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Author: Stephen Coles

New in the Online Archive: Global Scripts

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

R. K. Joshi, Indian Calligraphy Diary, 1980.

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.

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Honoring Scott Lindberg

The modernism enthusiast’s collection of mid-20th-century design has a new home at Letterform Archive.

Objects collected by Scott Lindberg, including designs by Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Ladislav Sutnar, Herb Lubalin, Paul Rand, and Alvin Lustig
Objects collected by Scott Lindberg, including designs by Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Ladislav Sutnar, Herb Lubalin, Paul Rand, and Alvin Lustig.

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.

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Abram Games: Posters for the Public Good

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.

Poster for British War Office (detail), 1941.
Poster for British War Office, 1941. Image: Wellcome Collection.

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.

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Preparing to Move the Archive

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?

Earlier this week, special guest Amos Kennedy Jr. visited the Archive while we were examining our largest books to prep for the move.

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.

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Processing Paul Rand

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.

Paul Rand’s Westinghouse logo on the escalator landing at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station. Photo: Bethany Qualls.
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Coming Soon to the Online Archive: Tables

For every Letterform Archive tour we set a table — a visual feast of objects that respond to the interests of each guest. Soon, you can get a taste of this experience from anywhere.

Photo of Letterform Archive reading room.
This table is set for “1960s–70s Independent Publishing”, a section of last year’s California College of the Arts MFA course on the history of typography.
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