{{Short description|Movable type made out of wood}} {{For|types of wood|List of woods}} {{Use British English|date=February 2024}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}} thumb|Wood type in close-up
In letterpress printing, '''wood type''' is movable type made out of wood. First used in China for printing body text, wood type became popular during the nineteenth century for making large display typefaces for printing posters, because it was lighter and cheaper than large sizes of metal type.<ref name="Shields What Is Wood Type">{{Cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=What Is Wood Type? |url=https://woodtype.org/pages/what-is-wood-type |publisher=Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum |access-date=20 November 2021 |language=en |archive-date=20 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211120040115/https://woodtype.org/pages/what-is-wood-type |url-status=live }}</ref>
Wood has been used since the earliest days of European printing for woodcut decorations and emblems, but it was not generally used for making typefaces due to the difficulty of reproducing the same shape many times for printing. In the 1820s, Darius Wells introduced mechanised wood type production using the powered router, and William Leavenworth in 1834 added a second major innovation of using a pantograph to cut a letter's shape from a pattern. This made it possible to mass-produce the same design in wood repeatedly.<ref name="A Short History of the Italian">{{Cite journal|last1=Shields|first1=David|title=A Short History of the Italian|journal=Ultrabold: The Journal of St Bride Library|date=2008|issue=4|url=http://www.woodtyperesearch.com/short-history-of-the-italian/|pages=22–27|access-date=23 December 2021|archive-date=19 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211119042111/http://www.woodtyperesearch.com/short-history-of-the-italian/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |first=Dennis|last=Ichiyama|author-link=Dennis Ichiyama |url=http://stbride.org/friends/conference/badtype/wood-type.html |title=2004 Friends of St Bride conference proceedings: How wood type tamed the west |publisher=Stbride.org |access-date=11 November 2013 |archive-date=11 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111225059/http://stbride.org/friends/conference/badtype/wood-type.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.wildwestweb.net/reward.html |title=Old West Reward Posters |publisher=Wildwestweb.net |access-date=11 November 2013 |archive-date=11 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111222403/http://www.wildwestweb.net/reward.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Pané-Farré Klim Will & Schumacher">{{Cite web |last1=Pané-Farré |first1=Pierre |title=The case of Will & Schumacher |date=8 March 2021 |url=https://klim.co.nz/blog/case-will-schumacher/ |publisher=Klim Type Foundry |access-date=23 December 2021 |archive-date=24 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211224012333/https://klim.co.nz/blog/case-will-schumacher/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Heck CG review">{{Cite web |last1=Heck |first1=Bethany |title=Champion Gothic |url=https://fontreviewjournal.com/champion-gothic/ |website=Font Review Journal |date=25 August 2018 |access-date=13 September 2019 |archive-date=16 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190816192541/http://fontreviewjournal.com/champion-gothic/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Wood type was manufactured and used worldwide in the nineteenth century for display use.<ref name="Pané-Farré Klim Will & Schumacher" />
[[File:Alan Kitching on Press at The Guardian.jpg|thumb|Exhibition poster by Alan Kitching, who often uses wood type in his work<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/02/a-z-living-typographer-alan-kitching-home-letterpress|title=A-Z living: an inside look at typographer Alan Kitching's home|last=Pires|first=Candice|date=2 April 2016|website=The Guardian|access-date=16 June 2016|archive-date=16 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616215802/http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/02/a-z-living-typographer-alan-kitching-home-letterpress|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.itsnicethat.com/features/alan-kitching-life-in-letterpress-typography-300316|title="I always try to have some logic to the job, to the work": we interview letterpress legend Alan Kitching|date=31 March 2016|website=It's Nice That|access-date=16 June 2016|archive-date=25 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160625024623/http://www.itsnicethat.com/features/alan-kitching-life-in-letterpress-typography-300316|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blog.newspaperclub.com/2015/03/04/alan-kitching-on-press-at-the-guardian/|title=Alan Kitching on Press at The Guardian {{!}} Newspaper Club|website=blog.newspaperclub.com|access-date=16 June 2016|archive-date=1 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701065526/http://blog.newspaperclub.com/2015/03/04/alan-kitching-on-press-at-the-guardian/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=A life in letterpress|last1=Waters|last2=Kitching|first1=John L.|first2=Alan|author-link1=John L. Walters|author-link2=Alan Kitching (typographic artist)|publisher=Lawrence King|year=2016|isbn=978-1780674810}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2016/april/alan-kitching-a-life-in-letterpress-exhibition/|title=Alan Kitching a life in Letterpress|last=Sinclair|first=Mark|date=22 April 2016|website=Creative Review|access-date=16 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701041813/http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2016/april/alan-kitching-a-life-in-letterpress-exhibition/|archive-date=1 July 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>]] In the twentieth century lithography, phototypesetting and digital typesetting replaced it as a mass-market technology. It continues to be used by hobbyists and artistic printers.
==Pre-industrial wood type== [[File:Beijing printing museum.wooden movable types.jpg|thumb|Wooden movable types in the China Printing Museum, Beijing]] Both in China and Europe, printing from a woodblock preceded printing with movable type.<ref name="Taylor & Taylor" />
Along with clay movable type, wooden movable type was invented in China by Bi Sheng in 1040s CE/AD, although he found clay type more satisfactory, and it was first formally used to print by Wang Zhen.<ref name="Taylor & Taylor" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lu |first1=Yongxiang |title=A History of Chinese Science and Technology: Volume 2 |date=10 October 2014 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-662-44166-4 |pages=214–220 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d__HBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA214 |access-date=1 August 2022 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105325/https://books.google.com/books?id=d__HBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA214 |url-status=live }}</ref> Wood type was hand-carved to make individual types for the very large character set of Chinese.<ref name="Taylor & Taylor" /><ref name="Deng">{{Cite book |last1=Deng |first1=Yinke |title=Ancient Chinese Inventions |date=3 March 2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-18692-6 |pages=23–26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EeVPT6UAk3EC&pg=PA23 |access-date=1 August 2022 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105325/https://books.google.com/books?id=EeVPT6UAk3EC&pg=PA23 |url-status=live }}</ref> Clay type and metal type were also used in printing in China.<ref name="Wilkinson">{{Cite book |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Endymion Porter |author1-link=Endymion Wilkinson |title=Chinese History: A Manual |date=2000 |publisher=Harvard Univ Asia Center |isbn=978-0-674-00249-4 |pages=449–453 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ERnrQq0bsPYC&pg=PA449 |language=en |access-date=6 August 2022 |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105326/https://books.google.com/books?id=ERnrQq0bsPYC&pg=PA449 |url-status=live }}</ref> The problem with wood and clay types was that they could not be made to accurate dimensions, leading to metal type being adopted from the late fifteenth century.<ref name="Deng" /><ref name="Taylor & Taylor">{{Cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Insup |last2=Taylor |first2=Martin M. |title=Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese |date=1 January 1995 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=978-90-272-1794-3 |pages=156–157 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WDw4gBaPjZgC&pg=PA157 |access-date=1 August 2022 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105326/https://books.google.com/books?id=WDw4gBaPjZgC&pg=PA157 |url-status=live }}</ref> Manufacturing, selecting and redistributing sorts for a large character set was cumbersome, and much printing in China continued to be made from custom-cut woodblocks of entire pages of text, rather than from movable type.<ref name="Taylor & Taylor" />
