Book designer, photographer, writer, presenter on graphic arts topics. Author/designer of “W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design” (Letterform Archive, 2017).
Vermont, USA
Joined October 2014
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Bruce Kennett retweeted
This month we celebrate paper in print + book design.
We also feature paper in Dwiggins’ timeless classic Layout in Advertising (1928).
Paper for Dwiggins is more than support – it’s an active participant of design. Texture, tone, and feel matter.
#TreasuresOfTheRomanoLibrary
Bruce Kennett retweeted
Happy birthday William Addison Dwiggins. The acclaimed type designer, calligrapher, writer, book designer & critic, famous for his influence on book design, numerous typefaces & building marionettes & puppeteering, was born today in 1880. #bookdesign #blackandwhitesmith
Boston-area friends of WAD! I will give a “standing-room-only” illustrated lecture about WAD’s work with stencils on Friday evening, May 2, at 6:00 p.m. in Somerville, at the Katherine Small Gallery. Limited to 30 tickets. ksmallgallery.com/blogs/even…
Did I already post this? Cannot remember. In any event, here’s a hand-lettered and -decorated title page from 1908, made for Boston publisher Ginn.
Four-color woodblock print. WAD cut the blocks in 1921 but the print was never issued until the 1950s, when it was combined with this Stravinsky score fragment. Music notation first created via stencil, then printed letterpress from photoengraving.
Exhibition notice, 1920. Woodblock print and lettering by WAD, who was one of the artists in the show.
WAD’s portrait of Ralph Morris, his friend from childhood through adulthood. Woodcut, 1919. This copy of the print inscribed to Morris: “An insult from WAD to RWM”
Woodblock print by WAD, 1919: a delegation going to the Bega’s Palace at Ageb. Part of WAD’s Athalinthia stories, which were finally gathered together and published in one volume last year. (Contact me if you are interested in getting a copy.)
Another of Dwiggins’s tools. He used this to make woodcuts during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Following with the Alghieri work, here’s a wraparound label for the side of a soup can, c. 1911. Entirely hand-lettered. (I've posted this before but why not include it now? So cool!)
Here’s the composing stick that WAD used in his early years in Hingham, for White Elephant and other work, and perhaps even as far back as 1903–04 when he and Carl had The Guernsey Shop in Ohio. I am fortunate indeed to have this in my collection.
Two more pages from the Alghieri Chef literary magazine. Typography and illustration by WAD. He seems to be hitting both extremes of letterspacing on that recto!!
“Literary magazine” published by Alghieri Chef, a Massachusetts company that sold canned food products such as soups and bisques. Design and illustration by WAD, c. 1911. (Not my images and sorry, did not note source.)
