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21 July 2025

Letterforms Study Group: Corsivo Inglese in Caratteri—6. Cornuda

June 14, 2025 | Day 6—Tipoteca
Letterpress workshop with Richard Ardagh
This was the last day of the workshop. It was originally scheduled to be a day devoted solely to binding the specimen book, but pages that had been printed on the hand presses the day before were not yet dry, and there were still pages to be printed on the cylinder presses. So, the day became a mix of activities: composing type, printing, dissing type, cleaning up—and binding.
Earl Kallemeyn and Richard …
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20 July 2025

Letterforms Study Group: Corsivo Inglese in Caratteri—4. Cornuda

June 12, 2025 | Day 4—Tipoteca
Letterpress workshop with Richard Ardagh
While the participants were working on their page designs the day before, Richard Ardagh, our master printer, had been busy setting up the two hand presses, one to print Stocchetti 004–006 and the other to print Rosaria 030–032. (The two script wood types were separated because their height-to-paper measurements differed.) On Monday, he had printed an advance showing of the Stocchetti character set that was subsequently photocopied for use by the …
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29 January 2025

Why you should join the Letterforms Study Group at the Tipoteca 2025—Reason no. 12: Richard Ardagh

For health reasons Lucio Passerini had to withdraw from serving as the printer for the Letterforms Study Group workshop at the Tipoteca. In his stead I have recruited Richard Ardagh, a partner in New North Press based in London. He was recommended to me by Sandro Berra, the manager of the Tipoteca, and after Richard and I had a very enjoyable Zoom chat I signed him up.
Richard Ardagh setting type at New North Press. Photograph by Jasper Fry.
Richard is part …
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14 July 2024

Letterforms Study Group at the Tipoteca 2025—Wood Type Workshop Dates and Pricing update

New Double Pica Script (without segments of Letters or Combinations) from Thorowgood”s Specimen of New Printing Types (London: Fann Street Foundry, 1834). Thorowgood’s text is a riposte to Firmin Didot and Edmund Fry who promoted script typefaces composed of strokes, double letters, and other parts. Image courtesy of Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The workshop will take place from June 8 to June 15, 2025. This is the planned itinerary:
ITINERARY
Day 0 | Sunday June 8—Milano
• Arrival
• Orientation
Day 1 …
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19 December 2023

Legacy of Letters 2023: Letterpress Extravaganza—1. Milano

June 29–30, 2023 | Orientation Day and Day 1
Visit to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana with James Clough | 29 June 2023
We began Orientation Day with a bonus event for early arrivals: a visit to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. A group of eleven of us—myself, Eran Ben Barak, Kelci Baughman McDowell, Hofi Benediktsdöttir, Chiara Bergese, Shaqa Bovand, Susan Fitzgerald, Jacob Ford, Catie Piwinski, and Annunziato Mazzaferro [1]—walked from the Hotel Mercure Milano Solari in the Navigli neighborhood to the library where we met …
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9 June 2023

GoFundMe—Legacy of Letters 2023Letterpress Extravaganza

Go Fund Me—Legacy of Letters Letterpress Extravaganza
Chiara Bergese
In early April I tried to set up the GoFundMe account to raise funds to enable both Shaqa Bovand and Chiara Bergese a student in the Communication Design department at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, to join Legacy of Letters 2023. The vetting process at GoFundMe was so slow and repetitive that I decided to crowdfund both women via email and my website. The effort quickly raised enough money ($3500) for one woman …
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27 February 2023

John Rissieeuw on Legacy of Letters

John Rissieeuw (Legacy of Letters 2015):
I found Legacy of Letters to be a bracing, whirlwind tour of historic sites important to letter history. Both the novice and the well-initiated will find delights and revelations in the many presentations of letterform, type, and printing. The burning need, generated by days of museum and library viewing, for hands-on printing and ink-on-fingers is satisfied with a four-day workshop at the Tipoteca. A true joy to those with type on the brain.
John …
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20 February 2023

