Hold back the rain, Mr. Unger!

Posted on 6 December 2007 in:

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Outside, it is raining. But this is England, and mentioning this sort of weather is akin to saying that “the ice in the soda is cold.” No matter; inside, the typography is hot! This week marks the third visit that Gerard Unger has made to the department since we began in October. By now, we are all experimenting with possibilities of how our typefaces might actually look, or at least what form we think that the letters a d h e s i o n should take. Maybe. The process is certainly something you’ve heard of before. But my days tend to run along like this:

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How are the thin strokes of my letters looking? I think they are coming along…they should be right by June. Maybe May. So far I’ve still just 15 lowercase characters. About 14 of them need a lot of work, I’d wager.

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Mathieu Réguer, putting the “F” into French typeface design. Notice the bottles of Coca-Cola. These feed his productivity the way that electricity powers his MacBook Pro.

Gerard reads his notes during a lecture on Dwiggins. Photo by Yvonnne Schüttler.

Gerard reads from his notes during a lecture on Dwiggins. Photo by Yvonne Schüttler.

On afternoons when he is here, Gerard often presents lectures on various stages in the history of typeface design. On Tuesday, he delved into W.A. Dwiggins’ work. The lecture was aided by a collection of various books designed by Dwiggins, most of which I believe are from Gerry’s collection.

Photo by Yvonnne Schüttler.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, design by W.A. Dwiggins. Photo by Yvonne Schüttler.