Blue Pencil

Blue Pencil is a “slog”: a slow blog. It does not get updated daily or even on a regular schedule. Instead, it gets updated when there is something of value to be posted. Postings often take a long time to prepare and appear at intervals of a few weeks or even months. Sometimes there is a flurry of postings within the span of a few days. Blue Pencil may be unpredictable in its frequency, but not in its purpose. Blue Pencil is fiercely dedicated to the 3Rs: research, reading and writing.

29 April 2018

Further Thoughts on Nomenclature of Letterforms

In 2014 I published three posts on the subject of letterform terminology. It is something that continues to be vexing to many people, including myself. Since then I wrote Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017) with the assistance of Abby Goldstein. For the book she and I created what we consider to be an improved chart for identifying the parts of letters of typefaces. Instead of using a single typeface …
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27 April 2018

Blue Pencil no. 42—Revival Type

Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past by Paul Shaw with Abby Goldstein (New Haven: Yale University Press and London: Thames & Hudson, 2017). Design by Abby Goldstein.
I am not immune from the Blue Pencil treatment. Like every author, I have made mistakes despite my diligence. I am embarrassed by them. Recently, Jerry Kelly, in reviewing Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past (2017) for Printing History 23 (New Series, Winter 2018) pointed out some errors in the book. All …
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19 April 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 142—The New Colophon

The Colophon was conceived in 1928 but Part 1 was not issued until February 1930. The first series ended with Part 20 in March 1935. It was succeeded by The Colophon New Series which ran from Summer 1935 (vol. 1, no. 1) to December 1938 (vol. 3, no. 4). The third iteration of the journal, titled The Colophon New Graphic Series lasted for four issues from March 1939 to February 1940. At that point, Elmer Adler, its founder …
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14 April 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 141—The Colophon (New Series)

The first iteration of The Colophon: A Book Collectors’ Quarterly came to an end with Part 20 in March 1935. [1] For five years its progenitor Elmer Adler had struggled to establish the journal on a firm financial basis with little success. In order to reduce expenses he reluctantly agreed to replace handset type with machine composition and to change the format from an assemblage of articles produced and printed by different contributors to a standardized design printed by Pynson …
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12 April 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 82—The Colophon (Part V)

In the fall of 1928 W.A. Dwiggins was completing work on the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson for Random House. The printer of the book was Pynson Printers, headed by Elmer Adler (1884–1962). [1] The two men had previously worked together on Nobodaddy: A Play by Archibald MacLeish (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Dunster House, 1926) and two editions of My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926). [2] Their professional friendship …
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4 March 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 30—The Architect and the Industrial Arts

Entrance to The Architect and the Industrial Arts exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1929). Design by Joseph Urban. Note the poster by W.A. Dwiggins at right. Image source: Digital Collections, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richard F. Bach (1887–1968) organized fifteen annual exhibitions of contemporary industrial art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1917 and 1940. [1] With them he attempted to promote good design and good taste in manufactured goods. The annuals displayed examples of good design …
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4 March 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 32—The Architect and the Industrial Arts, continued

There are eighteen stencil ornaments in total by W.A. Dwiggins in the exhibition catalogue for The Architect and the Industrial Arts. [1] However, only eight are original designs. The other ten are either repeats or flopped copies. Six designs are botanical in nature and two are geometrical. All are printed in black, though several have hatched elements to create tone. Printed by letterpress on soft paper, Dwiggins’ original crisp edges have unfortunately been dulled. Here they are, in the order …
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25 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 105—Addendum to W.A. Dwiggins’ Ancestry, Part III: Moses and Eva Dwiggins

Five artifacts associated with Moses and Eva Dwiggins survive in the W.A. Dwiggins Collections at the Boston Public Library: two programs for theatrical events, one each involving Moses and Eva, their marriage license, a certificate for Moses as a medical examiner for an insurance company, and a book entitled Living Poems. [1] All are of interest beyond their use as documentation of W.A. Dwiggins’ parents’ lives. [2] They are fascinating for their design and typography which is typical of the …
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22 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 108—James Ferguson, the Photograph Swindler

