Publications > Special Publications
Special Publications
In addition to its periodical publications, APHA also publishes books of interest to members. After publication through the Association, these items are available from Oak Knoll Books, and may be ordered directly from them. The following publications are currently in print.
Verse into Type: The APHA Poetry Portfolio
Fourteen of America's leading printers contributed broadsides to this project. The portfolio contains a wide variety of typographic arrangements of poetry, both contemporary and classic, using a variety of typefaces, colors, formats, and papers, all printed letterpress. The poems were selected by the printers themselves.
Contributors include: Mindy Beloff, Robin Price, Sandy Connors, Barbara Henry, Ed Colker, Ron Gordon, David Pankow, Jerry Kelly, Kay Michael Kramer, Michael Peich, Gaylord Shanilec, Jack Stauffacher, Michael Russem and Carolee Campbell.
225 copies.
The printed broadsides are housed in a handmade cloth traycase made by Judi Conant. 2006.
$200, plus shipping and handling. Order this book from Oak Knoll Books.
The Spiral Press, 1926–1971. A Bibliographical Checklist
Compiled by Philip N. Cronenwett
The Spiral Press was one of the most important presses in America in the 20th century. As a printer, Joseph Blumenthal set standards that are unequalled for dedication to the details of fine printing and design. His proprietary typeface, Spiral, was admired by the Monotype Corporation and adapted as "Emerson" for commercial book composition. The significance of The Spiral Press to American letters and cultural history is underscored by the items listed in the bibliography. Joseph Blumenthal designed and printed for Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Pablo Neruda, William Carlos Williams, Robinson Jeffers and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Institutions counted among the press's clients were The Metropolitan Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Morgan Library, The Grolier Club and The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
500 regular edition copies. Printed by the Studley Press.
Cloth. 196 pages containing more than two dozen reproductions of Spiral Press pages. 2002.
$55.00, plus shipping and handling. Order this book from Oak Knoll Books.
D.B.U. and R.R.
Selected extract from from correspondence that passed between Daniel Berkeley Updike & Rudolph Ruzicka from 1908 to 1941.
Edited by Edward Connery Lathem and Elizabeth French Lathem
D.B.U. and R.R. prints for the first time extracts from the important correspondence between these major figures of American graphic arts, revealing a little-known closeness between the Merrymount Press fine printer Updike and the artist Ruzicka. The two men collaborated on a number of important books, including Newark and the Grolier Club's Irving, as well as the exquisite series of Merrymount annual keepsakes. Ruzicka also played a substantial advisory role in the writing of Updike's monumental Printing Types. This touching and candid thirty-three year correspondence is put in context by the Lathems' elucidating commentary.
450 regular edition copies. Printed by the Stinehour Press.
Cloth, printed dust-jacket. 181 pages including index and two tipped-in facsimiles. 1997.
$ 50.00, plus shipping and handling. Order this book from Oak Knoll Books.
American Proprietary Typefaces
Edited by David Pankow
With contributions by: Susan Otis Thompson, Martin Hutner, Herbert Johnson, Cathleen Baker, Mark Argetsinger, Jerry Kelly, Dwight Anger, W. Gay Reading, John Kristensen, and Paul Hayden Duensing.
600 regular edition copies, designed by Jerry Kelly and printed letterpress, with 38 plates by offset lithography, by the Stinehour Press.
Cloth, gilt and blind stamped. 176 pages plus 38 plates. 1998.
$50, plus shipping and handling. Order this book from Oak Knoll Books.
APHA’s 35th Annual Conference, “Learning To Print, Teaching to Print,” meets in Washington, DC, October 15th–17th, 2010, at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Download the Call for Proposals here.
The Winter 2010 issue of the Newsletter is comprised of an invitation to the upcoming annual meeting; an overview of the 2010 annual conference; detailed reports on the recent 2009 conference; chapter activities from across the country; a plea for information on Ramage hand presses; a synopsis of a talk by Matthew Carter at the Type Directors Cub; a report on a conference in Munich concerned with the materiality of early printed books; obituaries of Ed Rondthaler and Charles M. Antin; and notes the appointment of a new editor. Download it in PDF form here.
The 2010 Annual Meeting will feature the presentation of our prestigious annual awards for distinguished
contributions “to the study, recording, preservation or dissemination of printing history.” The
2010 Individual Award will be presented to Johanna Drucker, prolific author, teacher, speaker and internationally
recognized authority in the book arts. The 2010 Institutional Award will go to the Center for Book Arts, for its encouragement of both
traditional printing and of the contemporary exploration of the book as art object. See a list of past APHA Award-winners and read some of their acceptance speeches here.
You'll read in the summer newsletter that from the fall issue 2009 (number 172) onwards the Newsletter will only be available in electronic form on this website. It will no longer be printed and mailed to members, a significant cost savings that may have an unexpected benefit: going electronic will make it possible for us to produce more newsletters each year. For the time being the design of the newsletter will remain the same, so those who wish to print it out will have the recognizable and familiar object to hold. Soon though we will reformat it somewhat for easier reading on your iPhone or Blackberry. Of course we will continue to archive the newsletter on the website, so that all back issues will be available. We are also investigating ways to feed the publication to interested subscribers.