Rare Book School, June 16 - 20, 2008

From June 16th to the 20th, Ray and Jill attended the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. Our class was "Typography, Lettering and Calligraphy: 1830 - 2000" with James Mosley (shown above). The photo was taken on the last day when we were talking about digital type so Ray wore his 'Cream' reunion shirt from a recent concert at Madison Square Garden which seemed appropriate for the occasion.

During one of our afternoon sessions we visited the Rare Book Room of the University of Virginia to look at some wonderful selections made by Mr. Mosley. Highlights included Ornamented Types (shown in the photo), printed by Ian Mortimer of London, UK, which holds a very important place in our interest in letterpress printing, along with William Morris's Chaucer and The Doves Bible. A nice bit of information was that we at Lead Graffiti own either the book or a leaf from the book of three - Gothic Architecture by William Morris (the book), The Doves Bible (the four-page sheet which includes Genesis 1:1, and Ian Mortimer's Ornamented Types (a specimen page) - of the approximately 25 pieces we viewed.

Here Ray enjoys a conversation with type designer Sumner Stone after his lecture at the week-long session. Stone sat in on our class for a day describing his tenure as type director at Adobe during its early days from 1985-89 along with various type projects. We also had the opportunity to join him and RBS Program Director, Ryan Roth for dinner one evening over himalayan food and a lot of talk about typographic mathematics which was great, though often deep, fun.

Bio for James Mosley from the Rare Book School: James Mosley is Visiting Professor in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. He retired as Librarian of the St. Bride Printing Library in London in 1999. The founding editor of the Journal of the Printing Historical Society, he has written and lectured extensively on the history of European and English typography. In 2003 he received the annual award of the American Printing History Association for his contributions to printing history. His urbane and erudite blog, Typefoundry: Documents for the History of Type and Letterforms, is required reading for students of the history of typography.