Henk Krijger / Raffia Initials
As ATypI members among you might know, I have a decades-long interest in the work of the Dutch 1950s graphic designer & artist Henk Krijger. Two years ago I made an ATypI presentation on his Raffia Initials and showed about half a dozen uses of the typeface, mostly on books he designed. I'm interested in finding additional sightings of the initials, especially in letterpress. Anyone?
17.Feb.2006 12.08am
Mr. Enneson,
Greetings. I have digitized Raffia and have used it sparingly in the magazine I art-direct, Rap-Up. I’d love to ask you a few questions about the initials. My email is:
ian@ianlynam.com
Drop me a line sometime if you have time.
A sample spread:
18.Feb.2006 2.25pm
For those of you who are interested, I’ve made a pdf file of my ATypI Vancouver presentation available here. It is 20MB, print and text and image extraction disabled. Please honour the copyright note. Ian tells me his digitization was done in Adobe Illustrator, and being converted to OpenType.
19.Feb.2006 8.29pm
Hi
You mentioned the Raffia Initialen in regard to letterpress. I bought a case(s) of the metal Raffia way back in the early 1980s and never received them. Sort of a bait and switch deal. Even switched out a press on me. Nice guy, just weird about material things. It just so happens that a couple of days ago I discovered that much of the material involved may have recently ended up with a very good friend of mine. I’ll check and see if the Raffia was included. If so, maybe I can plead a case. A very remarkable typeface.
Very very nice presentation by the way. Thank you.
Gerald
The Bieler Press
http://BielerPress.blogspot.com
19.Feb.2006 9.07pm
Wow, very outstanding work indeed. Also very interesting and nice presentation Peter, I’ll read it soon.
Héctor
20.Feb.2006 5.10am
Gerald and Héctor, thanks for the comments.
Gerald, I have only seen letterpress Raffia once. Kay Amert, Director of the Typography Laboratory at the University of Iowa, brought the electrotype sample here to ATypI Vancouver, where I got it scanned and had Jim Rimmer make a letterpress impression on a piece of cardboard stiffener. Presumably the set was bought by Harry Duncan, the first Director, who according to Robert Bringhurst, also admired the initials.
Let me know what you find.
2.Dec.2007 11.13am
This thread is over two years old, but I am again on the hunt for examples of the Raffia Initials in use, preferably in letterpress or fine printing. This time it’s for an essay request.
Also, I wonder if there is anyone out there who has done historical work on ’cadels’ / ’lettres cadeaux’ (see page 60) of the pdf at the link in the 18 febreuary 2006 message above.