 This post is an addendum to The Definitive Dwiggins no. 97—W.A. Dwiggins’ Childhood (1880–1889) continued.
W.A. Dwiggins as a child (1886). Photograph by James Ferguson (Richmond, Indiana). Courtesy Special Collections, Boston Public Library.
In The Definitive Dwiggins no. 97, I included two photographs of W.A. Dwiggins as a child, both taken by well-respected Richmond photographic studios. The earliest one was by Jacob Harry Swaine (1838–1917) whose studio at the time was located at the corner of Eighth Street and Main …
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22 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 97—W.A. Dwiggins’ Childhood (1880–1889) continued

The text for this post on W.A. Dwiggins’ childhood in Richmond, Indiana was originally written in 2007. It overlaps The Definitive Dwiggins no. 94 (Dwiggins’ birth and childhood), The Definitive Dwiggins no. 95 (some of Dwiggins’ childhood drawings), The Definitive Dwiggins no. 106 (Richmond, Indiana businesses), The Definitive Dwiggins no. 107 (Dwiggins’ homes in Richmond, Indiana), and The Definitive Dwiggins no. 92 (Clare V. Dwiggins, known as Dwig). Although ostensibly about Dwiggins’ childhood in Richmond, The Definitive Dwiggins no. …
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17 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 92—Dwig

W.A. Dwiggins is familiarly known today as WAD, but occasionally in the past he was referred to by colleagues as Dwig. This nickname can be confusing since it was the professional name of his first cousin Clare V. Dwiggins (1874–1958), an illustrator and cartoonist. [1]
A young Clare Victor Dwiggins (n.d.). Courtesy Special Collections, Boston Public Library.
“The cartoonist.” From School Days by Clare Victor Dwiggins (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1919).
Clarence Victor Dwiggins was born …
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15 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 106—Richmond, Indiana, Part I: Businesses

This post accompanies The Definitive Dwiggins no. 94 and The Definitive Dwiggins no. 107 as part of my attempt to establish the context and environment in which W.A. Dwiggins grew up.
Map of The City of RIchmond, Indiana 1884 (Boston: C.H. Bailey & Co., 1884).
Richmond, Indiana was the city where Dwiggins spent his childhood. [1] When he arrived there, as a six months-old infant, the city had a population of 12,742; by 1890 when he left, following the death …
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15 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 107—Richmond, Indiana, Part II: Residences

In December 1880, when he was six months old, W.A. Dwiggins moved from the hamlet of Martinsville, Ohio (population 355) to the thriving industrial city of Richmond, Indiana (population 12,742). From that moment until the fall of 1904, when he moved east to Hingham, Massachusetts, he always lived in an urban setting. A sense of the size of Richmond during Dwiggins’ childhood can be gained from seeing the “bird’s eye” map of the city made by C.H. Bailey in …
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11 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 98—S.S. McClure Co.

In the span of less than two weeks—between the end of December 1907 and the middle of January 1908—W.A. Dwiggins was commissioned by the S.S. McClure Co. to design six book covers. A month later he was asked to design a seventh cover. That same day he also received four assignments for McClure’s Magazine. [1] The books were, in order, Through the Magic Door by Arthur Conan Doyle and Piano Playing: A Little Book of Simple Suggestions by …
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9 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 95—Childhood Drawings: Locomotives, Fire Engines, Tractors, and Skeletons

A small number of childhood drawings by W.A. Dwiggins have survived. [1] They were made either using druggist’s prescription sheets or pages from a ledger which his father, Dr. Moses F. Dwiggins, owned. The ledger pages are lined and some are tabbed (with letters such as CD). All have the names of patients written on the upper lines and one also says “Cash Act. 181” at the top. Below the patient entries, in dark pencil, are various phrases such as …
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7 February 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 94—W.A. Dwiggins’ Birth and Childhood (1880–1889)

Map of The City of Richmond, Indiana 1884 (Boston: C.H. Bailey & Co., 1884).
Moses and Eva Dwiggins were from differing religious faiths and, even after their marriage, continued to worship separately. Moses was a Quaker in good standing at the time of his death, which was recorded in the archives of the Whitewater Monthly Meeting. [1]  Typically, the entry makes no mention of his non-Quaker wife and child. Their respective families—including Rev. Siegfried—seemed to have accepted their interfaith marriage. Eva’s father, contrary …
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