William Dwiggins (1880 -1956) – Typographer and Design All-rounder

William Addison Dwiggins was an American type designer and typographer. He was well-rounded and was loved for his prolific work as an illustrator, book designer, type designer, playwright (puppets) and author.

Dwiggins was born in Martinsville, Ohio, in 1880. He studied East in Chicago and then moved to Boston. Between 1917 and 1918, he became the acting director of Harvard University Press. He also worked for the Yale University Press, designing jackets, endpapers, bindings and posters.

Dwiggins was known for his “Metro” series of typefaces, the first designed specifically for newspaper headlines. He produced that in 1929 when he won the American Institute of Graphic Arts gold medal.

The series comprised four weights: Metroblack, a husky, virile letter; Metromedium, a less bold yet colourful, eye-gripping face; Metrolite, the typographic synonym for daintiness; and Metrothin, a typographic delight of inimitable grace and delicacy.

He brought Metro out in 1929, which contributed to him winning the gold medal for the Institute of Graphic Arts—Electra in 1935, Caledonia in 1939 and Eldorado in 1953. Caledonia was one of the most widely used book typefaces in America.

He created the typefaces Caledonia and Electra types explicitly used for books. Caledonia became the preferred type for the printing of every sort: Books and periodicals, as well as a variety of commercial and advertising work – Caledonia was a supremely legible type.

Electra Specifications

Dwiggins presented the Electra typeface in 1937. It featured no sharp contrast between thick and thin strokes. The italic of Electra is more accurately an oblique Roman and is quite readable. It is a thin face, more delicate than Caledonia—both the caps and lowercase feature rather sharp-cut serifs. The serifs are equal on both sides of the caps and lowercase main stems. The serif at the bottom of the lowercase has an upward-facing inclination. The lowercase j features a sharpened descender that turns slightly left.

Graphic Designer

He created the original logo for General Motors and is said to have coined the term “graphic designer” – before this, graphic designers had been called “commercial artists”. He did this to distinguish his production from that of the private presses.

Look and Feel of Books

Dwiggins designed dozens of typefaces and wrote books on advertising layout and typography. From 1926 to 1956, he established the look and feel of more than 350 books for Alfred A. Knopf Books. He preferred to keep his symbols and illustrations separate from the flow of type.

He also illustrated children’s books. His drawings for Poe Tales and Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are excellent examples of sparing use of colour, as his black-and-white illustrations attest to.

The above is an example of his Metro and Electra typefaces.

Calligrapher

Dwiggins was a skilled calligrapher. His hand-lettered title pages, running head, and picture caption books have a beautiful, individualised touch.

His binding has paper covers in warm, soft shades, with high calico backs, fine gold lettering, and vibrant decoration.

He also contributed to producing professional manuals for his industry. He wrote “Layout in Advertising, ” a desk manual outlining approaches to layout problems. He drew all the illustrations himself instead of using existing advertisements.

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