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Dear Friends,
If you love print, print history, type design, or any combination thereof, be sure to join us Wednesday, November 15, at 5:30 pm for the 2023 biennial Updike Prize ceremony, which celebrates student type designers who are designing new typefaces by refashioning the historical artifacts in the PPL’s Updike Collection on the History of Printing. The event will also feature a talk, “What About All These Words and Images?” by guest speaker Katie Garth.
If you’ve never given much thought to print, print history, or type design, that’s all the more reason to attend, and learn more about this fascinating world! I will confess to having become a convert since arriving at PPL and encountering many of the artists and designers who come in to use the Updike Collection, listening to the prize winners and guest speakers at the biennial Updike Prize ceremony, and just chatting with PPL’s Head Curator of Collections Jordan Goffin about the insights he’s gleaned in his years of working with this unique and important collection.
Here are some observations and clarifications he shared with me recently:
CB: Has use of the Updike collection changed since the advent of digital type design?
JG: Type design in the digital space is still evolving (some technologies, like variable fonts, are pretty recent), and even fonts that were designed in the early years of desktop publishing are continuing to be modified and adapted to those new technologies. There also seems to be a more global focus as designers want to create typefaces that can be used by people around the world with different writing systems or alphabets. That means people are still looking for historical precedents to study, or just use as a starting point for creativity, so the existing collection is still valuable for that, but we’re also trying to expand into new areas. Historically, the collection has been strong in Anglo-American and continental European type specimen books, particularly in the 19th century. Our current focus is really on everything else, so we're actively buying any specimen books or material that supports typographic research from India, Asia, Latin America and anyplace that hasn't been well-represented in the collection in the past. We're also expanding areas that are adjacent to type, like sign-lettering and subject areas like that.
CB: Can the collection be accessed virtually? Is there a benefit to coming into the library to look at it?
JG: Actually, most of the collection is not available digitally. We haven’t yet done a major digitization project around our type specimens (hopefully we’ll be doing that at some point). There are other collections out there, and type specimen books can be found online in some various places, but the vast majority of our material is only available in print. Even our materials that are digitized (our whaling collection, for instance) still see a lot of use by in-person visitors. Some things don’t translate well to the digital space, and we’ve had researchers who have used material online and then come in to see the physical copy for more detailed examination.
CB: What made you choose Katie Garth as this year’s speaker?
JG: We’re really excited that Katie agreed to be our speaker this year. In the past we’ve typically had speakers with extensive experience in type design, but this seemed like a good opportunity to invite someone with a lot of familiarity with type and lettering, but whose focus was a bit different. Katie is a really talented artist and instructor (learn more at her website) who has a lot of experience working with type and lettering but can sort of stand outside it and offer a different perspective. She’s done work that actually puts type and lettering into public spaces and important public conversations (see, for instance, the Quarantine Book Project and the Public Language project).
CB: Why should people attend the Updike Prize ceremony?
JG: You’re looking at type all day; might as well spend some time learning about with a bunch of creative people in the audience while supporting student designers!
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