Paul Shaw Letter Design » Tours & Events

21 August 2016

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 36—Knopf Colophons

Recently, I gave a talk at The Book Club of California titled Beyond the Spine: A Closer Look at the Book Designs of W.A. Dwiggins for Alfred A. Knopf. While preparing the talk a few months ago, Jennifer Sime, the executive director of the club, asked me if I could prepare an article on short notice for the club’s quarterly newsletter. I jumped at the offer because it gave me an opportunity to write in depth about the colophons in …
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23 June 2016

Legacy of Letters 2017—Erik Spiekermann at the Tipoteca

If you don’t recognize this face you haven’t been paying attention to graphic design, information design, typography and type design for the past three decades. This is Erik Spiekermann. He was trained, in the true German printing tradition, as a compositor before working at H. Berthold GmbH under the legendary Gunter Gerhard Lange. For Berthold he both designed typefaces (the revivals of Berliner Grotesk and LoType for instance) and type specimens. In 1987 he also wrote the wonderfully …
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19 May 2016

Lettering Walk in Newark

Flaking gold leaf business address in Newark. Photograph by Paul Shaw (2005)
Detail of the cast lettering on the facade of The Federal Trust Company building (1926) in Newark. Photograph by Paul Shaw (2005).
CooperType is holding the second annual Typographics conference between June 13 and 23. To complement the tours scheduled for Sunday, June 19, I will be leading a lettering tour of Newark, New Jersey.
Sunday, June 19
10 am to 2 pm
$25; $20 for students
maximum …
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24 April 2016

Typefaces vs. alphabets: The case of a parochial school in the Bronx

Cover of The Speedball Text Book: Lettering and Poster Design for Pen and Brush (14th edition) by Ross F. George (Camden, New Jersey: C. Howard Hunt Pen Co., 1941). Courtey of Lee Littlewood.
On April 17 I led a lettering walk for the Type Directors Club in several north Bronx neighborhoods: Norwood, Williamsbridge, Wakefield and Woodlawn Heights. In Williamsbridge we looked at the lettering on the facade of Immaculate Conception Church on Gun Hill Road (at Holland Avenue). The name …
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21 March 2016

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 24—Talks on Dwiggins

For the past fifteen years I have been giving talks on W.A. Dwiggins as a means of spreading the discoveries I have made about his life and career while my magnum opus remains in gestation. Below is a chronological list of the talks I have already given, including some in which Dwiggins is a player but not the main subject. They cover a wide range of topics since Dwiggins had a multi-faceted career. There are many other topics* that I …
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15 February 2016

Legacy of Letters 2016—Cibo part 1

Click here for more information on Legacy of Letters 2016.
With the theme of the 2016 Legacy of Letters workshop being Tipo Cibo Vino (Type Food Wine) here are a few photographs of “cibo” from past Legacy of Letters tours.
Photograph by Paul Shaw 2013.
Food is everywhere in Italy, in the streets as well as in the ristoranti, trattorie, and osterie. These first two photographs are from vegetable and fruit markets in Venice and the third is of some octopus …
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13 February 2016

Poggio Bracciolini, an Inscription in Terranuova & the Monument to Carlo Marsuppini: A Theory

NOTE: This is the text of a short talk that I gave at the CAA Calligraphy/Epigraphy Session of the College Art Association 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC on February 5, 2016. The session, officially entitled Forming Letters: New Research in Renaissance Calligraphy and Epigraphy, was chaired by Debra Pincus and included presentations by David Boffa, James Fishburne, Roberta Ricci, Philippa Sissis and myself with William Stenhouse as the respondent. Jonathan J.G. …
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3 December 2015

Tipo Cibo Vino: Legacy of Letters 2016 Workshop

LEGACY OF LETTERS 2016 TIPO CIBO VINO
The 2016 Legacy of Letters letterpress workshop will take place at the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione in Cornuda, Italy from July 9 to 16. Food and wine have always been an important aspect of previous Legacy of Letters tours, but this time they will become an integral aspect of the workshop which will pair cooking lessons with letterpress printing. Thus, the title of Tipo Cibo Vino (Type Food Wine).
THE WORKSHOP
Tipo Cibo Vino will begin with a …
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25 October 2015

