William Addison Dwiggins

Experimentals is a misleading term. Each design that Dwiggins began for Mergenthaler was assigned an experimental number. For instance, Electra began life as Exp. 29 and later was renumbered as Exp. 55 before it was released. The “experimental” tag merely indicated that the design was in progress, not that it was radical in any way. Dwiggins’ unfinished types – several of which changed both number and name – included an upright script (Charter, Exp. 222), a Rosart-inspired roman (Stuyvesant Exp. 274), a flexible interpretation of Bodoni™ (Tippecanoe Exp. 268 and Exp. 283), a newspaper face (Hingham Exp. 223), a Times™ Roman competitor (Exp. 267D), a rethinking of Cheltenham™ (Exp. 289), the previously mentioned modelled sans serif (Exp. 10, Exp. 11A and Exp. 11B), an uncial (Canterbury Exp. 264), a half uncial (Winchester Exp. 264A and Exp. 287), and four Greek types. A few of these designs were surreptitiously tested out in books: Charter™ in The Story of Aucassin and Nicolette (1946), Winchester™ half uncial in Tristram and Iseult (1946), Stuyvesant in The Shirley Letters (1949), Tippecanoe in The Creaking Stair (1949), and Arcadia in Some Random Recollections (1949).

External circumstances played a pivotal role in keeping so many of Dwiggins’ type designs in the experimental stage. The bleak economic climate of the 1930s made Mergenthaler very careful about which designs it carried through and the severe material restrictions of World War II effectively shut down type production. Instead, Mergenthaler manufactured precision guidance and targeting instruments for artillery. When the war ended, the company focused its attention on replenishing its existing library of types instead of issuing new designs.

With permission from Mergenthaler, Dwiggins designed typefaces for others. In 1934 he created roman and script alphabets for headline use in Pictorial Review, a magazine art directed by George Macy of the Limited Editions Club. For his own book designs he made four decorative titling faces, collectively called Plimpton Initials, sometime in the mid-1930s. His other designs never made it to fruition. They include headline types for The Christian Science Monitor and for a planned rival to Life from the Curtis Publishing Company along with music types for Music Press, Inc., a publisher of sheet music, and a series of typewriter faces for Underwood Elliott Fisher, Kiplinger’s, IBM and Remington Rand.



Fig. 1: The Occasional Bulletin of the White Elephant (1915), a self-promotional booklet illustrated, lettered, designed and letterpress printed by William Addison Dwiggins.
Fig. 2: 48 pt. Plimpton Initials. c. 1936.
Fig. 3: Inked Epoch lettering which was the genesis of Winchester Uncial.
Fig. 4: Proof of Exp. 264A, Winchester Uncial (1942).