a new project |
The story of the collaboration between a type designer and a typographer, by Ferdinand Ulrich | |
September 2018
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When the Hunt Roman type was first made available to the Hunt Botanical Library in Pittsburgh (now the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation), the event was marked with the publication of a slim volume entitled Hunt Roman: the birth of a type. It noted that the new type came about as 'the fruition of a combination of ideals, concepts, and convictions of three personalities', those personalities being Mrs Hunt, after whom the Institute is named, type designer Hermann Zapf, and typographic designer and printer Jack Stauffacher who, sadly, died last November. The type was first used in 1963, by Stauffacher, for a symposium programme. | |
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Hunt Roman was not designed to serve as a text type, being intended as a display face to accompany Spectrum, and it was originally cut in 14pt, 18pt, and 24pt, though a 12pt was later prepared. We hold the three larger sizes. Hunt is noteworthy for its short ascenders and descenders, making it appear much larger than its body size would suggest - the 14pt could easily be guessed as 18pt and so on. Nevertheless with careful choice of line length and leading it looks very fine on the page and we are of course hand-setting Ferdinand's text in Hunt Roman cast by Stempel.
The essay runs to 3,400 words and we are in the process of printing it on hand-made paper from the Czech Velké Losiny mill and will be presenting it in a format similar to the recent Venice Approached: a single section sewn between boards. There will additionally be a photograph frontispiece of Zapf and Stauffacher in conversation. We expect a price around Ł75 (euro90, USD105). We are happy to take expressions of interest now. Further details and firm prices will be announced in a future newsletter.
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