William Addison Dwiggins  

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William Addison Dwiggins (June 19, 1880 Martinsville, Ohio – December 25, 1956 Hingham Center, Massachusetts), was an American type designer, calligrapher, and book designer. He attained prominence as an illustrator and commercial artist, and he brought to the designing of type and books some of the boldness that he displayed in his advertising work.

He and his wife Mabel Hoyle Dwiggins (February 27, 1881 – September 28, 1958) are buried in the Hingham Center Cemetery, Hingham Center, Massachusetts, near their home at 30 Leavitt Street, and Dwiggins' studio at 45 Irving Street.

Contents

Book designer

His scathing attack on contemporary book designers in An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books (1919) led to his working with the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Alblabooks, a series of finely conceived and executed trade books followed and did much to increase public interest in book format. Dwiggins was perhaps more responsible than any other designer for the marked improvement in book design in the 1920s and 1930s. He gained recognition as a calligrapher and wrote much on the graphic arts, notably essays collected in MSS by WAD (1949), and his Layout in Advertising (1928; rev. ed. 1949) remains standard.

Dwiggins is credited with coining the term 'graphic designer' in 1922 to describe his various activities in printed communications, like book design, illustration, typography, lettering and calligraphy (his first typeface designs were released much later). The term did not achieve widespread usage until after the Second World War.

Typefaces

His most widely used typefaces, Electra and Caledonia, were specifically designed for Linotype composition and have the clean spareness of the motor age. Metro is most notable as his most modern sans serif typeface. Metro was developed by Linotype in the late 1920s in response to similar type being sold from European foundries such as Erbar, Futura, and Gill Sans. The following list of his typefaces is thought to be complete.

  • Metro series
    • Metrolite + Metroblack (1930, Linotype)
    • Metrothin + Metromedium (1931, Linotype)
    • Metrolite No.2 + Metroblack No.2 (1932, Linotype)
    • Metrolite No.2 Italic + Lining Metrothin + Lining Metromedium (1935, Linotype)
    • Metromedium No.2 Italic + Metroblack No.2 Italic (1937, Linotype)
    • Metrolight No.4 Italic + Metrothin No.4 Italic (Linotype)
  • Electra series
    • Electra + Electra Oblique (italic) (1935, Linotype)
    • Electra Bold + Italic (Linotype)
    • Electra Cursive + Italic (1944, Linotype)
  • Charter (Designed 1937-42, used only for one book, never released, Linotype)
  • Hingham (Designed 1937-43, cut in 7 pt. but not released, Linotype)
  • Caledonia series
  • Arcadia (Designed 1943-47, used only for Typophile's Chapbook XXII, never released, Linotype)
  • Tippecanoe + Italic (Designed 1944-46, used only for one book, never released, Linotype)
  • Winchester Roman + Italic + Winchester Uncials + Italic (1944–48, hand cast by Dwiggins, never released)
  • Stuyvesant + Italic (1949, Linotype), based on type cut by J.F. Rosart in Holland about 1750.
  • Eldorado + Italic (1950, Linotype)
  • Falcon + Italic (1961, Linotype)
  • Experimental 267D (not released)

Marionettes

Dwiggins' love of wood carving led to his creation of a marionette theatre in a garage at 5 Irving Street, which was behind his home at 30 Leavitt Street in Hingham, Massachusetts. He also created a puppet group named the Püterschein Authority. In 1933 he performed his first show there, "The Mystery of the Blind Beggarman." Dwiggins built his second theatre under his studio at 45 Irving Street. Further productions of the Püterschein Authority included "Prelude to Eden," "Brother Jeromy," "Millennium 1," and "The Princess Primrose of Shahaban in Persia." Most of his marionettes were twelve inches tall. The marionettes were donated to the three-room Dwiggins Collection at the Boston Public Library in 1967.

Legacy

In 1957, a year after his death, Bookbuilders of Boston, an organization of book publishing professionals that Dwiggins helped to establish, renamed their highest award the W.A. Dwiggins Award.

Bibliography

Books illustrated or designed

  • Beau Brummell, Virginia Woolf (Rimington & Hooper, 1930)
  • The Complete Angler, Izaak Walton (Merrymount Press, 1928)
  • A History of Russian Literature, from the Earliest Times to the Death of Dostoyevsky, Prince D.S. Mirsky (Alfred A. Knopf, 1927)
  • The Lone Striker, Robert Frost (Alfred A. Knopf, 1933)
  • Paraphs, Hermann Püterschein (Alfred A Knopf for the Society of Calligraphers, 1928)
  • The Time Machine: An Invention, H. G. Wells (Random House, 1931)
  • The Witch Wolf: An Uncle Remus Story, Joel Chandler Harris (Bacon & Brown, 1921)

Footnotes

Further reading

  • W. Tracy, Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design (1986), pp 174–194
  • The Type Designs of William Addison Dwiggins, Vincent Connare, May 22, 2000
  • B. Kennett, 'The Whie Elephant and the Fabulist: The Private Press Activities of W. A. Dwiggins, 1913-1921', in Parenthesis; 21 (2011 Autumn), p. 27-30
  • B. Kennett, 'W A Dwiggins The Private Press Work, Part 2 The Society of Calligraphers 1922-9', in Parenthesis; 22 (2012 Spring), p. 34-39
  • B. Kennett, 'The Private Press Work of W. A. Dwiggins, Part 3 Puterschein-Hingham and Related Projects, 1930-1956', in Parenthesis; 23 (2012 Autumn), p. 17-20




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