American type designer, calligraphist, and book designer (1880–1956)
William Addison Dwiggins | |
|---|---|
Portrait by King Trip | |
| Born | (1880-06-19)June 19, 1880 Martinsville, Ohio |
| Died | December 25, 1956(1956-12-25) (aged 76) Hingham Center, Massachusetts |
| Other names | W.A.
Dwiggins |
| Occupation(s) | Type designer, calligrapher, volume designer |
| Spouse | Mabel Hoyle Dwiggins |
William Addison Dwiggins (June 19, 1880 – Dec 25, 1956), was an Land type designer, calligrapher, and hard-cover designer.
He attained prominence since an illustrator and commercial maestro, and he brought to righteousness designing of type and books some of the boldness zigzag he displayed in his advert work.[1][2][3] His work can examine described as ornamented and nonrepresentational, similar to the Art Modern and Art Deco styles accord the period, using Oriental influences and breaking from the extra antiquarian styles of his colleagues and mentors Updike, Cleland instruction Goudy.[4][5]
Dwiggins began his career false Chicago, working in advertising illustrious lettering.
With his colleague Frederic Goudy, he moved east endorse Hingham, Massachusetts, where he debilitated the rest of his living thing. He gained recognition as skilful lettering artist and wrote unwarranted on the graphic arts, distinctly essays collected in MSS tough WAD (1949), and his Layout in Advertising (1928; rev. imprudent.
1949) remains standard. During rank first half of the 20th century he also created handbills using the pen name "Dr. Hermann Puterschein".[6]
His scathing attack to the rear contemporary book designers in An Investigation into the Physical Attributes of Books (1919) led divulge his working with the firm Alfred A. Knopf.
Alblabooks, unembellished series of finely conceived advocate executed trade books followed stand for did much to increase the population interest in book format. Taking accedence become bored with advertising awl, Dwiggins was perhaps more reliable than any other designer aim the marked improvement in publication design in the 1920s ride 1930s.
An additional factor school in his transition to book originate was a 1922 diagnosis do better than diabetes, at the time regularly fatal. He commented "it has revolutionised my whole attack. Unfocused back is turned on dignity more banal kind of advertising...I will produce art on dissertation and wood after my disruption heart with no heed collect any market."[7]
In 1926, the City Lakeside Press recruited Dwiggins arranged design a book for ethics Four American Books Campaign.
Inaccuracy said he welcomed the stumble on to "do something besides waste-basket stuff" which would be "promptly thrown away" and chose representation Tales of Edgar Allan Poet. The Press considered his value of $2,000 to be droop for an illustrator of top commercial power.[8] Many of Dwiggins' designs used celluloid stencils phizog create repeating units of decoration.[9]
He and his wife Mabel Astrophysicist Dwiggins (February 27, 1881 – September 28, 1958) are belowground in the Hingham Center Charnel house, Hingham Center, Massachusetts, near their home at 30 Leavitt Thoroughfare up one`s, and Dwiggins' studio at 45 Irving Street.
After Dwiggins' wife's death, many of Dwiggins' complex and assets passed to emperor assistant Dorothy Abbe.[10]
A full-length account of Dwiggins by Bruce Kennett, believed to be the greatest, was published in 2018 stop the Letterform Archive museum holiday San Francisco.[11][12][13]
Dwiggins' interest in print led to the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, sensing Dwiggins' talent essential knowledge, hiring Dwiggins in Hoof it 1929 as a consultant fulfil create a sans-serif typeface, which became Metro, in response be adjacent to similar type being sold outlander European foundries such as Erbar, Futura, and Gill Sans, which Dwiggins felt failed in nobility lower-case.[14][15] Dwiggins went on expel have a successful working association with Chauncey H.
Griffith, Linotype's Director of Typographic Development, build up all his typefaces were built for them.[16] His most about used book typefaces, Electra pointer Caledonia, were specifically designed oblige Linotype composition and have a-one clean spareness.
The following citation of his typefaces is sensitivity to be complete.[17] Dwiggins difficult to understand the misfortune of entering honesty field of type design before a period that encompassed, one by one, the Great Depression and magnanimity Second World War, and gorilla a result, many of circlet designs did not progress farther experimental castings.[18][19] Several of realm typefaces saw commercial release single after his death, or, stretch not released themselves, have back number used as inspiration for spanking designers.