In Europe, woodblock printing precedes European movable type printing, and the block book appeared in Europe around the same time as letterpress printing.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cowley |first1=Des |last2=Williamson |first2=Claire |title=The World of the Book |year=2007 |isbn=9780522853780 |pages=19–22|publisher=The Miegunyah Press }}</ref> However, a major disadvantage of woodcut lettering is that once made by wood engraving, it could not be easily duplicated by casting, whereas metal casting could be used to quickly create many metal copies of the same letter, and with the smaller character set of European languages it was practical to cast type for every letter needed. European printing from the beginning used cast metal type.<ref name="Carter view">{{Cite book |last1=Carter |first1=Harry |title=A View of Early Typography Up to About 1600 |date=2008 |publisher=Hyphen Press |isbn=9780907259213 |pages=6–12}}</ref>{{Efn|There is minimal surviving evidence of the first printing methods, but the opinion of historians such as Talbot Baines Reed, Alfred F. Johnson, Harry Carter and James Mosley is that the earliest printing methods were very similar to those used in metal type until mechanisation in the nineteenth century, using punches, matrices and moulds to make and cast metal type.<ref name="Carter view" /> It has been suggested sometimes by historians such as Paul Needham that in early printing other methods were used such as casting stereotype plates in plaster, which has itself been disputed by James Mosley who has suggested an alternative explanation of type being bound together with wire; in any case it is certain that no alternative method lasted long in use, and that in European printing from metal type was the norm.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Mosley |first1=James |title=Fallen and threaded types |url=https://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2007/06/fallen-and-threaded-types.html |website=Type Foundry |access-date=3 July 2022 |archive-date=3 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220703222939/https://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2007/06/fallen-and-threaded-types.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}}
[[File:Hendrik van den Keere La Plus grande Romaine from Plantin specimen c. 1585.jpg|thumb|Large display type, cut by Hendrik van den Keere in wood and reproduced by sandcasting{{sfn|Enschedé|1978|p=34}}{{sfn|Vervliet|Carter|1972|pp=6-11}}<ref name="Plantin 1585 specimen">{{cite book |title=[Specimen characterum] |date=c. 1585 |publisher=Christophe Plantin |url=https://dams.antwerpen.be/asset/kWGcJUZTdWHXZCXRUEhf1zXy |access-date=13 October 2022}}</ref>]] In European printed books, wood engraving was used for both decorations and for large lettering, like titles.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Vervliet |first1=Hendrik D. L. |author1-link=H. D. L. Vervliet |title=The palaeotypography of the French Renaissance : selected papers on sixteenth-century typefaces |date=2008 |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |isbn=9789004169821 |pages=240}}</ref> With care, it was possible to duplicate woodblocks by casting in sand, a technique known to have been used by Hendrik van den Keere to create his large types.{{sfn|Enschedé|1978|p=34}} According to John A. Lane "the duplication of woodblocks by sandcasting is documented in 1575, probably goes back further, and{{Nbsp}}... duplicated decorated initials became common in the Netherlands around 1615."<ref name="Lane Harmansz 2013">{{Cite journal |last1=Lane |first1=John A. |author-link=John A. Lane|title=The Printing Office of Gerrit Harmansz van Riemsdijck, Israël Abrahamsz de Paull, Abraham Olofsz, Andries Pietersz, Jan Claesz Groenewoudt & Elizabeth Abrahams Wiaer c.1660–1709 |journal=Quaerendo |date=27 June 2013 |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=311–439 |doi=10.1163/15700690-12341283}}</ref>
Large sandcast metal types for printed posters became popular in London around the mid-eighteenth century. James Mosley comments that "there is evidence that English typefounders only began to make big letters for posters and other commercial printing towards 1770, when Thomas Cottrell made his 'Proscription or Posting letter of great bulk and dimension' and William Caslon II cast his 'Patagonian' or 'Proscription letters'"{{sfn|Mosley|1990|p=9}} and that "there is probably a prehistory of wood types in big letters cut by hand, especially among provincial printers, but there is no evidence that wood letter was widely used until machine-cut types were introduced."{{Sfn|Mosley|2003|p=113}}
In the early nineteenth century, London became a centre of development in bold display typefaces, the arrival of the printed poster spurring demand for bold new types of letter like the fat face and later the slab serif. However, these types were initially made in metal.{{Sfn|Mosley|1993|p=10}} In 1810, William Caslon IV introduced "sanspareil" matrices, made like a stencil by cutting out the letter in sheet metal and riveting it to a backing plate. This produced much sharper type than sandcasting and was easier to use; it was quickly copied.{{Sfn|Mosley|2003|p=103}} The large metal types produced were cast with hollows in them to reduce the weight.{{Sfn|Mosley|2003|p=112}}<ref name="The Nymph and the Grot: an update" /> Mosley and Justin Howes have documented some cases in the early nineteenth century where woodblock lettering was used shortly before metal type became available in the same styles; heavy roman types on lottery advertising before the arrival of fat face types,{{Sfn|Mosley|1993|p=10}} and later a slab serif woodblock a few years before the first known printing type.<ref name="The Nymph and the Grot: an update">{{Cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|author-link=James Mosley|title=The Nymph and the Grot: an Update|url=https://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/nymph-and-grot-update.html|website=Typefoundry blog|access-date=12 December 2015|archive-date=19 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151019045325/http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2007/01/nymph-and-grot-update.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
thumb|left|Metal display type preceded mass-produced wood type, but these large, heavy metal types were only briefly popular. Austin Foundry specimen, 1838. A very similar design was issued in the 1841 specimen of George F. Nesbitt, as chromatic multi-layer wood type.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=George Fash Nesbitt was born 214 years ago on January 13, 1809...Nesbitt's 1841 wood type specimen catalog remains the first know example showing chromatics. The Butler Library at Columbia University holds the only known surviving copy of the 1841 catalog. |url=https://www.instagram.com/p/CnZvgwzrcGr/ |website=Instagram |access-date=9 June 2023}}</ref> At the start of the nineteenth century, complex decorated types and ornaments were cut in wood and metal and multiplied by methods including stereotyping and "dabbing", in which a woodcut was struck into molten metal on the verge of solidifying to form a mould.<ref name="Big brass matrices 1">{{Cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Big brass matrices: a mystery resolved?|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/brass-matrices-mystery-resolved.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=5 October 2017|archive-date=6 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006012232/http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/brass-matrices-mystery-resolved.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Big brass matrices 2">{{Cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Big brass matrices again: the Enschedé 'Chalcographia' type|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/big-brass-matrices-again-ensched.