Lucia McCreery on Legacy of Letters

Lucia McCreery (Legacy of Letters 2010 and Legacy of Letters 2019):
These tours are not to be missed! The two I’ve been on were tremendously enriching and enjoyable. I would never have known about—let alone got to—most of those lettering and type shrines on my own, nor had such outstanding food and wine in primo Italian settings. The others on the tour were great people, and we could not have had a better leader than Paul Shaw.
Legacy of Letters …
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16 February 2023

World Trade Center bus shelter poster 1986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiF5IRaAqE4
In the 1980s I taught calligraphy/lettering at the metro campus of the New York Institute of Technology, located a few blocks north of Columbus Circle. One of my colleagues was John Bloch whose primary job was as an art director at the advertising agency McCaffery & Ratner. The firm had the World Trade Center account and in 1986 John was in charge of creating a bus shelter poster to promote the Observation Deck.
In Letter and Image, a book …
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27 November 2022

Tipo Cibo Vino (Legacy of Letters 2022)—Part 7: Letterpress Workshop Day 2

Galley proof of the C list of pasta names set by James Stroud and Janine Wong.
Tied-up galleys of pasta lists of names awaiting proofing. The C list is at the left.
On day 2 of the letterpress workshop participants were finally free of the drudgery and precision involved in setting text type. They were able to indulge their creativity with larger metal type and wood type as well as fleurons, ornaments, rules, borders, dingbats, and whatever else they could find in …
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15 November 2022

Tipo Cibo Vino (Legacy of Letters 2022)—Part 4: Parma, Langhirano, San Lazzaro di Savena, and Bologna

This is the fourth installment of a day-by-day visual account of Tipo Cibo Vino 2022. (All photographs, unless otherwise indicated, are by me and are copyright Legacy of Letters.)
July 11, 2022 | Parma
Museo Bodoniano and Biblioteca Palatina
In the morning we walked the short distance from the Hotel Torino to the Biblioteca Palatina in the Pilotta. There Dott.ssa Caterina Silva, the curator at the Museo Bodoniano, had arranged a mix of manuscripts, books, and realia (library-speak for physical objects) for …
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12 June 2022

What you will learn at CalRBS History of Type in August 2022—no. 50

I will be teaching the history of type at California Rare Book School (CalRBS) August 8–12, 2022. The 5-day intensive class will be based at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco. Along with lectures, discussions, and hands-on examination of typographic artifacts and materials at the Archive there will be field trips to other Bay Area institutions to look at books, broadsides, and more. The class will be small (7 to 12 people).
Here are 10 things you will …
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24 May 2022

What you will learn at CalRBS History of Type in August 2022—no. 22

I will be teaching the history of type at California Rare Book School (CalRBS) August 8–12, 2022. The 5-day intensive class will be based at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco. Along with lectures, discussions, and hands-on examination of typographic artifacts and materials at the Archive there will be field trips to other Bay Area institutions to look at books, broadsides, and more. The class will be small (7 to 12 people).
Here are 10 things you will …
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20 May 2022

What you will learn at CalRBS History of Type in August 2022—no. 16

I will be teaching the history of type at California Rare Book School (CalRBS) August 8–12, 2022. The 5-day intensive class will be based at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco. Along with lectures, discussions, and hands-on examination of typographic artifacts and materials at the Archive there will be field trips to other Bay Area institutions to look at books, broadsides, and more. The class will be small (7 to 12 people).
Here are 10 things you will …
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14 May 2022

What you will learn at CalRBS History of Type in August 2022—no. 8

I will be teaching the history of type at California Rare Book School (CalRBS) August 8–12, 2022. The 5-day intensive class will be based at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco. Along with lectures, discussions, and hands-on examination of typographic artifacts and materials at the Archive there will be field trips to other Bay Area institutions to look at books, broadsides, and more. The class will be small (7 to 12 people).
Here are 10 things you will …
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13 May 2022

What you will learn at CalRBS History of Type in August 2022—no. 7

I will be teaching the history of type at California Rare Book School (CalRBS) August 8–12, 2022. The 5-day intensive class will be based at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco. Along with lectures, discussions, and hands-on examination of typographic artifacts and materials at the Archive there will be field trips to other Bay Area institutions to look at books, broadsides, and more. The class will be small (7 to 12 people).
Here are 10 things you will …
Continue reading →