International examples of wood type's heyday?

aluminum
3.Jul.2008 11.39am
aluminum's picture

The wood type aesthetic has had a big resurgence over the past decade or so, especially with the niche letterpress shops pumping out concert posters for design annuals and rediscovery of our classic shops like Hatch.

Thinking about that, I realized that most examples of original wood type use that I’ve seen have been predominantly American based. Ryman posters, circus posters, ’wanted’ posters, auction bills, the western migration bills, etc.

The only thing that comes to mind off hand might be some of the Bauhaus work later on.



Ricardo Cordoba
3.Jul.2008 2.26pm
Ricardo Cordoba's picture

Great question, aluminum. Unos tipos duros has a page on wood type. According to them, wood type had a stronger presence in the United States than in Europe. (New York printer Darius Wells was the first to mass-produce wood type, in 1827.)

See also:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31623674@N00/529230502

http://famousamericans.net/dariuswells/

[EDIT] Luc Devroye has a page on wood type, and it has some international names in there:

http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/wood.html