Field Notes: Two Rivers Edition
Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum and Field Notes partnered up to create an amazing array of letterpress printed beauties. These pocket perfect notebooks are bound with covers printed by Jim Moran on the 1961 Heidelburg GT Windmill Press. Over 200 hours of printing, 75,000 impressions, and a lot of love went into the project. Check out the beautiful videos and interviews Field Notes put together, and read Jim's blog post about the full experience.
The Artz Font by Erik Spiekermann
Artz is the newest wood type to be cut at Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. It was designed by Erik Spiekermann for his own print studio—P98a in Berlin, specifically to be cut on a pantograph as wood type. Our skilled pantograph operator, Mardell Doubek, cut the full set. Erik has already started printing with it and you can see more of his work here. The digital version is being offered to the general public with proceeds of sales to benefit the museum's ongoing operations, buy Artz on the P22 Type Foundry website.
Beauty of Letterpress: Neenah Paper Partners with Hamilton
The Beauty of Letterpress from Neenah Paper has put together an amazing campaign to assist with Hamilton's relocation. You can get some amazing posters for a small donation that benefits the museum. The limited edition Hamilton prints are still available here.
“The History of Hamilton Wood Type”: Uppercase Magazine
Hamilton was featured in a beautiful article by Uppercase Magazine, called “The History of Hamilton Wood Type.” The Uppercase Magazine is a great resource for design enthusiasts and professionals. Check out the full issue here.
Stephanie Carpenter : Duluth Women Model
Duluth Trading Company featured the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum Assistant Director, Stephanie Carpenter, as one of their women models hard at work in the museum. The article written describes Hamilton and some of what Stephanie does on a 'normal' day. Read the full feature here.
P22 Type Foundry
Hamilton has collaborated with the P22 Type Foundry to bring 19th century typefaces and fonts to computers everywhere! “The digital fonts seek to strike balance of the handmade with some imperfections and the pristine original drawings (and in the case of 'shopworn' variants, exaggerated distress). In sourcing examples for digitizing, there is often a fair amount of research to try and find as complete character sets as possible. Wood type often becomes separated from its punctuation in shops and complete sets of wood type are exceptionally scarce.” Get more information on their website and check out the digital fonts available for purchase.
The Magazine
"Wood Stock: A once-obscure bit of printing history on the shores of Lake Michigan finds rekindled interest."
The Magazine visited the musuem and published a great article about their time in Two Rivers. Read the entire article on their website.
Appleton Coated: Boston HOW Design Conference 2012
Appleton Coated featured the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum at the HOW Design Conference of 2012. Bill and Jim Moran did printing demonstrations and gave away limited edition keepsakes on Utopia coated and Curious Collection paper. In addition to the giveaways, Hamilton created 12 foot long poster backdrops for the Appleton Coated conference booth. “Appleton Coated and its people have been unbelievably generous supporters of the museum’s mission. They are a big part of helping us tell Hamilton’s story in our shared home state of Wisconsin and across North America, and at events such as HOW,” said Jim Moran. Check out the full press release here.
Appleton Coated: Sponsor of the Wood Type Archiving Program from 2012-2014
Appleton Coated became an official sponsor of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in 2012, and “demonstrated its commitment to the enduring power of printed communication.” From 2012 to 2014, Appleton Coated has supplied paper for the Wood Type Specimen Archiving project, and other select events at the museum and at design conferences. The Type Specimen Posters that were created through this partnership can be seen here.
Design Observer
Artistic Director Bill Moran penned this article for the Unusual Suspects section of the Design Observer website. Read it here.
CAKE & BANDmade Books team up for Hamilton
Communication Arts recently ran this story about a cool book project that benefits Hamilton Wood Type.
CAKE whose new album, "Showroom of Compassion," debuted at #1 earlier this year on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart, has partnered with BANDmade Books to create a limited edition hand made book that showcases the lyrics to the CAKE song "Bound Away". The band has selected Hamilton Wood Type to be one of two recipients of the proceeds from this book. BANDmade Books is the creation of Pam DeLuco whose studio is located in SanFrancisco. Pam partners with musicians who want to use their music to benefit non-profits around the country and Hamilton Wood Type is honored to be selected along with 826 Valencia. You can buy the book on CAKE's website and learn more about the project here.
Target comes to Hamilton!
Our friends at Target are launched a killer collection of clothing and accessories in 2011. Featuring the images from our Globe Printing Plate collection this assortment of shirts, sweatshirts and more was featured as part of Target's Cool Never Fades campaign. The clothing is no longer in Target stores but you can buy it in the Hamilton online store.
The Design Envy Blog did a wonderful write up about our partnership with the Target project. "What’s most interesting about the team-up is that Hamilton has come full circle... Hamilton’s craft has now gone mainstream once again,"writes Chernov. Read the full article here.
Hamilton cuts a new typeface: Lushootseed
Hamilton Wood Type is honored to be working with the Tulalip tribe in Washington state to cut a wood font using the tribes 500 year-old language called Lushootseed. Type designer Juliet Shen took on the design of the typeface with the intention of helping the tribe set up a letterpress printing studio in the new tribal school. It's the designer and tribe's belief that giving young people a chance to "manipulate" their language will serve as a crossroads of literature, literacy, art and technology. Learn more about the project here.
Carter Latin Type Face
In 2002, Matthew Carter, an internationally recognized type designer, designed "VanLanen Latin" for Hamilton. This typeface, with it's wedge-shaped serifs and bold weight is reminiscent of late nineteenth century advertising faces and a perfect compliment to the numerous faces already in the Hamilton collection.
Production of the wood type began following the completion of Carter's drawings, but numerous technical difficulties were encountered while applying the traditional pattern making and routing production method to the face.
Recently, we've incorporated a computer-driven router to achieve the optical effects Carter was looking for and the project is now back on track. Check out the Eye Blog to find out more!
Character Study: Documenting the Last Hamilton Wood Type Cutters
The retirees of Hamilton Wood Type share their stories of how wood type is made and what it was like to work at the largest maker of wood type in the world. This project, directed and edited by Hamilton volunteer JP Porter of Shoot the Moon Productions, documents some of the few remaining people who were involved in the commercial manufacturing of wood type. See the video on Vimeo.com here.
"Typeface" the Movie
Film director Justine Nagan turns her keen eye on Two Rivers, Wisconsin for an outstanding documentary from her film company Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams). Typeface documents the successes and challenges that Hamilton Wood Type faces in today's world. The film has received tremendous reviews both here and abroad and has brought international attention to the museum. The film is currently airing on PBS nationwide!
Typeface has also caught the eye of many bloggers and magazine publications, check out the work that Uppercase published for the Hamilton documentary.
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
“The Right Type: Jim Moran Brings Fresh Ink to the Hamilton”
Casey Thayer, the author of the article, writes a compelling description of the Hamilton Museum history and its developments through its new director, Jim Moran. "Today, through the efforts of Jim Moran and with support of the Two Rivers Historical Society, the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum is a destination for art and design in action." Read the full article here.
AIGA
"When Wood Trumped Metal: An Interview with Bill Moran"
The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) wrote an interview article with Bill Moran, the Artistic Director of Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. In the interveiw he talks about the museum, how it began, Greg Corrigan's retirement, and Hamilton's First Wayzgoose! Read the full article here.