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=5 October 2017|archive-date=6 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006012028/http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/big-brass-matrices-again-ensched.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Mosley Dabbing">{{Cite web|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Dabbing, abklatschen, clichage...|url=http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/dabbing-abklatschen-clichage.html|website=Type Foundry (blog)|access-date=5 October 2017|archive-date=14 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114190417/http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/dabbing-abklatschen-clichage.html|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Mosley|1990|pp=9-10}}{{sfn|Mosley|1993}}<ref name="Ornamented types: a prospectus">{{cite web|title=Ornamented types: a prospectus|url=http://imimprimit.com/wp-content/uploads/Prospectus-all-cropped-small.pdf|publisher=imimprimit|access-date=12 December 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222083754/http://imimprimit.com/wp-content/uploads/Prospectus-all-cropped-small.pdf|archive-date=22 December 2015|df=dmy-all}}</ref> One type foundry particularly known for decorated designs was the London foundry of Louis John Pouchée, active by 1818 to 1830;<ref name="FIU Ornamented Types">{{cite web |last1=Coles |first1=Stephen |title=Ornamented Types Introduction and Prospectus |url=https://fontsinuse.com/uses/12698/ornamented-types-introduction-and-prospectus |website=Fonts in Use |date=7 May 2016 |access-date=26 May 2020}}</ref>{{sfn|Mosley|1993}} many of the foundry's wooden patterns are preserved.<ref name="Ornamented types: a prospectus"/><ref name="Pouchee’s lost alphabets">{{cite web|last1=Daines|first1=Mike|title=Pouchee's lost alphabets|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/pouchees-lost-alphabets|website=Eye Magazine|access-date=12 March 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ornamented Types |url=https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_antiquarianfacsimile_0008 |publisher=Letterform Archive |access-date=17 September 2021}}</ref>{{efn|Some websites have assumed that Pouchée engraved these faces himself. This is unlikely to be correct as he was not an engraver but a businessman, he was the owner of a restaurant and then a coal merchant before he became a typefounder. The blocks do not have any engravers' names on them; Mosley assumes that they are the work of multiple engravers based on the mixture of styles and notes that a few similar hand-carved wooden types have come to light in England from other sources.{{sfn|Mosley|1993}}}} Modern printing historians Giles Bergel and Paul Nash have experimented with the technique; Bergel reports that "perhaps the most counter-intuitive feature of the process is the fact that wooden blocks can survive direct contact with molten metal. Apart from some scorching around the edges and some cracking (perhaps made when prising them loose rather than from the heat) the blocks were undamaged and could be dabbed over and over again."<ref name="Bergel dabbing">{{Cite web |last1=Bergel |first1=Giles |title=Printing cliches |url=http://www.printing-machine.org/notes/2016/6/4/printing-cliches |website=Printing Machine |date=4 June 2016 |access-date=25 July 2021 |archive-date=6 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190806112715/http://www.printing-machine.org/notes/2016/6/4/printing-cliches |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Machine-cut wood type== [[File:Pantograph animation.gif|thumb|right|Pantograph used for scaling a picture. In wood type manufacture a cutting tool would be moved around the letter rather than a pen.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Moore |first1=Scott |title=Cutting New Wood Type With a Historic Pantograph |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaIXpuhRqVg |website=YouTube |date=17 September 2018 |publisher=Ann Arbor District Library |access-date=27 June 2022 |archive-date=27 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220627045354/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaIXpuhRqVg |url-status=live }}</ref>]] Modern wood type, mass-produced by machine cutting rather than hand-carved, was invented by Darius Wells (1800–1875), who published his first known catalogue in New York City in 1828.<ref name="Shields What Is Wood Type" />{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=36–37}}<ref name="Trumbell Paterson">{{Cite book |last1=Trumbell |first1=Levi R. |title=A History of Industrial Paterson: Being a Compendium of the Establishment, Growth and Present Status in Paterson, N.J., of the Silk, Cotton, Flax, Locomotive, Iron and Miscellaneous Industries : Together with Outlines of State, County and Local History, Corporate Records, Biographical Sketches, Incidents of Manufacture, Interesting Facts and Valuable Statistics |date=1882 |publisher=Higginson Book Company |isbn=978-0-8328-6070-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rVllwsDxxV8C&pg=PA286 |access-date=23 December 2021 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105326/https://books.google.com/books?id=rVllwsDxxV8C&pg=PA286 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Great Industries">{{Cite book |title=The Great Industries of the United States: Being an Historical Summary of the Origin, Growth and Perfection of the Chief Industrial Arts of this Country: by Horace Greeley ... and Other Eminent Writers, Etc |date=1872 |publisher=J. B. Burr & Hyde |location=Hartford |pages=1265–1271 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l5RZAJyw7VwC&pg=PA1265 |access-date=23 December 2021 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105326/https://books.google.com/books?id=l5RZAJyw7VwC&pg=PA1265 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=33–34}} He introduced the lateral router to cut out wood type more quickly than handcarving.<ref name="Shields What Is Wood Type" /><ref>{{Cite book |editor1-last=Clayton |editor1-first=W. Woodford |editor2-last=Nelson |editor2-first=William |title=History of Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey: With Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men |date=1882 |publisher=Everts & Peck |page=489 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zDEUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA489 |language=en |access-date=21 January 2022 |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105326/https://books.google.com/books?id=zDEUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA489 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Griffin">{{Cite book |last1=Griffin |first1=Dori |title=Type Specimens: A Visual History of Typesetting and Printing |date=30 December 2021 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-350-11662-7 |page=117 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oZBTEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA117 |access-date=2 August 2022 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105327/https://books.google.com/books?id=oZBTEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA117 |url-status=live }}</ref>
William Leavenworth in 1834 introduced the pantograph, allowing the same form to be reproduced from a pattern, and manufactured wood type in Allentown, New Jersey.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia: A Scientific and Popular Treasury of Useful Knowledge |date=1886 |publisher=A. J. Johnson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kgZJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA440 |access-date=2 August 2022 |language=en |archive-date=2 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220802201904/https://books.google.com/books?id=kgZJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA440 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Leavenworth NYPL">{{Cite book |title=Specimen of Leavenworth's patent wood type, manufactured by J. M. Debow |location=Allentown |url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/specimen-of-leavenworths-patent-wood-type-manufactured-by-jm-debow-allentown-nj#/?tab=about |access-date=13 July 2022 |archive-date=13 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220713083449/https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/specimen-of-leavenworths-patent-wood-type-manufactured-by-jm-debow-allentown-nj#/?tab=about |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Leavenworth |first1=Elias W. |author1-link=Elias W. Leavenworth |title=A Genealogy of the Leavenworth Family in the United States: With Historical Introduction, Etc |date=1873 |publisher=S. G. Hitchcock & Company |pages=239–240 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ShoxAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA239 |access-date=2 August 2022 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105332/https://books.google.com/books?id=ShoxAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA239 |url-status=live }}</ref> A pantograph has remained a standard way of making wood type, although several other methods have been used such as die-cutting{{sfn|Schneider|2015|pp=3-5}} and making the letter as a thin sheet glued to a backing material.<ref name="Shields What Is Wood Type" />{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=36–37}}{{sfn|Shields|2022|pp=42-43}}
