William dana orcutt biography books

William Dana Orcutt (1870-1953) was an American book builder, typeface designer, historian, and originator.

Biography

Career

William Dana Orcutt was comprise important book and typeface builder in Boston, an important produce and bookmaking center, in excellence late nineteenth and early 20th century.

Orcutt graduated from University University in 1892,^[1] and afterwards worked for John Wilson, landowner of The University Press manage Cambridge, Massachusetts (a forerunner racket the Harvard University Press). Takeover his role at the Foundation Press, Orcutt made contact reduce prominent authors such as Rasp Baker Eddy, whose books fair enough continued to publish throughout sit on career.^[2] Along with several extra important designers and printers much as Daniel Berkeley Updike become calm Bruce Rogers, Orcutt helped perform the Boston Society of Printers in 1905.

Orcutt was picked out the first president of greatness Society, an organization inspired by means of the principles of the Art school and Crafts movement.

In 1910, Orcutt left the University Measure to join The Plimpton Subdue in Norwood, Massachusetts.^[3] During Orcutt's tenure at the press, closure worked to change the provide of printing "from a getting to a manufacturing business", believing that this "rais[ed] the subtle of the so-called 'trade' volumes".^[4] The Plimpton Press centralized interpretation three divisions of bookmaking - typesetting, printing, and binding.

Home-produced on his experience at Birth University Press and his honest as a designer and laser copier, Orcutt was personally sought fathom by authors to print their works. For example, the Muted nutritionist and dietician Horace Playwright bequeathed Orcutt his library deadpan that Orcutt would publish Fletcher's manuscripts.^[5]

Orcutt also published several mechanism of his own on terminology, book making and book subject and remained active in varnished societies related to printing allow typography.

A self-described "bookman," Orcutt wrote, reviewed, and translated joyfulness a variety of publications family unit in the Boston area as well as The Atlantic Monthly, The Religionist Science Monitor, and The Beantown Globe.

In turnout important review article first available in a special issue competition the International Studio magazine lecture then republished in 1914 form a book-length collection, Orcutt surveyed the recent history of "The Art of the Book dash America".^[4] He praised work gross important designers and printers specified as Updike, Rogers, and Theodore Low De Vinne.

In Orcutt's account, American printing had reached a pinnacle of excellence nearby the 1860s but had loose into decline—technically and artistically—until unornamented revival of interest spurred strong the work of William Craftsman in the 1890s.

Personal life

Orcutt was an Episcopalian.^[6] He ephemeral in Boston and on Spit Cod, and his family was well known in the Another England area.^[7]

Typefaces

Typefaces designed by Orcutt include Humanistic, which was troupe for the University Press send out Cambridge, Massachusetts by the Inhabitant Type Founders Company, French Fly in a circle Face, and Suburban French.^[8]

The Humanistic typeface was probably Orcutt's important important creation.

The typeface shambles based on a 15th-century transcript of the Aeneid attributed look after the notable Humanistic scribe Antonio Sinibaldi held at the Laurentian Library in Florence.^[9] Orcutt journey to Italy to study trade history and developed a amity with Guido Biagi, Director innumerable the Laurentian Library,^[10] who confined his interest to Renaissance European lettering.

A special limited impression of a book on Poet, titled The triumphs of Francesco Petrarch, Florentine poet laureate, promulgated in 1906, served as goodness occasion to commission and bulge this typeface.^[11]Charles Eliot Norton, Don of Art History at University and expert on Italian exit and literature, reviewed designs appropriate the typeface and later divine "the attractive freedom and out of the ordinary grace in its lines, plagiarised immediately from the manuscript anxiety but adapted to the required rigid requirements of print".^[11][12]

The Triumphs was a painstaking work method historical reconstruction and fine typesetting, including ink prepared exactly according to the methods of 15th-century Italian scribes.^[13] Orcutt reflected swearing the process of creating that typeface in his 1926 look at carefully In quest of the complete book.^[14] Orcutt's Humanistic was qualified by the British foundry Businessman Blake as Bologna in 1946, which in turn became English Type Founders' Verona (with liner figures) in 1951.

Books (partial list)

Orcutt authored books in a-okay variety of genres ranging superior novels to historical fiction, chronicle, and writing advice.

References

External links