The Rchive no. 21—Poets’ Row in Denver

In August I conducted a lettering walk in Denver for TypeCon 2015. As part of my preparation I spent the day before walking and driving around the city. My chauffeur and cicerone was Diane Wray Tomasso, former New York graphic designer and Denver preservationist, an excellent repository of knowledge of the city’s architectural heritage past and present. One part of the city which we visited but which did not make it into the TypeCon 2015 lettering walk was Poets’ …
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28 October 2014

Legacy of Letters 2015 with Alan Kitching—Itinerary, workshop and registration

Mr. Kitching’s Travels around London (2012). Letterpress print designed by Alan Kitching showing the various locations where his Typography Workshop has been located. Image courtesy of Advanced Graphics London.

The 2015 Legacy of Letters tour and workshop with Alan Kitching will take place in Northern Italy from June 27 to July 8. It will consist of six days of touring museums, libraries and churches in Lombardy and the Veneto and four days of letterpress printing with the celebrated British designer …
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5 October 2014

Walk this Way, Sign this Way: A Downtown Los Angeles Lettering Walk

Cole’s French Dipped Sandwiches, 118 East Sixth Street, Los Angeles. Photograph by Paul Shaw, 2010.
Walk this Way, Sign this Way: A Downtown Los Angeles Lettering Walk with Paul Shaw
Saturday | November 8 10am–1pm
American Printing History Association , Southern California Chapter
Here in Los Angeles, we call it the Downtown Renaissance. Over the past decade or so, Historic Downtown Los Angeles has been revitalized with a youthful new population that has brought with it a resurgence of fashion, culture, and the arts. Fortunately, vestiges of Downtown’s former glory remain throughout the cityscape, giving …
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8 September 2014

Monumental Design: Lettering in Green-Wood

I will be doing a lettering walk at historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn on Sunday, September 14 from 1 to 3 pm. For details and to reserve a place click on the link above. Although I have often included cemeteries in my various lettering tours, this will be the first time that I have done an exclusive cemetery walk.
18th century tombstone for Maria Heuys Boerum, Green-Wood Cemetery. Photograph by Paul Shaw (2014).
Although the cemetery was established in 1838, …
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28 August 2014

My first meeting with Alan Kitching in 1995

I discovered Alan Kitching nearly 30 years ago. But what I discovered was not what I expected. In 1995 I took a self-paid two month “sabbatical” from teaching and designing to travel in Europe with the goal of looking at letters first-hand: in manuscripts in libraries, on the buildings and monuments of cities, in churches and museums. While in London, I went to visit type designer Dave Farey, who I had met the year before at ATypI in San Francisco. …
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16 July 2014

Legacy of Letters 2015—Alan Kitching Letterpress Workshop

Poster designed by Alan Kitching and printed letterpress (2014).
This just hot off the press (so to speak): Alan Kitching, British graphic design legend, has agreed to teach a 4-day letterpress workshop, limited to eight people, as part of the 2015 Legacy of Letters Tour and Workshop. The entire tour and workshop, organized by Paul Shaw and Alta Price, will take place next summer from June 28 to July 7. The Kitching workshop will take place at the Continue reading →

8 May 2014

Strathmore Papers and the Untold History of American Graphic Design

Recently Chris Harrold, Vice President of Business Development/Creative Director at Mohawk, invited me to up to the Albany/Troy area to see the Strathmore Archives that he has been digging into for the past few months. I was lured by the promise of seeing unknown work by W.A. Dwiggins and by the opportunity to do some preparation for my upcoming talk on “W.A. Dwiggins and the Promotion of Paper 1915–1935” at the Type Directors Club on June 3*.
For months both Dan Rhatigan …
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12 April 2014

Legacy of Letters 2014 Update

Due to insufﬁcient enrollment the 2014 Legacy of Letters workshop and tour has been cancelled, much to my regret. However, Alta and I are already preparing for the 2015 Legacy of Letters workshop and tour and hope to have details posted before June. Save up your money and clear your calendar. Please contact me at paulshaw@nyc.rr.com to be on our mailing list. Grazie.
House number (Modena).