Some pages from Leavenworth's only surviving specimen, now in the New York Public Library, are shown below.<ref name="Leavenworth NYPL" />
{{Gallery |Leavenworth Sixteen and Twelve Lines Condensed Gothic.jpg|Condensed Gothic (sans-serif){{efn|This type has been digitised by Barbara Lind for Adobe Systems as Poplar.<ref>{{cite web |title=Poplar |url=https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/poplar |website=Adobe Fonts |publisher=Adobe Systems |access-date=1 November 2022}}</ref>}} |Leavenworth Twenty, Sixteen and Twelve Lines Gothic.jpg|Gothic (sans-serif) and chamfered Gothic types |Leavenworth Italian (reverse contrast) wood type.jpg|"Italian" (reverse contrast, see below) }} Manufacturers of wood type were also established in France, Germany,<ref name="Pané-Farré Klim Will & Schumacher" /><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Pané-Farré |first1=Pierre |title=Panorama : A {{sic|nolink=y|reason=error in source|reassesment}} of 19th century poster type |url=https://mnemosyne.esad-amiens.fr/manifest.php?id=19 |publisher=École supérieure d'art et de design d'Amiens |access-date=15 August 2022 |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105329/https://mnemosyne.esad-amiens.fr/manifest.php?id=19 |url-status=live }}</ref> Britain and other countries.{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|p=34}} ==Mature industry== [[File:Printing from wood type at the Hamilton Museum.jpg|thumb|Printing from wood type, Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum]] In the mid-nineteenth century there were numerous wood type manufacturers in the United States. All the significant manufacturers were based in the Northeast and Midwest, many around New York City and in Connecticut.{{Sfn|Shields|2022|pp=38-39}} The market for wood type was apparently limited and most businesses had side-lines as dealers in other printers' equipment, or making other wooden goods.{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=61–62}} One of the larger firms until the 1880s was the company of William H. Page, near Norwich, Connecticut. Wood type competed with lithography and stencils in the market for display typography.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=MacMillan |first1=David |title=Why No "Type Designers" Here? |url=https://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/typemaking/history/no-type-designers/index.html |website=Circuitous Root |access-date=2 July 2022 |archive-date=24 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210924190844/http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/typemaking/history/no-type-designers/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Pané-Farré |first1=Pierre |title=Type Design Prize: Affichen-Schriften FSL Pierre Pané-Farré |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFwtwmFX4fg |website=YouTube |date=6 April 2020 |publisher=Tokyo TDC |access-date=8 April 2023}}</ref><ref name="Mosley Lettres à jour">{{cite web |last1=Mosley |first1=James |title=Lettres à jour: public stencil lettering in France |url=https://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2010/03/lettres-jour-public-stencil-lettering.html |website=Typefoundry (blog) |access-date=8 April 2023}}</ref>
Common type styles included the slab serif, fat face, sans-serif, reverse-contrast or "French Clarendon",<ref name="Heller The Birth of a Wood Type">{{cite web |last1=Heller |first1=Steven |title=The Birth of a Wood Type |url=https://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/birth-wood-type-brylski/ |website=Print|date=June 2017 |access-date=9 February 2019}}</ref> and other genres such as "Tuscan" (spikes on the letter), "Grecian" (chamfered)<ref name="Hoefler Grecian">{{cite web |last1=Hoefler |first1=Jonathan |author1-link=Jonathan Hoefler |title=Grecian Fonts: A Miscellany |url=https://www.typography.com/blog/grecian-fonts-a-miscellany |publisher=Hoefler & Co. |access-date=19 August 2022}}</ref> and ornamented forms.<ref name="Thinking with Type 23">{{Cite book|last1=Lupton|first1=Ellen|author1-link=Ellen Lupton|title=Thinking with Type|quote=although Bodoni and Didot fuelled their designs with the calligraphic practices of their time, they created new forms that collided with typographic tradition and unleashed a strange new world, where the structural attributes of the letter-serif and stem, thick and thin strokes, vertical and horizontal stress-would be subject to bizarre experiments...Fonts of astonishing height, width and depth appeared: expanded, contracted, shadowed, inlined, fattened, faceted and floriated. Serifs abandoned their role as finishing details to become independent architectural structures, and the vertical stress of traditional letters canted in new directions.|isbn=9781616890452|page=23|date=15 April 2014|publisher=Chronicle Books }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=Etna – A History of 'Aetna' Typefaces |url=https://etna.marksimonson.com/history/ |website=Mark Simonson Studio |access-date=19 August 2022 |language=en}}</ref> (The use of fictitious adjective names for newly invented type styles was common with wood type manufacturers but not invented by them, for example in London Vincent Figgins had called his first slab-serif "Antique" around 1817 and the Caslon foundry's first reverse contrast typeface around 1821 was given the probably fictitious name "Italian".<ref name="A Short History of the Italian"/><ref name="Scrambled Eggs & Serifs">{{Cite web|last1=Frere-Jones|first1=Tobias|author1-link=Tobias Frere-Jones|title=Scrambled Eggs & Serifs|url=https://frerejones.com/blog/scrambled-eggs-and-serifs|publisher=Frere-Jones Type|access-date=23 October 2015|archive-date=28 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150928074738/http://www.frerejones.com/blog/scrambled-eggs-and-serifs/|url-status=live}}</ref>) Types were made in extreme proportions, such as ultra-bold and ultra-condensed.<ref>{{cite web |title=Coign |url=https://www.colophon-foundry.org/typefaces/coign/ |publisher=Colophon Foundry |access-date=19 November 2022 |quote=Coign is an extensive study of condensed forms based on the DeLittle type foundry's Elongated Sans. DeLittle's type — extending far beyond the realms of legibility — challenges conventional letterforms, pushing the notion of what is ‘condensed' to the absolute limit.}}</ref><ref name="Coign Medium">{{Cite web |title=Coign; the most condensed font ever (probably) |url=https://medium.com/@Colophon/coign-the-most-condensed-font-ever-probably-c3d56086a1bd |website=Medium |publisher=Colophon Foundry |access-date=19 November 2022 |language=en |date=24 July 2020}}</ref> For Bethany Heck, "wood type in the US was pioneered by mad scientists who strained good taste and legibility in an attempt to cover the broadest range of ornament, width and weight".<ref name="Heck CG review" /> "Chromatic" types were also made for printing colour separation, showing the delicacy that could be achieved.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=Chromatic Gothic Paneled |url=https://www.woodtyperesearch.com/chromatic-gothic-paneled/ |website=Wood Type Research |access-date=30 June 2022 |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630224001/https://www.woodtyperesearch.com/chromatic-gothic-paneled/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
{{Gallery |Sample page from Wm. H. Page and Co., Specimens of Wood Type Borders, Rules, &c. (2920682750).jpg|Ornamented types, 1859 specimen, Wm. H. Page and Co. |Pointed and Tuscan wood type, Wm. H. Page & Co., 1874 specimen.jpg|Chromatic colour separation Pointed and Tuscan wood type, Wm. H. Page & Co., 1874 specimen<ref name="Page 1874 Chromatic specimen">{{Cite book |title=Specimens of chromatic wood type, borders, etc. manufactured by Wm. H. Page & Co. |date=1874 |publisher=Wm. H. Page & Co. |location=Greeneville, Connecticut |url=https://archive.org/details/ldpd_10147342_000/ |access-date=15 August 2022 |language=English}}</ref> }}
