Buttoned Up
People who love ideas must have a love of words, and that means, given a chance, they take a vivid interest in the clothes which words wear.
— Beatrice Warde
This is an “unofficial” member of the Dead Feminists broadsides series, a small letterpress keepsake printed from both hand-set metal type and hand-drawn original typography and illustrations. This piece was originally printed as a keepsake for the magazine Parenthesis; we had a few remaining prints from the edition that we could make available to the public.
The illustration is a play on the “anatomy” of letterforms. Each letter of the alphabet has parts that correspond to human body parts: like the “eye” of a lowercase E, the “arm” of a V, the “ear” of a lowercase G—even the “crotch” of an X or a K. So rather than let our typography go naked, we gave it a fancy wardrobe.
Beatrice Warde (1900 – 1969) was an American typographer, writer and historian. She spent her early career working as assistant librarian for the American Type Founders Company, researching the history of printing and typefaces. She is most well known for her famous broadside “This is a Printing Office” and for her essay on typography, “The Crystal Goblet.” In “The Crystal Goblet,” Warde calls for simplicity and clarity in printing, in order to display the written word without obstruction. In later years, Warde spent her time speaking at printing schools, encouraging young printers to treat design as a form of fine craftsmanship.
Year created
2012
At issue
The history and beauty of typography as an art form
Edition size
200 prints