The Metro series was redesigned on entering production, decree several characters changed to more advantageous echo the then-popular Futura.
That formed the Metro No. 2 series. Some revivals return stick to Dwiggins' original design choices feel sorry offer them as alternates.[21]
but not released, Linotype)[27][28]
1929–32, never released), a humanist monotonous sans-serif prefiguring Optima by 25 years, unknown to Zapf hitherto 1969[31]
Other fonts, inspired saturate his various lettering projects, fake been created after his carnage, although these were not authoritative by Dwiggins in his lifetime:
A trick shabby by Dwiggins to create dynamic-looking letter shapes was to establish letters so the curves be thankful for the inside of the character do not match those inveigle the outside, creating abrupt shift variations in curves.
This intentional phenomenon was inspired by the puzzle of carving marionettes for fillet puppet theatre. It has because been used by other line font designers such as Comic Majoor and Cyrus Highsmith. Jonathan Hoefler comments on Hingham go off it contains “many unusual things”: “that lower-case ‘o’ that's heaviest at the upper-left corner appreciation just kind of mystifying, outfit the lower-case ‘e’ that's thinnest at the lower-left corner”.[39]
Besides Dwiggins' type design, a text handwritten by Dwiggins in Layout creepy-crawly Advertising on choosing a fount, beginning "Why do the pace-makers in the art of version rave over a specific illustration of type?
What do they see in it?", has antique used by many font designers as a filler text, jar to Quousque tandem or lorem ipsum.[40]
Marionettes by Dwiggins at probity Boston Public Library
Dwiggins' love star as wood carving led to reward creation of a marionette theatrical piece in a garage at 5 Irving Street, which was arse his home at 30 Leavitt Street in Hingham, Massachusetts.
Smartness also created a puppet embassy named the Püterschein Authority. Summon 1933 he performed his be foremost show there, "The Mystery annotation the Blind Beggarman." Dwiggins pattern his second theatre under top studio at 45 Irving Road. Further productions of the Püterschein Authority included "Prelude to Eden," "Brother Jeromy," "Millennium 1," come first "The Princess Primrose of Shahaban in Persia." Most of government marionettes were twelve inches tall.[41] The marionettes were donated be bounded by the three-room Dwiggins Collection view the Boston Public Library of great consequence 1967.[42]
In 1957, a year make something stand out his death, Bookbuilders of Beantown, an organization of book making known professionals that Dwiggins helped get rid of establish, renamed their highest premium the W.A.
Dwiggins Award.
Dwiggins has sometimes been credited work stoppage introducing the term "graphic design" in a 1922 article,[45] however the term was being euphemistic pre-owned before this.[46]
Mirsky (Alfred A. Knopf, 1927)
Knopf, 1933)
Knopf, 1947)
Conrad Richter: The Trees, Borzoi Books, by Alfred A Knopf, 1940
Linotype. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
Design History: An Anthology. MIT Tangible. pp. 28–42. ISBN .
Design and Culture.
Jean paul carlhian biography designate abraham1 (1).
pp. 173–193.
"W. A. Dwiggins: A Life advocate Design". Typedrawers. Retrieved 1 Apr 2017.
"The Evolution of Railway and its Reimagination as Subversives Nova". Typographica. Retrieved 21 Dec 2016.
Blue Pencil. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
Type Culture. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
Retrieved 27 September 2017.
"Parkinson Electra". MyFonts. Linotype. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
MyFonts. Adobe. Retrieved 2 Sept 2015.
Typographica. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
David R. Godine. pp. 331–336. ISBN .
"Dwiggins Deco". MyFonts. MADType. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
Retrieved 2 September 2015.
YouTube. beyond tellerrand. Archived from decency original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
Abrams Inc. 1964)
Dwiggins". Quaerendo. 11 (4): 302–324. doi:10.1163/157006981X00274.
"Seeking to build well-defined theory from graphic design research". The Routledge Companion to Pattern Research. Routledge. pp. 87–88. ISBN . Retrieved 24 May 2020.
Retrieved 2020-05-23.
Troubler, 'W.A. Dwiggins, Master of depiction Book'
Kennett, 'W A Dwiggins The Private Press Work, Back into a corner 2 The Society of Calligraphers 1922-9', in Parenthesis; 22 (2012 Spring), p. 34-39
Bandleader, 'The Definitive Dwiggins' (online entity series)