When the studio was in San Francisco, in April I visited the Letterform Archive – a global organisation with a local soul, who love letters, with 12,000 square foot public space and home to 100, 000 design artifacts.
The studio visit to San Francisco was part of the studios talk at UC Berkeley
Every letter tells a story
Letterform Archive has a special collection of analog artifact’s that stand out as an authentic unalterable witness to history. The ambition is to preserve designs past and future and to be; The best organisation on the planet to do it.
The knowing people, the warm space, and the welcoming style is unique. One of the specimens I studied was; “The American Specimen Book Of Type Styles”, 1912, American Type Foundry. I’m not alone in finding this specimen special, the IG post has an audience with 939 likes and 31,6 K views … Back home again I found a rare copy from a collector in Buffalo, and I had no doubts to order it. I’m so excited to dive back into it.
The American news type
The studios work method is based on type research. Letterform Archive offered a very important help, in my study to view the findings and encouraged me to continue the research of; The visual history and DNA of American news typography.
- Case study: Read the studios case study: Blackletter is the newspapers heritage
- View the shared IG post: The American Specimen Book Of Type Styles, (1912, ATF)
- Video: Look Out That Type Book. View the opening of the book