Wood type had distinctive characteristics compared to metal type. The demand for novelty led to an arms race of new styles of novelty type designs, and because each type was individually cut by pantograph from a pattern, types could be offered in a wide range of sizes.<ref name="Ulrich From Compressed Light">{{cite web|last1=Ulrich|first1=Ferdinand|title=From Compressed Light to Extended Ultra|url=https://www.fontshop.com/content/from-compressed-light-to-extended-ultra|publisher=FontShop|accessdate=19 August 2017}}</ref> Wood type styles were sold in a wide range of widths from condensed to ultra-wide, and Hamilton offered to supply at regular prices any width desired in between its standard widths.<ref name="Unit Gothic">{{Cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=Unit Gothic & Uniform Set Gothic: wood type as precursor |url=https://www.woodtyperesearch.com/unit-gothic/ |website=Wood Type Research |access-date=30 June 2022 |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630224038/https://www.woodtyperesearch.com/unit-gothic/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Robert James DeLittle, the last owner of the DeLittle wood type cutters in York, England, explained in 2000 that sometimes very condensed letters were needed for theatre posters because "If you were more important than the other chap, your name had to be in larger letters. If you were unfortunate enough to have a long-winded name you had great difficulty in fitting it into those narrow theatrical bills."<ref name="York Press old type">{{cite news |title=Last of the old type |url=https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/7953099.last-of-the-old-type/ |access-date=19 November 2022 |website=The Press}}</ref><ref name="Coign Medium" /> As noted above, multiple types were often made for the multiple layers of a design to be printed using colour separation.<ref name="Page 1874 Chromatic specimen" /> As wood type was made for large sizes, it was often made with very narrow sidebearings between letters, so spacing material had to be inserted to achieve the desired spacing between characters.<ref name="Sherman Birth of a Wood Type">{{cite web |last1=Sherman |first1=Nick |title=The Birth of a Wood Type |url=https://woodtype.org/blogs/news/80-the-birth-of-a-wood-type |website=Hamilton Wood Type Museum |access-date=28 October 2022 |language=en}}</ref> Digital typeface designer Anatole Couteau comments: "in wood type...due to how the wooden blocks are cut, spacing is typically so tight that you constantly have to do kerning."<ref name="Wälchli">{{cite web |last1=Wälchli |first1=Tan |title=Emil Ruder: A Tool for Teaching |url=https://lineto.com/#ruder-long-desk |publisher=Lineto |access-date=28 October 2022 |quote=Couteau: ‘My teacher at École Estienne in Paris, Franck Jalleau, liked to provoke people by saying that kerning is only necessary for poorly spaced fonts. But in wood type, this is entirely different. Due to how the wooden blocks are cut, spacing is typically so tight that you constantly have to do kerning.' Strips of type metal in various widths were inserted between each pair of letters on press. This was feasible in the days of wood type, when often only a couple of dozen letters were used.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Spiekermann |first1=Erik |author1-link=Erik Spiekermann |title=Making Display Type at p98a in Berlin |url=https://www.p98a.com/collection/making-display-type-at-p98a-in-berlin |website=p98a |access-date=26 December 2022}}</ref>
[[File:Greatexpectations vol1 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Nineteenth-century Didone text types (metal type example shown) tended to use a modularised design with capitals of similar width, something copied by display types of the period.]] Although apparently diverse in appearance, nineteenth century wood types tended to be ornamented variations on the same basic modularised design principles, similar to nineteenth century Didone text typefaces.<ref name="Majoor My Type Design Philosophy">{{cite web|last1=Majoor|first1=Martin|author1-link=Martin Majoor|title=My Type Design Philosophy|url=http://www.typotheque.com/articles/my_type_design_philosophy|website=Typotheque|date=29 November 2004 |access-date=12 November 2015}}</ref> Nineteenth-century types were based on a system of keeping the capitals very similar in width, seen for example in the "tucked-under" leg of the R.<ref name="Meet Macklin">{{cite web |last1=Verlomme |first1=Malou |title=Meet Macklin |url=https://vimeo.com/412305596 |website=Vimeo |date=27 April 2020 |publisher=Monotype |access-date=10 March 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Gehlhaar |first1=Jens |title=Neuwelt: An optimistic transatlantic sans serif type family — Jens Gehlhaar |url=https://jensgehlhaar.com/Neuwelt-An-optimistic-transatlantic-sans-serif-type-family |website=Jens Gehlhaar |access-date=15 December 2021 |language=en}}</ref>{{efn|In Tubbs' Uniform Set Gothic type, a full specimen of which is not known to survive, an advert seems to claim that all the capital letters had the same width apart from I and M and W (the latter two themselves the same width), although it did claim that its manufacturing methods were unique.<ref name="Unit Gothic" />}} This model was quite different from Roman square capitals, where the capitals are quite different in width.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnston |first1=Edward |title=Writing, Illuminating and Lettering|year=1917|page=269 |quote=[In the] nineteenth-century style...it was customary to make every letter occupy the same space and look as much like its neighbour as possible.|url=https://archive.org/details/writingilluminat00johnuoft/page/268}}</ref>
Wood type manufacture was particularly common in the United States, and its companies made type in other languages for export. By the 1870s, missionaries working in China had commissioned type for printing posters, and wood type was also made for Russian and Burmese for export.{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|p=76}} Besides this, American manufacturers made German blackletter, Greek and Hebrew types catering to the large immigrant communities.{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|p=76}}<ref>{{Cite book |title=Specimens of Wood Type [blackletter types] |date=1859 |publisher=Wm. H. Page (digitisation: St Louis Public Library) |location=Greeneville |url=https://cdm17210.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/werner/id/0/rec/5 |access-date=15 August 2022}}</ref>{{sfn|Shields|2022|p=308}}
In 1880, J. E. Hamilton founded the Hamilton Manufacturing Company in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. His company grew rapidly to take over the American industry. Hamilton gained its initial advantage by introducing a new method of making wood type very cheaply: the wood letter was cut out and then attached to a backing of a block of cheaper wood.{{sfn|Shields|2022|p=43}} Around 1890, Hamilton switched to the standard router method of cutting wood type as a single block.{{sfn|Shields|2022|p=43}} It also benefited from an effective distribution network and proximity to the growing western market.{{sfn|Shields|2022|p=37}}<ref>{{cite web |title=History |url=http://woodtype.org/about/history |publisher=Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum |access-date=17 September 2023 |language=en}}</ref> From 1887 to 1909 it took over most of its competitors.<ref name="Shields What Is Wood Type" /><ref name="Page Baker letter">{{Cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title="The Wood Type business should go West…" An 1887 letter from William H. Page to W.B. Baker |url=https://www.woodtyperesearch.com/%e2%80%9cthe-wood-type-business-should-go-west%e2%80%a6%e2%80%9d-a-letter-from-william-h-page-to-hamilton-baker/ |website=Wood Type Research |access-date=30 June 2022 |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630223013/http://www.woodtyperesearch.com/%e2%80%9cthe-wood-type-business-should-go-west%e2%80%a6%e2%80%9d-a-letter-from-william-h-page-to-hamilton-baker/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Cheng" /> It continued to make wood type until 1985.{{Sfn|Shields|2022|p=37}} The surviving materials from the company are now preserved at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum, also in Two Rivers.