Citations for APHA's 2009
Awards for Distinguished Achievement
The American Printing History Association is pleased to announce the winners of its 2009 Individual and Institutional Awards for distinguished achievement in printing history.
Introduction of Robert Bringhurst
Introductory remarks by Daniel J. Slive
The 2009 APHA Awards Committee nominates typographical historian and author Robert Bringhurst as the recipient of the APHA Individual Award. This award is intended to recognize “a distinguished contribution to the study, recording, preservation or dissemination of printing history, in any specific area or in general terms.” In nominating Robert Bringhurst, the committee notes his significant series of publications which have contributed to our study and understanding of the broad cultural contexts of typography.
Bringhurst’s highly important and influential manual, The Elements of Typographic Style, was first published in 1992. Eloquently written, Bringhurst’s work engages the reader masterfully with aesthetic, cultural, and historic approaches to understanding and practicing typography. Richard Eckersley noted in Bookways (Number 9, October 1993), “It is a breadth of vision one associates with the Renaissance, a vision that persisted into the eighteenth century, when publishers were also writers, translators, compositors, printers, papermakers, and, above all, readers.” Paul Koda, writing in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (Volume 89, Number 4, December 1995) concluded that the work “will be retained as a milestone in book making and book history. . . . The Elements of Typographic Style belongs on all our shelves.” Printer, publisher, and designer Gerald Lange, in Abracadabra (Number 7, Spring 1993), wrote that the manual “combines the practical, the theoretical, and the historical in a manner that is a delightful pleasure to read and of value not only to the amateur but to the professional as well.” Bringhurst has revised The Elements of Typographic Style five times, most recently in 2005, with substantive additions to the text. Now in its third edition, the manual has also been translated into ten languages.
Following the initial publication of The Elements of Typographic Style, Bringhurst produced a series of detailed essays on specific aspects of typographic history. Published in Serif: The Magazine of Type & Typography, these include:
- "On the Classification of Letterforms," Serif (Number 1, Fall 1994).
- "Holding Ideas in the Hand: The Physics & Metaphysics of Renaissance Letterforms," Serif (Number 2, Winter 1995).
- "Painting with Ink & Steel: The Roman & Italic Types of the Baroque Age," Serif (Number 3, Fall 1995).
- "The Invisible Hand, Part I: Neoclassical Letterforms," Serif (Number 4, Spring 1996).
- "The Invisible Hand, Part II: Roman & Italic Type in the Romantic Age," Serif (Number 5, Fall 1997).
An additional essay on typography, “The Typographic Nude,” was published in Critique in 1997. In October 2000 Bringhurst delivered the keynote address at APHA’s 25th Annual Conference, published in Printing History 46 under the title “The Voice in the Mirror.” (This was not his first presentation at APHA, as he also delivered APHA’s 1993 J. Ben Lieberman Memorial Lecture.) Bringhurst’s recent publications include The Solid Form of Language (2004), an extended essay on language, writing, and typography, and The Surface of Meaning: Books and Book Design in Canada (2008), a survey of English and French-Canadian books and book design from the early 19th-century to the present.
In addition to his own writings related to printing history, Bringhurst has also been involved in making the work of others readily available. He is responsible for the 1999 second edition, revised and updated, of A Short History of the Printed Word. He and Warren Chappel are co-authors of this second edition. He also edited, and provided an introduction to, the 1991 English translation of Jan Tschichold's The Form of the Book.
In his publications, Bringhurst has influenced the way students, scholars, curators, and practitioners of typography approach, consider, understand, collect, and create. His placement of type within a larger cultural context—as an object of serious art historical and anthropological study—is an important contribution to printing history.
Introduction of Whittington Press,
Proprietor, John Randle and Rosalind Randle
(John Randle accepting)
Introductory remarks by Daniel J. Slive
Whittington Press for Matrix: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles
The 2009 APHA Awards Committee nominates the Whittington Press as the recipient of the APHA Institutional Award in recognition of the press’s renowned journal Matrix: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles. Issued annually since 1981, Matrix has made distinguished contributions to the study, recording, preservation, and dissemination of printing history, and has done so utilizing a remarkable combination of authoritative scholarship and fine printing.
The Whittington Press was started in 1971 by John and Rosalind Randle in the Cotswold village of Whittington. The founding, according to the Randles, was “the result partly of an early enthusiasm for Caslon type, Albion presses and hand-made paper, and partly the wish to escape from London publishing jobs at the weekend.” The initial product of the press was Richard Kennedy’s A Boy at the Hogarth Press, which was published to general acclaim in 1972. Since that first successful book, the Whittington Press has printed and published over 180 titles including bibliographies, type specimens, collections of illustrations and printed papers, and other books about books. The press has also regularly issued Matrix, now in its twenty-seventh year.
