Author: Stephen Coles

In April we launched the Online Archive to the public and promised exclusive features for Letterform Archive members in the future. That day has arrived with the beta release of Tables.

Our latest update includes items featuring Cyrillic, Hebrew, Indic, Japanese, Pegon, and Persian scripts.

Among the 25 objects just added to the Online Archive are works representing various writing systems beyond Latin. The items are highlights from two events this spring: a master’s seminar in type history that we taught for California College of Arts, and a lecture, “A Brief Typographic Trip Around the World”, hosted by the Center for Book Arts in New York. In a time when a pandemic has hampered most of our summer travel, let our lifelike images take you on a virtual vacation to 18th-century Indonesia, 1920s Tokyo, or India through the ages.

Through his extensive knowledge and keen curator’s eye, Scott Lindberg was a constant source of inspiration to the design community in the Seattle area and beyond.

With nearly 1,500 objects and 9,000 hi-fi images, Letterform Archive offers unprecedented virtual access to our collection.

While design is never a panacea for the world’s ills, the work of British designer Abram Games has particular poignance as we face new threats, uncertainty, and disinformation.

Last year we were honored to host a Live at the Archive event with Abram’s daughter, Naomi Games. There’s no better time than now to present a recording of her talk, which focuses on the designer’s unique ability to promote health and safety, raise awareness, and unite people under a common cause.

A good friend will help you move some books, but a true friend will help you move 60,000.

Hey, can we borrow your truck?

We’re so excited to move into our new home, because once we’re all settled in, we’ll be able to better serve our community — you! When most people think about moving, cardboard boxes and packing tape dance in their heads. But to move an archive, we’ll need more than bubble wrap, Sharpies, and trash bags.

In the first of our new series of volunteer journals, Bethany Qualls recounts her experience sorting and listing the Paul Rand collection and how it changed the way she sees design.

Here’s a peek at what our charter members should expect in their mailboxes in a few weeks — and how the design came together, thanks to Design is Play and Dependable Letterpress.