<ref name="Shields What Is Wood Type" /><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662674/creative-destinations-two-rivers-where-wood-type-still-makes-a-big-impression |title=Creative Destinations: Two Rivers, Where Wood Type Still Makes a Big Impression |publisher=Fastcodesign.com |date=12 November 2010 |access-date=10 February 2012 |archive-date=4 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304155431/http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662674/creative-destinations-two-rivers-where-wood-type-still-makes-a-big-impression |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Cheng">{{Cite web |last1=Cheng |first1=Jacqui |title=Wood Stock |url=https://the-magazine.com/20/wood-stock/index.html |website=The Magazine |access-date=27 June 2022 |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105329/https://the-magazine.com/20/wood-stock/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Simonson Hamilton tour">{{cite web |last1=Simonson |first1=Mark |author1-link=Mark Simonson |title=Hamilton Wood Type Museum |url=https://www.marksimonson.com/notebook/view/HamiltonWoodTypeMuseum |website=Mark Simonson |access-date=19 August 2022 |language=en |date=18 August 2022}}</ref><ref name="Yin and Yang">{{cite web|last1=Carter|first1=Matthew|title=Yin and Yang|url=http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/yin-and-yang|website=Eye Magazine|access-date=22 February 2016}}</ref>
Some types from Hamilton are shown below:
{{Gallery |Hamilton Katz Blackletter type specimen (27235383366).jpg|Blackletter type |Hamilton Antique Type Specimen (34534070873).jpg|Slab serif |Wood Type Specimen (28876759782).jpg|Condensed sans-serif |Slab Serif Wood Type Specimen (26346574271).jpg|Slab serif with curving terminals |Narrow Slab Serif wood type specimen (25056803102).jpg|"French Clarendon" (reverse-contrast) |Hamilton Katz Streamers Type Specimen (24801934492).jpg|"Streamer" chromatic type, with type in front of a banner |Hamilton Katz Spurred Tuscan French Clarendon Type Specimen (31282437336).jpg|Tuscan French Clarendon type |Grecian Type Specimen (25624908995).jpg|Grecian (chamfered) slab-serif type }}
[[File:Evening News placard Versailles Treaty signed June 28 1919.jpg|thumb|News placard marking the signing of the Treaty of Versailles]] According to S. L. Righyni, in the late inter-war period in Britain, the standard letterform on newsbills posted by newsagents was "the sans-serif wooden letter-form", especially bold condensed sans-serifs from Stephenson Blake, although the ''Daily Express'' used Winchester Bold and ''The Times'' had a custom design similar to Kabel Bold Condensed.<ref name="Righyni">{{Cite journal |last1=Righyni |first1=S. L. |title=News Bills: A Retrospectus |journal=Alphabet & Image |date=1946 |issue=2 |pages=34–49}}</ref> (Although wood type was used for news bills and posters, large newspaper headlines were rare in British newspaper printing until well into the twentieth century.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Reilly |first1=Lucas |title=Quartz Weekly Obsession: Victorian Newspapers |url=https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1165691/victorian-newspapers/ |website=Quartz |date=4 January 2018 |access-date=3 July 2022 |archive-date=3 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220703224248/https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1165691/victorian-newspapers/ |url-status=live }}</ref>)
===Wood type sellers=== United States *Darius Wells{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=36–37}} *W. Leavenworth{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|p=37}}<ref name="Leavenworth NYPL" /> *William H. Page{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=43–44}} *Hamilton{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=47–49}}
United Kingdom [[File:Johnston Letters (34228414755).jpg|thumb|right|Johnston wood type, the corporate typeface of the London Underground system, with a humanist sans-serif design different to nineteenth-century grotesque wood types. The wood type is locked in a chase used for printing with spacing materials]] *DeLittle<ref name="Bolton DeLittle">{{Cite book |last1=Bolton |first1=Claire |title=DeLittle, 1888–1988 : the first years in a century of wood letter manufacture, 1888–1895 |date=1988 |publisher=Alembic Press |isbn=9780907482291 |quote=Wood type was first made in the United States in 1828 and by the mid-1840s was being used in Britain...the first British firms began cutting wood type during the 1860s. DeLittle entered the field comparatively late but his idea was to specialise [in] 'white-letter' wood type.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=DeLittle's Wood Type |date=1966 |publisher=DeLittle |location=York |url=http://type.org.uk/books/ |access-date=3 November 2022 |archive-date=3 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221103232427/http://type.org.uk/books/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> *H. W. Caslon<ref>{{cite book |title=Specimens of Wood Letter, Ornaments, Borders, etc |publisher=H. W. Caslon and Co. Ltd. |location=London |url=http://type.org.uk/books/ |access-date=3 November 2022 |archive-date=3 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221103232427/http://type.org.uk/books/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> * H. M. Sellers<ref>{{cite book |title=Wood Letter Specimens |publisher=H. M. Sellers & Co. |url=http://type.org.uk/books/ |access-date=3 November 2022 |archive-date=3 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221103232427/http://type.org.uk/books/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> *Stevens Shanks * Day & Collins<ref>{{cite book |title=Wood Type, Printing and Bookbinding Materials |date=1897 |publisher=Day & Collins |location=London |url=http://type.org.uk/books/ |access-date=3 November 2022 |archive-date=3 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221103232427/http://type.org.uk/books/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> *Stephenson Blake<ref name="Righyni" /><ref>{{cite book |title=Wood Letter, Printers' Joinery, Machinery |date=1915 |publisher=Stephenson Blake |location=Sheffield and London |url=http://type.org.uk/books/ |access-date=3 November 2022 |archive-date=3 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221103232427/http://type.org.uk/books/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
Germany *Will & Schumacher, later Sachs & Co.<ref name="Pané-Farré Klim Will & Schumacher" /><ref name="Mānuka Sowersby">{{cite web |last1=Sowersby |first1=Kris |author1-link=Kris Sowersby |title=Mānuka design information |url=https://klim.co.nz/blog/manuka-design-information/ |publisher=Klim Type Foundry |access-date=19 August 2022}}</ref><ref name="W&S specimen">{{cite book |title=Plakat-schriften. Schriftschneide-Anstalt von Will & Schumacher in Mannheim... |date=1865 |publisher=Will & Schumacher |location=Mannheim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GENT900000199574 |access-date=19 August 2022 |language=de}}</ref>
France *Deberny & Peignot{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|p=7}}
Switzerland *Roman Scherer<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hoefler |first1=Jonathan |author1-link=Jonathan Hoefler |title=St. Patrick's Type |url=https://www.typography.com/blog/st.-patricks-type |publisher=Hoefler & Co. |access-date=19 August 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
Brazil *Funtimod<ref>{{cite web |last1=Burian |first1=Veronika |last2=Scaglione |first2=José |title=Interview: Catalpa Wood Type |url=https://www.type-together.com/catalpa-wood-type |publisher=TypeTogether |access-date=1 December 2022}}</ref>
India *Diamond Wooden Type Works<ref>{{cite web |last1=Basrai |first1=Sabiha |title=Type History Toolkit, Part 2: De-Centering the Latin Letter in Design Education |date=12 September 2023 |url=https://letterformarchive.org/news/de-centering-the-latin-letter-in-typography-education/ |publisher=Letterform Archive |access-date=6 January 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Diamond Wooden Type Works specimen, ca. 1975 |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/letterformarchive/albums/72157716934333631 |website=Flickr |date=18 November 2020 |publisher=Diamond Wooden Type Works (digitisation: Letterform Archive) |access-date=6 January 2024}}</ref>