John Randle noted in The Whittington Press, a Bibliography 1971–1981 that “Matrix came about partly because we had projects in mind which would not quite make a book, but which nevertheless needed publishing, and partly because, although the Americans had their Fine Print, we in England, with the notable exception of Albion, seem to be poorly provided with a journal devoted to fine printing in its finest sense, from practical printing to book collecting.” The first issue, printed in an edition of 350 copies, consisted of 76 pages. The number of pages included and copies printed have since increased with recent issues of approximately 800 copies containing over 200 pages. In Printing at The Whittington Press, 1972–1994, Mark Batty has described the combination of physical and intellectual content of Matrix that differentiates it from other journals devoted to printing history. “In its pages can be found enormous editorial diversity, and daring and maverick experiments in production in the form of foldouts, tip-ins, bind-ins, specialist papers, and various printing methods for illustrations. This varied content is held together by a consistent design style involving careful and conservative use of typography. This facilitates elegant legibility and a background framework to project the strong editorial.”
Matrix has covered a range of topics in printing history since 1981 including substantial articles on typefaces, typesetting, and founding (including hieroglyphical and hieratic types and exotic typefaces); papermaking, fine papers, and decorated papers from around the world; wood-engraving and other illustration processes including pochoir and autholithography; book design; and major British printers and publishers. As noted above, numerous articles have included specimens of type, paper, and illustrations which have complemented and enhanced the texts. Contributors to Matrix have included significant figures in printing and scholars of printing history (including several APHA laureates). A selective listing of this remarkable gathering of authors includes Nicolas Barker, Sebastian Carter, Roderick Cave, John Dreyfus, Vance Gerry, Jerry Kelly, David McKitterick, Ruari McLean, Henry Morris, James Mosley, Stan Nelson, and William S. Peterson.
In a critical appreciation of the first thirteen issues of Matrix, typographer and printing historian John Dreyfus concluded, “A vast amount of experience is stored up in Matrix. All this can be invaluable to those who have to take decisions about fine printing, either as practitioners, as patrons, or as collectors.” A decade and a half later, Matrix has remained an essential resource for all readers engaged in the study and appreciation of printing.
The awards were presented during the Annual Meeting of the American Printing History Association, on Saturday, January 24, 2009, New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York City.
Elected to their first term, at our annual general meeting held January 28, were Robert McCamant, President; James P. Ascher, VP for Publications; Casey Smith, VP for Membership; and Charles Cuykendall Carter, Secretary. Re-elected to a second term were Kitty Maryatt, VP for Programs; and David Goodrich, Treasurer. Trustees Amelia Hugill-Fontanel and Richard Ring will serve until January 2013.
The American Printing History Association welcomes proposals for its 2012 annual conference. “At the Crossroads: Living Letterform Traditions” at Columbia College Chicago, Center for Book and Paper Arts, October 12–13, 2012. Proposals are due by March 15. Full details are available in PDF.
Our annual general meeting will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday January 28, 2012 in the Trustees’ Room on the second floor of the New York Public Library, 5th Avenue at 42nd Street in Manhattan. In addition to Association business, our annual meeting is a chance to meet fellow members from around the country, to network, and to hear some important speakers. (Our meeting marks the end of “Bibliography Week” in New York, when similar groups hold their annual meetings and this year includes a major exhibition on printing at the Grolier Club; more information online grolierclub.org. APHA’s meeting is free and open to non-members (except for voting), so please invite friends interested in printing, books, publishing, and type. Read the President's Letter.
The Fall 2011 issue of the APHA Newsletter comprises of reports from the annual conference including panels, Pamela Smith's keynote address, Gwido Zlatkes's Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship talk, the SoCal chapter book fair, a tour of the Stuart Collection of outdoor sculpture at UCSD and a list of new APHA members. Download the Newsletter in PDF form.
Kitty Maryatt reports on the first-ever conference book fair. Read all about it.
Many numbers are available to APHA members for a limited time at the bargain rate of $8 for the first issue, $6 for each additional; $15 for double issues. Learn more at printinghistory.org/sale.
Details and application for the 2012 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship
in Printing History are now online.
Thanks to the generosity of several APHA Southern California Chapter members, the Southern California Chapter has conducted its first-ever student membership drawing.
To celebrate the start of 2011, the complete listing of Printing History's contents have been put back online. See the contents (and a few select articles) from the Original Series, or a complete listing of the New Series. See something you like? Download the Back Issue Order Form.