William A. Dwiggins, Type Designer & Creative Genius
MAN OF MANY SKILLS
with all the strings in his hand
- Can you explain your design philosophy? (E.g. What do you give importance in the design process and in the design product?)
I am interested in lots of fields/crafts. Calligraphy, type-designing, book designing, printing, advertising and the list goes on… The skills and principles I learned from one craft; I often apply to another. For example, a great book designer, of course, knows what to consider a good book typeface need. But also; I build my own tools, master traditional skills, discover new techniques and experiment with the production of modular decorations, ornaments, furniture, marionettes… So briefly, not being stuck to one profession made me innovative I assume. It's good to constantly improve yourself.
- Can you describe from which designers you are influenced the most?
I am actually not inspired by any designers, but I usually get inspired by design elements and styles, and sometimes even marionettes. In fact, I used geometrical sharp shapes for marionettes to appear better in the plays. By the way, do you know Marionets? They are like puppets; but I control them with ropes. I usually make human figures with sharp angled faces for the emphasis of the features for expressing better the emotions. Most of the time, I am influenced by my works. I take the knowledge and apply to another field. For example, one of my type designs known as the “M-Formula”, my letters were inspired by Marionets. The aim was to be more visible and readable, not to be confusing. It made it easier to read the text in any sizes.
Lastly, I want to give credits to Chauncey Griffith, he was the one who invited me to work for Linotype Company, thanks to him, I can proudly say that I worked a lot for type designs. Rather with him or with the orders from him, I managed to create typefaces also for books and newspapers. I am grateful to work with him.
- In the world of digital media, do you think your ideas are still valid today? How so?…
I guess creating the term “graphic designer” is the most important one for today. Following that, I assume my typefaces are known and used too. You know Electra and Caledonia? Other than that, lastly, as for idea-wise, I want that people/a designer wouldn’t be stuck in one field. Designers can design everything. From A to Z. Some know that and some don’t. It’s important to remember that. For example, I worked lot of my time designing typefaces however, I also liked designing and playing/acting scenes with Marionets. In fact, I have some plays. I also made illustrations, decorative ornaments, book designs etc.
So, to explain it briefly, I think that working in many fields has improved me and I recommend that those who make designs progress as I do.
- You are a master calligrapher, type designer, illustrator and private press printer, and a pioneer of advertising, magazine and book design. My question is: What would you like to be remembered by people in the future?
I would probably prefer to be remembered as a type-designer.
I worked a lot on that subject. Actually, in my period of career, last third of my life I just constantly designed typefaces. Of course, I was doing it before, but I was continuously active in these years. Therefore, I passed my major time on doing typeface designs. Some (typefaces) took me so long and some didn’t. For example, in the middle of 1928 I started “Boylston” (Innes), it took me just 1 year. However, in 1935 I started to work on Typewriter Proportionals (various), it got stuck with me until 1953. Maybe I can give you a better, solid example, because I think you know the most popular typeface of mine, Electra. It took me 10 years to finish it (1930-40).
As I mentioned before my journey goes back to the late 1920s, when I worked with Chauncey Griffith, who had various positions at Mergenthaler (Linotype Company) but I can say that he was head of typographic development. For much of that time I worked with him on whole series of projects. He and the others there (at the company) understood that the linotype had come up in the newspaper world and it was seen as a kind of rough and ready environment not so refined as monotype. There were limitations but they knew that if they could sign me, I would originate new designs and Linotype (company) could make progress them in the book and newspaper world. And in fact, we (me and company) both did success. (Some type designs I made for the linotype were: Metro, Electra, Caledonia, Falcon, Eldorado and the list continues…) , The typeface for the newspaper is also known as news face. We worked on that for so long.
I really can say that I made a lot of effort.
So that’s why I want to be remembered as typeface designer.
- You have talked about the sharp designs in the fonts, then added that it was inspired by the marionettes. Also you mentioned news face (newspaper typeface). Can you open this subject a little bit? Is there relationship between them? The M-Formula and Marionettes & also M-Formula with newspaper typeface? Can you explain it more?
So, here is the story: I want to talk about the news face first, which was later renamed Hingham. (In my honour.) I want to talk about it because it’s not just very widely distributed but because everybody refers it to the M Formula.
Linotype had series of types called the legibility group, and Chauncey Griffith was in charge of that. In the 1930s Griffith did invite me to work on a type that was primarily going to be used in very small sizes, to be exact, to be used in newspapers. It was going to be sold all over the world for newspaper world, so, I wanted to give them something that had a little more style and swing, not quite so straightforward. However, there were some conditions; there is rough paper and thin ink. In addition to that the papers are really absorbent. So I questioned myself. “ How do I get sufficient image contrast for somebody to read it and also not have the letters just sort of splotch all over the place?” Then I came up with ideas and tried a lot of varieties. To put it simply, I went through approximately 3 or 4 stages. Firstly, I designed the one which had counters that are rounded but the serifs at the bottom are bracketed on one side, and a narrowing slab on the other. For the second one, the strokes that I came up with are thinner but the terminals are the same at the bottom of the letter. For the third one, at the bottom of the letter, the strokes are thicker again (like in first) but with tapered slabs on both sides. For the last one, in the counter, I added angles. Suddenly there's this almost 90 degree corner inside that counter and I also went back to the combination of serifs (where there's a bracket on one side and taper on the other).
It was inspired by one of my other crafts. Marionettes. So the relationship is this:
In my marionets, I have noticed that natural faces tended to not be as expressive when seen from the audience as the faces that were more angled. While I was carving them and working on all these elaborate marionette plays, I suddenly had this idea. “Well, maybe I can try that with letters”. That’s how they are related.
Sources:
San Francisco Public Library, W.A.Dwiggins by Bruce Kennett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMDnbWERd9c
