David Shields
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19cwt.bsky.social
David Shields
@19cwt.bsky.social
Designer & typographer & archivist & professor & (accidentally?) historian. I’m author & designer of the monograph _The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection: A History and Catalog_ published by UT Press.

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@19cwt-obscura.bsky.social
Some noodling on the RISO w/ variants of Page & Co’s Gothic Paneled — 1st shown in 1874’s _Specimen of Chromatic Wood Type…_ & patented on 3 March 1874 as US Design Patent 7,230.
http://www.woodtyperesearch.com/chromatic-gothic-paneled/

#WoodType #TypeSpecimen #TypeDesign #letterforms #typography
July 23, 2025 at 11:19 PM
HBD William Thomas Morgans born 2 July 1844! He was one of the dominant producers & innovators of wood type in the US in the late 1870s, as founding partner of the wood type companies Young & Morgans (1876) then Morgans & Wilcox Mfg Co (1880) http://www.woodtyperesearch.com/william-morgans #WoodType
July 2, 2025 at 6:13 PM
I’ve updated the list of Rob Roy Kelly’s 1964 folio w/ newly located copies http://www.woodtyperesearch.com. No 5, in a private collection, was Kelly’s personal copy, recently consigned by his daughter.
#WoodType #TypeSpecimen #type #typography #LetterForms #NineteenthCentury #Archives #Bibliography
June 26, 2025 at 4:16 PM
(Late) springtime in the high desert.
May 17, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Darius Wells born 26 April 1800 Kingsboro, NY. Invented the router (lateral revolving cutting tool) to make the 1st machine cut #WoodType in 1828. An active abolitionist he ran a station on the underground railroad in Patterson, NJ helping enslaved humans move north to Canada to live as free humans.
April 26, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Accidental typographic palimpsests, encountered in Special Collections at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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#WoodType #letterforms #typography #archives #libraries #collections #bibliography #TypeSpecimen #TypeDesign #TypeHistory #letterpress #type #design #NineteethCentury #Palimpsest
April 22, 2025 at 9:49 PM
HBD Henry P Hamilton born 21 Apr 1862 youngest of 3 brothers, worked with older brthr George at _The Detroit Record_ as a printer & then with oldest brthr James at Hamilton & Baker, later Hamilton Mfg Co Credited patents USD37308 & 37309 http://www.woodtyperesearch.com/hamilton-mfg-672-673 #WoodType
April 21, 2025 at 7:46 PM
I’m voting Anne De Marcken’s _It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Gone_ as my favorite read of 2024. It’s a lovely hybrid of genres (speculative fiction, horror, fantasy…) It also won the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. Compelling story questioning what it means to be human, impeccably written.
December 27, 2024 at 5:24 PM
Just spending sometime outside with the art in town.
December 14, 2024 at 9:53 PM
Dafi Kühne’s phenomenal follow up to _True Print_ arrived in my post box this morning. Wow wow. _Poster Cult!_ is an excellent addition to any library! (Plus the attention to production detail is just over the top.) #typography #posters #woodtype #letterpress #books
November 16, 2024 at 7:33 PM