Just days after writing up the third anniversary of the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule project on this blog, the final seven museums sold in a flurry of interest. The book, Six Centuries of Type & Printing, remains exquisite and fully available. You can order it here. Read an excerpt.
On 29 January 2019, I launched the biggest artistic, writing, production, and commercial project of my life: the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule. Conceived of months before with Anna Peterson (formerly Robinson), who provided the woodworking expertise and case manufacturing, I envisioned the Tiny Type Museum as a way for people with an interest in type, typography, or printing to obtain a collection of actual artifacts, historical and modern, that they could use to educate themselves, share with others, or use as a teaching tool. We would make about 100 of these museums, each containing their own unique set of dozens of items.
I talked to a number of people I knew in the letterpress and museum world to get their take on whether this was an interesting idea and to be sure I could acquire the stuff I needed. I felt positive enough to move forward. In addition
The Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule crowdfunding campaign funded magnificently—thank you to everyone who backed the campaign and the larger number of people who provided moral support and design suggestions!
I’m now taking direct pre-orders for elements of the project. Most museum are now spoken for (about two-thirds of the edition of 100 I’m making), but you still have time to order one, as well as pre-ordering separately the book I’m writing for it, Six Centuries of Type & Printing, which will be typeset in Monotype hot metal and printed by letterpress. The museum and book are in preparation for delivery in January 2020.
Here’s where you can order the various components:
Update: The project was wildly successful, and I’ll be making elements of it available for separate order soon at tinytypemuseum.com.
My latest typographic project is now live: I’m raising funds to build up to 100 tiny type museums and time capsules! These little museums will comprise actual historical and modern type artifacts, replicas, and printing samples—like a real museum—and the case and its components will be designed to last for centuries—or longer—like a real time capsule.
The cost isn’t low, but I tried to balance the authenticity and lifespan of the project, to give it substance and longevity, with the budget. I hope you’ll take a look at the main reward of the museum, and other campaign items, which include a book and a Linotype “slug” of type.
Last year was hard to top. I had a designer in residence position at the School of Visual Concepts, printed a book by letterpress, traveled to New York for a Kickstarter event, Wisconsin for the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum Wayzgoose, and to London to research a book.
2018 started weakly. I got the flu on Christmas Eve, recovered briefly, and then was so knocked out with secondary illnesses that it took me about four months to recover fully. During that time, I was also writing a book, finding new publications to write for, and figuring out what I would do across the year.
It turned out pretty well in the end.
In the first part of the year, I finished researching and writing London Kerning, and then designed the book and had it printed—and then shipped it out to hundreds of people. I undersold myself on demand
Summer came rushing in, and while we swelter, I have a few updates:
My dear friend Lucy Bellwood passed through town last weekend, and stayed with my family as the start of her book tour for 100 Demon Dialogues, a set of cartoons in which she engages with her inner critic, who appears in the form of a smack-talking demon. She’s a talented illustrator and writer, and the book is full of tension and embrace: she doesn’t cast her demon out, but helps him understand her better. You can order a copy of the book via her site or ask your local bookstore to carry it. (You can also order a plush version of the demon, as I did.)
She asked me to have a conversation about creativity and our latest projects in front of a live audience at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond. (Which, by the way, I highly recommend: the store opened last year, has great selections, and
Thanks to the generosity of over 200 people, I funded the expenses to make an interesting, beautiful letterpress book and other printed pieces along the way. One hundred of those folks get a limited-edition, numbered, signed book plus a separate printed keepsake (suitable for handling or hanging) and an expanded ebook edition. The other 100-odd patrons receive either the ebook or the keepsake and ebook.
I promised to keep them updated along the path I take from upgrading my printing skills, making design choices, learning about binding, and facing challenges of all kinds, and I’ve been posting those updates regularly to a patrons blog. But I felt like I letting the rest of the world down, in that part of my mission this year with the project and with my time as Designer in Residence at the
My project to letterpress print a book of my reporting on type, printing, and punctuation reached its funding goal weeks ago and then finished out a couple weeks back. All 100 copies of the book have been spoken for, though I am working up plans to produce a few special copies sales of which I'll donate 100% of the proceeds to causes that need help right now.
However, those who want to still come in as patrons at the two lower levels offered in the Kickstarter campaign are very welcome.
For the opening shot of my Kickstarter campaign video, I had flashed upon a time-lapse or fast-motion sequence of me setting letters. In the end, I did a combination of cuts and various speeds to achieve the affect, while filming with an iPhone 7 Plus overhead on a tripod. I'm pretty pleased with the results!
I first studied letterpress in the late 1980s, when it was barely used commercially and seemed to be a dying craft, as no new equipment was being made, metal type foundries were fading, and hot-metal systems required parts that no longer existed and maintenance few people knew how to handle. (The movie Linotype tells this story very well.)
I thought it would disappear for good. But it was saved through a combination of digital and analog factors that I'll be bringing to bear in my new crowdfunding project, Hands On: the Original Digital, a limited-edition book of my reporting on type, design, and punctuation that I'll be letterpress printing at the School of Visual Concepts. SVC asked me to be its 2017 Designer in Residence, inaugurating a program to bring in outside experts to make use of their facilities to learn, create, and teach.
Here's
Never let it be said that I do things by half measures: I've launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund producing the complete archives of The Magazine, the publication I edited and then purchased, in ebook form. It will be nearly 300 articles and over 500,000 words, and may be so large I split it into several files to avoid clogging ereaders and ebook software.
We had a remarkable range of articles and contributors, and this campaign will let me collect it all in one place, and then make it available forever through ebookstores and beyond. Thanks for considering being part of it!