I am a professor of English and scholar of 20th-Century drama, and am currently writing on Tristan Tzara’s typographical “Dance” interpellated into his play The Gas Heart (1923). In reading Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media (1964), I’ve found a potentially useful quotation attributed to Beatrice Warde, which McLuhan cites only as having come from a work called ALPHABET. The quotation—famous and often re-quoted, citing McLuhan, begins: “Do you wonder that I was late for the theatre that night when I tell you I saw two club-footed Egyptian A’s … walking off arm-in-arm with the unmistakable swagger of a music hall comedy team?” I believe Warde’s insights can shed light on Tzara’s work. [Read more]
Student in type design in écal (Swiss), i’m looking for Hermann Zapf ‘s archives: especially high quality drawing/printing specimens/proofs of Melior typeface. Waiting forward to hear from you, Arnaud
I am interested in the earliest banning of books. I looked at your History of Printing Timeline, and it mentions France, in the 1500s, under penalty of death. [Read more]
How were newspaper printing plates recycled after use? I am particularly interested in any research/institutions/blogs that discuss the way plates might have been used as construction materials. [Read more]
I’m planning on starting up a ‘retro printer’s’ business, where I use vintage printing machines to give an authentic classic look to whatever the customer brings in (so far, most interest I’ve received has been from artists and a small local museum). I’m doing research on the different machines of the 19th and 20th century and was wondering whether the same printing machines used to print letters in newspapers and magazines were also used in factories for printing brand names and things such as that.
My research concerns the printing and colour separation of US comics from their origins in New York newspapers of the 1890s onwards. I was lucky enough to discuss my work with Prof Haven Hawley in Florida a few months back when I attended a conference at UFL. I will visit NYC in September. The main research questions I hope to answer on this trip concern the adoption of the Ben Day mechanical tinting method by the earliest Sunday newspaper colour pages in 1893 and 1894. E.g. were these papers the first to use Ben Day tints in letterpress printing, or were other periodicals, books etc already using them, either in colour or B&W? [Read more]
As a consequence of a research project focused on events of June 1858 upon which I am currently working, it has come to my attention that purchasers of issues of The London Times in the 1850s had to cut pages in order to read them. [Read more]
Hello. I am looking for information on the history of poster competitions in general as well as descriptions of specific instances and famous artists/designers who may have been participants. I have found books on the history of the poster, but none yet that include mention of contests or competitions. Any help or advice, what to search or where would be welcomed.
