Why you should join the Letterforms Study Group at the Tipoteca 2025—Reason no. 14: James Clough

Calligraphic design by James Clough.

James Clough

The Letterforms Study Group letterpress workshop will begin in Milano with a day devoted to learning about pointed pen scripts. James Clough will deliver an illustrated lecture accompanied by a demonstration of Italienne and Roundhand scripts. He will also lead a visit to the Biblioteca Braidense or the Archive Bertarelli to see historical examples of pointed pen scripts.

Teaching sheet for corsivo inglese (Roundhand script) by James Clough.

James was born in England, but has lived and worked in Milano since 1971. He studied typography at the London College of Printing and since moving to Italy has worked as a typographer, calligrapher and lettering specialist, teacher, and author. For many years he was a lecturer at the Politecnico di Milano. He currently teaches the practice and theory of typography at Nuova Academia di Belle Arti (NABA) University in Milano and calligraphy for the Associazione Calligrafica Italiana (ACI). James has also lectured in the USA, Britain, Switzerland, and Turkey.

James is the author of many publications, most notably Alphabets of Wood (Cornuda: Tipoteca Italiana, 2014), a history of Italian wood type; and Signs of Italy (Milano: Lazy Dog Press, 2015). For three years, from 2016 to 2019, La Repubblica published his column on historical and modern Italian inscriptions and signs.

Letterforms Study Group at the Tipoteca 2025
The workshop will take place from June 8 to June 15, 2025. Participation in the workshop is limited to eight people. To secure a place a non-refundable deposit of $300 is required. Please make payment to paulshaw@nyc.rr.com via PayPal. If this is not possible, please contact Paul Shaw at paulshaw@nyc.rr.com for alternative methods of payment. A downloadable registration form is available below.

Tipoteca 2025 registration form

Contents spread from Alphabets of Wood (Cornuda: Tipoteca Italiano Fondazione, 2015).

Spread from Alphabets of Wood showing wood type version of Fluidum designed originally as metal type by Alessandro Butti for Nebiolo in 1937.