s associate curator Stephen Coles is speaking at the Society of Printers’s annual Dwiggins Lecture on April 1, 2025. The topic: warmth & snap in type design. https://www.societyofprinters.org/calendar/coles-dwiggins
Warmth & Snap: What New Type Owes WA Dwiggins Nearly a century ago, as W. A. Dwiggins was nearing 50 years old, he partnered with the Mergenthaler Linotype company to do something he’d never done in his long career: create new typefaces. The resulting designs—such as Metro, Electra, and Ca
Thu, Sep 5! Join us online for our 50th salon, W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design with Rob Saunders.
W. A. Dwiggins was a giant in the field of graphic design: a master calligrapher, type designer, illustrator, private press printer, and a pioneer of advertising, magazine, and book design. Learn about this quintessential maker as our founder, Rob Saunders— a longtime fan and collector of Dwiggins— shares rare examples of his work from the Archive.
Register: https://letterformarchive.org/shop/salon-series-50-w-a-dwiggins-a-life-in-design/
W. A. Dwiggins was one of the most influential and innovative designers of his generation and the subject of our 2017 book, W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design, the first-ever thorough study of the American type designer, calligrapher, book designer, and illustrator.
This year we’re reprinting that book. To get your copy at the early bird price of $50, back our project on Kickstarter before the campaign ends: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/letterformarchive/reprinting-w-a-dwiggins-a-life-in-design-by-bruce-kennett?ref=8j2mnz
W. A. Dwiggins, The Feather-Vender Zodiac Calendar, published by Herbert W. Simpson, Inc., 1951.
On the blog: Calendar Design in the Online Archive. We’re starting 2024 with a selection of objects in the Online Archive that chart Gregorian timekeeping across the 20th century: https://letterformarchive.org/news/calendar-design-in-the-online-archive/
#LetterformArchive #Calendars #CalendarDesign #ZodiacSigns #Horoscope #WADwiggins @tanyatypes
@letterformarchive This alphabet by #WADwiggins was repeatedly turned into a typeface. We are aware of
• Fast Lady D by Lettergraphics, 1970s
• Dwiggins Deco by Matt Desmond, MADType, 2009
• Dwiggins Initials KK by John Wollring, Koeiekat, 2012.
See Dwiggins Deco in use by @practise and Wayne Daly: https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/18171/dwiggins-deco
Collective entry for adaptations of an unnamed alphabet originally designed in 1930 by W.A. Dwiggins for the cover for Paul Hollister’s book American Alphabets. Lettergraphics had a film type version named Fast Lady D [Lettergraphics 1976]. Matt Desmond expanded Dwiggins’ alphabet into a full typeface as Dwiggins Deco (2009, used for sample). John Wollring made another interpretation named Dwiggins Initials KK (2012).
W. A. Dwiggins, cover design for American Alphabets edited by Paul Hollister, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1930. See the rest of the book, including another Dwiggins alphabet, in the Online Archive: https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_dwiggins_0175
Details from envelopes promoting W. A. Dwiggins’s typefaces Electra (1935–44) and Caledonia (1938) for Linotype.
These promotions are a bit misleading; despite the names of the typefaces appearing in elegant scripts, Electra and Caledonia are serif text typefaces seen below.
Typographica
Letterform Archive
Fonts In Use