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10 × 10 for 10: Ten years of Letterform Archive. One hundred objects of typographic design.
We’re celebrating our 10th anniversary with an exhibition of our most beloved artifacts. The show runs April 26 – October 12, 2025.
See 10 × 10 for 10
Since opening in 2015, Letterform Archive has grown from a 15,000-item private collection, to a publicly accessible resource of over 100,000 objects. The works of lettering, typography, and graphic design span movements and continents, but what ties everything together is text, the essential material of culture. This common thread lets anyone—from type nerds to poets, coders to cooks—have an entry point into the collection. Our dedication to radical access has made the Archive a thriving community hub, welcoming thousands of visitors from more than 40 countries, and offering an unparalleled opportunity to engage directly with masterpieces of design.
Never before has such a wide range of the Archive’s collection been viewable in one room.
In celebration of our 10th anniversary, Letterform Archive proudly presents a singular exhibition highlighting our most beloved artifacts, thoughtfully curated by the entire Archive team. 10 × 10 for 10 fills our jewel-box gallery with 100 objects selected by our 10 dedicated teams, offering an extraordinary glimpse into every corner of the Archive, through the lens of those who steward its inspiring holdings. Never before has such a wide range of the collection been viewable in one room. The show traverses centuries of graphic art, from a cuneiform tablet to contemporary artists’ books, from icons of modernist typography to everyday ephemera. Almost all of the items on display arrived at the Archive after we opened, reflecting the expansion of our curatorial scope and the generosity of our community.
Calligraphy Masters
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The exhibition opens with a group of selections from founder Rob Saunders, representing the Archive’s starting point. “My first love was calligraphy, and in my search for sources I found the Newberry Library in Chicago,” said Saunders. “They gave me a reader’s card at age 17, which is impossible at most rare book libraries. Over the next 40 years I collected to inspire my teaching and design practice.”
Saunders’ substantial collection included renaissance writing manuals, avant-garde typography, original hand-lettering, mid-20th-century modernism, all the way back to the earliest form of writing in clay. He was drawn to letterform and design innovation, a standard that continues to guide the Archive’s curatorial team, which now includes three other members: Stephen Coles, Kate Long Stellar, and Jon Sueda.
“As a kid, viewing the pen strokes of masters up close unlocked a new way to perceive letters. I wanted everyone to have that experience.” — Rob Saunders
As the collection grew—mostly through the archives and libraries of other designers and collectors—we shifted our focus to people, places, and scripts that are underrepresented in the Western design canon. Many of the selections in 10 × 10 for 10 demonstrate that growing diversity. The work hails from nearly 50 different locales, from Tokyo to Kashmir, Amsterdam to México City.
Old and New, Large and Small
The Archive teams who selected themed groupings for the exhibition are Admin/Finance, Collections, Curatorial, Education, Exhibitions, Marketing, Publishing, Type West Faculty, and Docents. Their 90 selections join Saunders’s 10 items that represent what was here when we opened. Just like the staff picks at a record shop or bookstore, their descriptions reveal how everyone at the Archive has a personal relationship to something in the collection.
At our decade milestone, the Archive is reflecting on the principle of hospitality that connected us with other people who care about great design. “The generosity and access I experienced at the Newberry is the model I had in mind when we transformed my home and collection into Letterform Archive,” said Saunders. “When we say we’re open to anyone who loves letters, we mean it—no matter who you are, what you do, or where you come from.”
Highlights from 10 × 10 for 10
10 × 10 for 10 is on view in Letterform Archive’s gallery through October 12, 2025. Join us for an opening reception at 5:30pm on April 26, 2025, preceded by a special member preview. (Not a member? Join now for an invitation.)
Throughout the year, we’ll accompany the exhibition with a 10th Anniversary Symposium of events that adds context to the objects in the show, tells the story of the Archive’s development, and opens dialogs with artists, designers, and educators on the role of the archive in their work.