Show threadLetterform ArchiveMar 30, 2025

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

#TypeDesign #WADwiggins #SocietyOfPrinters

50th Annual Dwiggins Lecture: Stephen Coles — The Society of Printers

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

The Society of Printers
Letterform ArchiveAug 17, 2024

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/

#WADwiggins

Salon Series 50: W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design

W.A. Dwiggins was a giant in the field of graphic design. Let us show you rare Dwiggins artifacts from the Archive as you learn about the man and his work.

Letterform Archive
Letterform ArchiveAug 10, 2024

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

#WADwiggins #GraphicDesign #StencilArt #Ad

Letterform ArchiveJan 23, 2024

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

Calendar Design in the Online Archive - Letterform Archive

A variety of planners, event guides, and type specimens offer over a dozen ways to represent the year through lettering and typography.

Letterform Archive
Show threadFonts In UseJul 8, 2023

@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

Dwiggins Deco in use

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).

Fonts in Use
Letterform ArchiveJul 8, 2023

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

#Lettering #Alphabets #WADwiggins

Online Archive

Virtual access to Letterform Archive’s collection of lettering, typography, and graphic design.

Letterform ArchiveJun 13, 2023

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.

#TypeDesign #Typefaces #Fonts #WADwiggins #TypeSpecimen