DESIGN QUARTERLY 56
AMERICAN WOOD TYPES
Rob Roy Kelly [Author and Designer]
Rob Roy Kelly [Author and Designer]: DESIGN QUARTERLY 56: AMERICAN WOOD TYPES. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Walker Art Center, 1963. Original edition. A nearly fine staple-bound softcover book with printed stiff wrappers: light wear overall. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. The first publication to feature Kelly's research.
8.5 x 11 staple-bound softcover book with 40 pages well illustrated with type specimen examples. An important early reference work that predates Kelly's landmark study AMERICAN WOOD TYPE: 1828-1900 [NYC: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969] by six years.
The noted design educator, collector, and historian Rob Roy Kelly (1925–2004) collected wood type from local printers for use by his students at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. He began gathering the types in the late 1950s and continued adding to the collection over the next decade. He started researching the history, manufacture, and use of the growing collection partly in response to questions that arose from working with his students. His research was first published in the 1963 issue of Design Quarterly (No. 56), and was followed in 1964 by a limited-edition folio of specimen sheets from the collection, entitled American Wood Types 1828–1900, Volume One. Kelly’s research would culminate with the publishing in 1969 of the seminal American Wood Type, 1828–1900: Notes on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types and Comments on Related Trades of the Period. American Wood Type was later reprinted as a paperback in 1977. This text was one of the first, and remains one of the most comprehensive, histories of American vernacular printing types of the period. During the 1970s, the publication of Kelly’s American Wood Type helped fuel a revival of interest in nineteenth-century American printing types, and in doing so, helped save a valuable facet of American history.
Design Quarterly began as Everyday Art Quarterly, published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis starting in 1946. The editorial focus aimed to bring modern design to the masses through thoughtful examination of household objects and their designers. Everyday Art Quarterly was a vocal proponent of the Good Design movement (as represented by MoMA and Chicago's Merchandise Mart) and spotlighted the best in industrial and handcrafted design. When the magazine became Design Quarterly in 1958, the editors assumed a more international flair in their selection of material to spotlight.