William Addison Dwiggins

William Addison Dwiggins
Born William Addison Dwiggins
June 19, 1880
Martinsville, Ohio
Died December 25, 1956 (aged 76)
Hingham Center, Massachusetts
Other names W. A. Dwiggins
W.A.D.
Occupation Type designer, calligrapher, book designer
Spouse(s) Mabel Hoyle Dwiggins

William Addison Dwiggins (June 19, 1880 Martinsville, Ohio – December 25, 1956 Hingham Center, Massachusetts), was an American type designer, calligrapher, and book designer. He attained prominence as an illustrator and commercial artist, and he brought to the designing of type and books some of the boldness that he displayed in his advertising work.

He and his wife Mabel Hoyle Dwiggins (February 27, 1881 – September 28, 1958) are buried in the Hingham Center Cemetery, Hingham Center, Massachusetts, near their home at 30 Leavitt Street, and Dwiggins' studio at 45 Irving Street.

Book designer

His scathing attack on contemporary book designers in An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books (1919) led to his working with the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Alblabooks, a series of finely conceived and executed trade books followed and did much to increase public interest in book format. Dwiggins was perhaps more responsible than any other designer for the marked improvement in book design in the 1920s and 1930s. He gained recognition as a calligrapher and wrote much on the graphic arts, notably essays collected in MSS by WAD (1949), and his Layout in Advertising (1928; rev. ed. 1949) remains standard.

Dwiggins is credited with coining the term 'graphic designer' in 1922[1] to describe his various activities in printed communications, like book design, illustration, typography, lettering and calligraphy (his first typeface designs were released much later). The term did not achieve widespread usage until after the Second World War.

Typefaces

His most widely used typefaces, Electra and Caledonia, were specifically designed for Linotype composition and have the clean spareness of the motor age. Metro is most notable as his most modern sans serif typeface. Metro was developed by Linotype in the late 1920s in response to similar type being sold from European foundries such as Erbar, Futura, and Gill Sans. The following list of his typefaces is thought to be complete.[2]

Marionettes

Dwiggins' love of wood carving led to his creation of a marionette theatre in a garage at 5 Irving Street, which was behind his home at 30 Leavitt Street in Hingham, Massachusetts. He also created a puppet group named the Püterschein Authority. In 1933 he performed his first show there, "The Mystery of the Blind Beggarman." Dwiggins built his second theatre under his studio at 45 Irving Street. Further productions of the Püterschein Authority included "Prelude to Eden," "Brother Jeromy," "Millennium 1," and "The Princess Primrose of Shahaban in Persia." Most of his marionettes were twelve inches tall.[3] The marionettes were donated to the three-room Dwiggins Collection at the Boston Public Library in 1967.[4]

Legacy

In 1957, a year after his death, Bookbuilders of Boston, an organization of book publishing professionals that Dwiggins helped to establish, renamed their highest award the W.A. Dwiggins Award.

Bibliography

Books illustrated or designed

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Livingston, Alan and Isabella., 'Dictionary of graphic design and designers'. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992
  2. ↑ MacGrew, Mac, American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century, Oak Knoll Books, New Castle Delaware, 1993, ISBN 0-938768-34-4, p. 335.
  3. ↑ The Dwiggins Marionettes: A Complete Experimental Theatre in Miniature, Dorothy Abbe (Harry N. Abrams Inc. 1964)
  4. ↑ American Puppetry: Collections, History and Performance, edited by Phyllis T. Dircks, "The Dwiggins Marionettes at the Boston Public Library," Roberta Zonghi, pp 196-202
  5. ↑ Dwiggins, William Addison. "WAD to RR: A Letter about Designing Type". Archive.org. Retrieved 29 March 2013.

Further reading

External links