RIT Cary Graphic Arts Hebrew Wood Type Collection. (Amelia Hugill-Fontanel)
Sat., Nov. 7 | Shani Avni’s talk on Hebrew wood type was filled with so much interesting information that I realized while going through my many pages of notes that there is no way to recap everything. Avni is currently undertaking the cataloging of around 40 fonts of Hebrew wood type in the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at R.I.T. These fonts were acquired in 2014 from the artist Richard Rockford. [Read more]
These three presentations focused on the theme of making impressions through teaching. In each case, the speakers presented examples of ways in which they have engaged students and designers directly with materials and processes related to printing history. The speakers illustrated APHA’s mission in action; it is an organization that “encourages the study of the history of printing and related arts and crafts.” [Read more]
Conference speaker Todd Samuelson uses the pantograph to trace a pattern, at right, this defines the path of the router bit over the wood block, at left. (Ray Nichols)
Geri McCormick & Matt Rieck: “Making Wood Type Today: Using the Same Methods from Yesteryear”
9 am-noon thursday, october 22
Geri McCormick & Matt Rieck hosted a hands-on morning making wood type at Virgin Wood Type. The garage-sized workspace for the beginning stages of the production process was packed with boxes of wood ready for surfacing with shellac, shellaced-wood ready for cutting, and boxes of patterns. [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]
Dennis Ichiyama at the San Francisco Center for the Book. (Photo courtesy of SFCB)
Several Vandercook presses were rolling out impressions of 50-line wood type, each inked with its own vibrant color, as I entered the San Francisco Center for the Book. Because of the informality of the presentation, I was able to ask questions about the materials used in the demonstration. [Read more]
Everyone loves the Page chromatic type specimen (1874), but it seems that no one loves it more than Nick Sherman, a digital type guy by day, who shared some of the discoveries he’s made while obsessing about the book. Sherman’s images of specimen pages, bringing oohs and ahhs from the audience, prompted him to admit that turning each page is “like getting punched in the face over and over.” [Read more]
Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, etc. Manufactured by Wm. H. Page & Co., Greeneville, Conn. : The Co., 1874. 655.241 P133sp
Rob Roy Kelly wrote that Wm. H. Page’s Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, Etc., 1874 “has been rightfully acclaimed as containing the most superb wood type specimens ever printed.” This tome of 100 plates featured Page’s fantastic character designs, intricate borders and tint blocks, precisely printed in up to 7 colors each—sometimes with metallic inks, and always with interesting overprinted hues. About a dozen copies exist in libraries nationwide, and it is this rarity that encouraged curators at RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection to have RIT’s copy digitally photographed. [Read more]