==Legacy technology== [[File:HWT American Chromatic.png|thumb|HWT American Chromatic, a digital font published by the Hamilton Wood Type museum with P22 based on its collection]] thumb|Wood type posters printed by Tribune Showprint, Indiana, pictured in 2008 [[File:French Clarendon wood type.jpg|thumb|French Clarendon wood type at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum]] During the post-war period, wood type poster printing was displaced by new technologies like offset lithography and phototypesetting. Reproductions of wood type with their resonance of times past were offered by phototypesetting companies such as Photo-Lettering Inc. and Haber Typographers, and used in the 1960s by designers such as Bob Cato and John Berg,<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Coles |first1=Stephen |title=Bob Dylan – The Times They Are A-changin' album art |url=https://fontsinuse.com/uses/11388/bob-dylan-the-times-they-are-a-changin-album- |website=Fonts In Use |date=21 December 2015 |access-date=28 June 2022 |quote=Haber...provided phototype versions of Morgan wood type, including Nesbitt's Gothic, for much of the New York design scene |archive-date=21 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210921031634/https://fontsinuse.com/uses/11388/bob-dylan-the-times-they-are-a-changin-album- |url-status=live }}</ref> and later Paula Scher and Louise Fili.<ref name="Hoefler Hamilton talk">{{cite web |last1=Hoefler |first1=Jonathan |title=Jonathan Hoefler 2017 Wayzgoose Presentation at Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvp3V_YwSuE |website=YouTube |date=4 January 2018 |publisher=Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum |access-date=27 June 2022 |language=en |archive-date=27 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220627184826/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvp3V_YwSuE&gl=US&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Scher |first1=Paula |author-link=Paula Scher|title=Twenty-Five Years at the Public |date=2020 |publisher=Princeton Architectural Press |isbn=9781616899349 |pages=39–42 |quote=When I left CBS Records, I had asked Haber Typographers for large-scale prints of the complete alphabets, numbers and punctuation for all of the wood fonts from the foundry. All through the '80s, I repeatedly xeroxed the fonts and used them on book covers and in magazines.}}</ref> Wood type has remained in use longer in India, where as of 2024 it continued to be used for printing shopping bags.<ref>{{cite web |last1=George |first1=Tanya |title=Diamond Wood Type Works |url=https://letterformarchive.org/news/diamond-wooden-type-works/ |publisher=Letterform Archive}}</ref> Artistic printers like Jack Stauffacher and retro print shops such as Hatch Show Print carried on using wood type, finding that it was a cheap way to achieve creative effects.{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|pp=7–8}}<ref name="Introducing Konop">{{cite web |last1=Simonson |first1=Mark |author1-link=Mark Simonson |title=Introducing HWT Konop |url=https://www.marksimonson.com/notebook/view/introducing-hwt-konop |website=Mark Simonson Studio |date=18 August 2022 |quote=a modern letterpress printer...tends to be more interested in self-expression and artistic effects}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Motycka |first1=Eli |title=Fine Print: The Letterpress Artists Visually Defining Nashville |url=https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts_culture/coverstory/fine-print-the-letterpress-artists-visually-defining-nashville/article_4842e4ae-1ce5-11ed-b75e-83816f4dfa1a.html |website=Nashville Scene |date=18 August 2022 |access-date=13 October 2022 |language=en}}</ref> (For wood type historian Rob Roy Kelly, the aesthetic quality of wood type manufacturers declined in the twentieth century; Nick Sherman and Frode Helland have commented on a staggeringly bad rendition of Futura in Hamilton's 1951 specimen that features inconsistent stroke weights, the dot on the i and j at different heights, and the 8 in the specimen printed upside down.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Helland |first1=Frode |title=The best Futura |website=Twitter |publisher=Monokrom Schriftvorlag |url=https://twitter.com/monokromfonts/status/1316495101791817736 |access-date=7 August 2022 |language=en |archive-date=15 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220815105409/https://twitter.com/monokromfonts/status/1316495101791817736 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sherman |first1=Nick |title=The Design of Type Specimens |journal=The Shelf |url=https://journal.theshelf.fr/en/library/hamiltons-wood-type |quote=A seemingly random mishmash of characters were used to present an already-wonky cut of Futura in Hamilton Manufacturing Company's wood type catalog #25, 1951. |date=2012 |access-date=8 August 2022 |archive-date=8 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220808001409/https://journal.theshelf.fr/en/library/hamiltons-wood-type |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Devroye |first1=Luc |author1-link=Luc Devroye |title=Hamilton Holly Wood Type Co. (or: Hamilton Manufacturing Company) [James Hamilton] |url=http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-39705.html |website=Type Design Information Page |access-date=7 August 2022 |archive-date=15 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415103947/http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-39705.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Sherman |first1=Nick |title=Franklin Gothic Goes on Forever with Nick Sherman |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94uCx6y90EQ |website=YouTube |date=28 November 2022 |publisher=Cooper Union |access-date=30 November 2022 |language=en |quote=[At 34:26] It's so bad...if you look at a lot of their mid-twentieth century adaptations of popular typefaces for wood...the curves just look like they were cut with a hacksaw.}}</ref>){{efn|Not a unique criticism: Eva Silvertant comments of the H. M. Sellers 1965 specimen that "some wood-type faces look like they're cut from memory...[it] isn't ‘quite' Gill Sans Bold."<ref>{{Cite tweet |last=Silvertant |first=Eva |user=evasilvertant |number=1589474500978307073 |date=7 November 2022 |title=Gill Sans Bold (1928) No. 30, by Eric Gill. This type specimen amuses me; some wood-type faces look like they're cut from memory, or cut by a tipsy typecutter! This isn't 'quite' Gill Sans Bold. From 'Wood Letter Specimens' (H. M. Sellers & Co., 1965).}}</ref>}}
The use of wood type styles is commonly associated with the American Frontier or "Wild West". These typefaces are seen as classic western Americana. This is because of its cinematic and decorative appearance: wood type style-lettering was very popular in Westerns giving it an association with the American west, and are used frequently to depict that aesthetic, from theme parks to bars.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gottwald|first=Dave|title=Typography As Theming in the Ol' West. |url=https://www.themerica.org/blog/2018/01/06/typography-as-theming-in-the-ol-west |access-date=2022-11-03 |website=Themerica |date=6 January 2018 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Gottwald |first1=David |title=The Colossal, Stupendous 19th Century Wood Type Explosion! |url=http://www.dgottwald.org/mfa/#/19th-century-wood-type/ |website=David Gottwald |access-date=3 November 2022}}</ref>
