Detail of a sketch for an APHA logo by Hebert H. Johnson.

“In the course of every successful organization’s formation and progress, the building of it benefits from the hard work of many unseen, dedicated hands, and the able counsel of many quiet voices.”

—APHA citation for J. Ben and Elizabeth Lieberman, January 28, 1978

[Read more]

Stephen O. Saxe and Amelia Hugill-Fontanel discussing the frisket of his foolscap Albion iron handpress. White Plains, New York, 2018. Photograph by Richard Kegler.

Stephen O. Saxe, a collector and historian whose canon of writings on printing history set the standard for contemporary practice in the field, died on April 28, 2019 at his home in White Plains, New York. He was 89 years old. He succumbed to complications after a heart attack, confirmed his longtime friend Karen Horton.[1]  [Read more]

Used books adorning a printing press at Bókakjallarinn in Reykjavík. (A. Fontanel)

A winter vacation to Reykjavík, Iceland is a must if you want to trade cold Northern cityscapes for colder, but breathtaking, geothermal hot springs, ancient geysers, and a chance to view the Aurora Borealis. Those attractions were so alluring, but this printing historian was inevitably drawn to used bookshops and thrift stores for the true flavor of this capital city. My busman’s holiday led to a mini-tour of the letterpress establishments in town.  [Read more]

Jerry Kelly addresses the audience at RIT, showing a photo of Hermann Zapf teaching at RIT ca. 1979. (Emily Hancock)

The Frederic W. Goudy Award for Excellence in Typography was presented to Jerry Kelly on October 24, 2015 as the closing event of the APHA conference at RIT. The Goudy Award is a tradition that is co-sponsored by the Cary Graphic Arts Collection and the RIT School of Media Sciences that honors outstanding practitioners in type design and its related fields. The first Goudy laureate in 1969 was Professor Hermann Zapf, (1918–2015), who later taught at RIT in the 1970s and 80s. It was fitting that the latest Goudy Award should go to one of Zapf’s most successful students, Jerry Kelly, a leading calligrapher, book designer, type designer, and typographer who practices out of New York City. [Read more]

Specimens of Holly Wood Type, Borders, Reglet and Furniture, Manufactured by Hamilton & Katz, Two Rivers, Wisconsin, ca. 1884. Courtesy of the RIT Cary Collection.

The 40th Susan Garretson Swartzburg ’60 Memorial Lecture at the Wells College Book Arts Center will coincide this October with the 40th Annual American Printing History Association conference. Professor David Shields will deliver his talk “Muster Hundreds! Towards a People’s History of American Wood Type,” at 5:30 p.m. on October 21, at the Wells Stratton Hall Auditorium in Aurora-on-Cayuga, New York. This is one day before the APHA Printing on the Handpress & Beyond activities begin at RIT in Rochester, New York. Why not come a day early to enjoy both! [Read more]

The speaker roster for “Printing on the Hand Press & Beyond,” is now confirmed. APHA’s Fortieth Annual Conference will be held at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York from October 22 to 24, 2015. Pre-conference workshops will take place on Thursday, October 22. A vendor fair and the keynote address will kick off the full conference on Friday, October 23. Saturday will bring several tracks of presentations which draw from the expertise of an international group of printers, educators, designers, and historians. Registration information will be forthcoming soon!

The APHA conference program committee is pleased to announce that writer and journalist Alix Christie will be the keynote speaker at the American Printing History Association’s 40th annual conference: “Printing on the Hand Press & Beyond” to be held at RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection, Rochester NY, October 23–24.  [Read more]

The American Printing History Association welcomes proposals for its 40th annual conference: “Printing on the Hand Press & Beyond” to be held at RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection, Rochester, NY, October 23–24, 2015. Proposals are due by March 15, 2015. PDF [Read more]

Bank of England Five Pound Note, January 1, 1855. (Richard Kelly)

Session I, Panel 2. “The Anatomy of a Banknote: 1855 Innovations in Design, Papermaking, and Printing,” presented by Richard Kelly and “Calendered Paper, Electrotyping, Hard-Packing and Late Nineteenth-Century “Fancy Type Faces,” presented by Michael Knies. [Read more]

Working layouts for a celebratory broadside for J. Ben Lieberman, designed by Herbert Johnson and printed by Pat Taylor, 1978. Gift of H. Johnson to RIT Cary Collection, 2014.

American Printing History Association presents

The Lieberman Lecture

Anatomy of a Type Design: Centaur by Bruce Rogers*

By Herbert H. Johnson
*And a Footnote on Its Erstwhile Companion, Arrighi by Frederic Warde
Monday, November 17, 2014, 6:30 p.m.
RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection, Rochester, New York [Read more]