William Addison Dwiggins

paul d hunt — Wed, 6 Jul 2005 23:48:47 -0700

Indices : Designers : William Addison Dwiggins

1880–1956
American

William Addison Dwiggins was an accomplished type designer, illustrator, and graphic designer (he even invented the term Graphic Design!).

At the turn of the century, Dwiggins went to Chicago to study at the Frank Holmes School of Illustration, where he was one of Frederic Goudy’s first pupils.

In 1927, his famous book Layout in Advertising was published. He was one of design’s first critical voices. One of his common critiques was that type foundries were not making type that was appropriate enough. He disliked European moderns, like Futura, Kabel, and Erbar. Mergenthaler Linotype charged him to do better, and he did, creating Metro, his first typeface.

He would go on to work with Chauncey H. Griffith at Mergenthaler Linotype to create Electra and Caledonia, as well as several other designs that unfortunately were not published.

Typefaces designed by William Addison Dwiggins, including his experiments. The dates shown reflect the time period in which WAD worked on that experimental number:

Metro - Drawings and dates needed.
Electra, Exp #55, 12/1/30 – 5/25/39
Caravan/Florets, 7/19/39 – 2/6/41
Caledonia, Exp #78, 2/2/37 – 10/25/48
Charter, Exp #222, 3/5/37 – 5/11/42
Newsface, Exp #223, 8/26/38 – 3/20/43
Falcon, Exp #249, 3/13/39 – 7/18/44
Falcon, Exp #266, 7/18/42 – 7/18/44
Winchester, Exp #264, 1/8/42 – 7/28/42
Winchester, Exp #264A, 1/28/42 – 5/25/42
Winchester, Exp #287, 2/25/44 – 2/1/48
Arcadia, Exp #265, 1/26/42 – 8/18/42
Arcadia, Exp #287, 6/23/43 – 4/7/45
Eldorado, Exp 269, 2/3/42 – 7/2/45
Tippecanoe, Exp #268, 3/18/42 – 12/3/42
Tippecanoe, Exp #283, 12/8/42 – 7/18/45
(Times Roman), Exp #267, 7/29/42 – 4/2/45
Stuyvesant, Exp #274, 8/4/42 – 4/11/45
(Cheltenham), Exp #289, 1/15/44 – 9/19/46
Greek faces/Argo, 7/10/45
Greek faces/Stentos, 7/13/45
Greekfaces/Jason, 9/12/45
Adventure, Exp #288, 11/29/45 – 7/29/46
Alexandria, 7/24/1946

Discussion:
Tippecanoe

Additional Articles
M-Formula
Dwiggins Revisited by Sibylle Hagmann

Typophile - William Addison Dwiggins - Comments

William Addison Dwiggins