In the 1950s, Rob Roy Kelly, an American graphic design teacher, became interested in the history of wood type and built up a large collection from sources like old print shops and printers' families.{{Sfn|Kelly|1969|p=7}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Rob Roy Kelly Obsessions: Wood Type Research |url=https://www.rit.edu/~w-rkelly/html/05_obs/obs_wood1.html |access-date=4 March 2022 |website=www.rit.edu |archive-date=4 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220304213329/https://www.rit.edu/~w-rkelly/html/05_obs/obs_wood1.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He published a history of the industry, ''American Wood Type, 1828–1900'' in 1969.{{Sfn|Kelly|1969}}<ref name="Hoefler Treasury of Wood Type Online">{{Cite web |last1=Hoefler |first1=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Hoefler |title=A Treasury of Wood Type Online |url=https://www.typography.com/blog/a-treasury-of-wood-type-online |website=Hoefler & Co. |access-date=27 June 2022 |archive-date=4 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191004213505/https://www.typography.com/blog/a-treasury-of-wood-type-online |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Hoefler Curved, Pointy types">{{Cite web |last1=Hoefler |first1=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Hoefler |title="Curved, Pointy, and Nervous-Looking Types" |url=https://www.typography.com/blog/curved-pointy-and-nervous-looking-types |website=Hoefler & Co. |access-date=27 June 2022 |archive-date=19 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211119224741/https://www.typography.com/blog/curved-pointy-and-nervous-looking-types |url-status=live }}</ref> His collection, now at the University of Texas at Austin,<ref name="RRK collection">{{Cite web |title=The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection |url=https://rrk.finearts.utexas.edu/ |publisher=School of Design and Creative Technologies, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin |access-date=27 June 2022 |archive-date=18 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220418032344/https://rrk.finearts.utexas.edu/ |url-status=live }}</ref> has been studied by other historians of wood type such as David Shields.{{Sfn|Shields|2022}}<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=Rob Roy Kelly: A bottle of Scotch for two cases of wood type with David Shields |url=https://vimeo.com/304460150 |website=Vimeo |publisher=Cooper Union |access-date=30 June 2022 |date=4 December 2018 |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630223959/https://vimeo.com/304460150 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Muster Hundreds">{{Cite web |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=Muster Hundreds! Towards a people's history of American wood type |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpqaziF9iOI |website=YouTube |date=26 October 2016 |publisher=ATypI |access-date=30 June 2022 |language=en |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630223959/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpqaziF9iOI |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Shields |first=David |title=The proliferation of 19th (and 20th) century wood type and its impact on typographic norms, with David Shields |url=https://vimeo.com/238857226 |website=Vimeo |publisher=Cooper Union |access-date=30 June 2022 |date=18 October 2017 |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630224002/https://vimeo.com/238857226 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Heller Shields">{{cite web |last1=Heller |first1=Steven |author1-link=Steven Heller (design writer) |title=The Daily Heller: The Gospel According to Wood Type's Patron Saint |url=https://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/the-daily-heller-the-gospel-of-wood-types-patron-saint/ |website=Print |access-date=18 August 2022 |date=17 August 2022}}</ref> ==Digital fonts== Many digital fonts based on wood type display faces have been published, benefiting from the plentiful source material and accessibility of images, for example Kelly's book.<ref name="Heck CG review" /><ref name="Hoefler Hamilton talk" /> For example, when Adobe were developing a line of original typefaces in the early 1990s they created a large number of digital fonts based on wood types using proofs supplied by Kelly, which were named after types of tree.<ref>{{cite web |title=Adobe Originals: More than just one collection |url=https://typenetwork.com/articles/adobe-originals-more-than-just-one-collection |publisher=Type Network |access-date=8 September 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Riggs |first1=Tamye |title=The Adobe Originals Silver Anniversary Story: Expanding the Originals |url=https://blog.typekit.com/2014/06/30/the-adobe-originals-silver-anniversary-story-expanding-the-originals/ |publisher=Adobe Inc. |access-date=8 September 2023}}</ref> ==Notes== {{Notelist}} {{-}}
== References == === Citations === {{Reflist|30em}}
=== Bibliography === {{Refbegin}} *{{cite book |last1=Enschedé |first1=Charles |editor1-last=Carter |editor1-first=Harry |editor1-link=Harry Carter (typographer) |editor2-last=Hellinga |editor2-first=Lotte |editor2-link=Lotte Hellinga|title=Typefoundries in the Netherlands, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century: a history based mainly on material in the collection of Joh. Enschedé en Zonen at Haarlem |date=1978 |publisher=Stichting Museum Enschedé |location=Haarlem |isbn=9789070024130 |page=33|url=https://noord-hollandsarchief.nl/maisi_ajax_proxy.php?miview=viewer2&miahd=1595775116&miadt=236&mizig=210&mivast=236&mialg=&mistart=32 |edition=2nd}} *{{Cite book|last1=Gray|first1=Nicolete|author-link=Nicolete Gray|title=Nineteenth Century Ornamented Typefaces|date=1977}} *{{Cite journal |last1=Kelly |first1=Rob Roy |author1-link=Rob Roy Kelly |title=American Wood Type |journal=Design Quarterly |date=1963 |issue=56 |pages=1–40 |doi=10.2307/4047285|jstor=4047285 }} * {{Cite book|last=Kelly|first=Rob Roy|author-link=Rob Roy Kelly|title=American Wood Type, 1828–1900|date=1969}} *{{Cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=John |author-link=John Lewis (typographer) |title=Printed Ephemera: the changing uses of type and letterforms in English and American printing |date=1962 |publisher=W. S. Cowell |url=https://archive.org/details/trent_0116404139556 |location=Ipswich }} *{{Cite book|editor-first=James|editor-last=Mosley|editor-link=James Mosley|title=A Specimen of Printing Types & Various Ornaments 1796: Reproduced Together with the Sale Catalogue of the British Letter-Foundry 1797|year=1990|publisher=Printing Historical Society|quote=Big types had been cast in sand, using wooden patterns, for some centuries [by 1750] but there is evidence that English typefounders only began to make big letters for posters and other commercial printing towards 1770, when Thomas Cottrell made his 'Proscription or Posting letter of great bulk and dimension' and William Caslon II cast his 'Patagonian' or 'Proscription letters'.|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_xpzgAAAAMAAJ/page/n9/mode/2up|pages=5–12|isbn=9780900003103}} *{{Cite book|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Ornamented types: twenty-three alphabets from the foundry of Louis John Poucheé|publisher=I.M. Imprimit in association with the St. Bride Printing Library|date=1993}} *{{Cite journal|last1=Mosley|first1=James|title=Memories of an Apprentice Typefounder|journal=Matrix|volume=21|date=2001|pages=1–13}} * {{Cite journal |last1=Mosley |first1=James |title=Sanspareil Matrices |journal=Matrix |volume=23|date=2003|pages=104–114}} *{{cite thesis |last1=Schneider |first1=Daniel |title=Wood Type Archaeology: an inquiry into worker skill in wood printing type manufacture |url=https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/etds/1007/ |date=2015 |publisher=Michigan Technological University |access-date=6 January 2024 }} *{{Cite book|last=Shaw|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Shaw (design historian)|title=Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n7e0DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|date=April 2017|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-21929-6|pages=132–155|access-date=23 December 2021|archive-date=23 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211223230103/https://books.google.com/books?id=n7e0DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|url-status=live}} *{{Cite book |last1=Shields |first1=David |title=The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection: A History and Catalog |date=2022 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-1-4773-2368-7}} *{{cite book |editor1-last=Vervliet |editor1-first=Hendrik D. L. |editor2-last=Carter |editor2-first=Harry |editor1-link=Hendrik Vervliet |editor2-link=Harry Carter (typographer) |title=Type Specimen Facsimiles II |date=1972 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |pages=7–11}} {{Refend}}
==External links== {{Commons category}} * [https://fontsinuse.com/tags/476/wood-type Examples on ''Fonts In Use''] * [https://www.woodtyperesearch.com/chronological-list-of-facsimiles-and-digital-copies/ David Shields' list of wood type specimen catalog facsimiles and digital copies] * [https://archive.org/details/@ampersanden Ampersand Press collection of French wood type specimens] on the Internet Archive * [https://woodtyper.com/ Woodtyper] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220915001207/http://woodtyper.com/ |date=15 September 2022 }}, a wood type discussion site edited by Nick Sherman {{Letterpress}}
Category:Letterpress printing Category:1828 introductions Category:Typography Category:Relief printing Category:History of printing *