Speaking in Faces: A Type Specimen Book

Charlottesville:: Virginia Center for the Book,, 2017.. Edition of 25. 8.9 x 11"; 112 pages. Printed letterpress on Crane's Lettra paper (300 gsm). Body text in Garamond. Labels in Gill Sans. Boards covered in marbled paper crafted by Lindsey Mears with cloth spine. Numbered. Designer and printer -Lucas Czarnecki. Editor and printer - Kevin McFadden. Master printer - Garrett Queen. Consulting compositors - Bonnie Berstein, Richard Cappuccio, and Aurora Nichols. Virginia Center for the Book, Project Background: "The first pages of this volume were printed more than a decade ago in a daunting attempt to produce a complete reference to the entire collection of the movable type available to VABC printers. "Speaking in Faces, a project begun at VABC in 2004 by Johanna Drucker with VABC artists, is a unique specimen book, a creative resource for exploring letterpress printing, typography, and the treasures of our large and unique moveable type collection. VABC holds cases of Baskerville, Bernhard, Bodoni, Caslon, Garamond, Goudy, Franklin, Kennerly, Lydian, Spartan, and Stymie faces, among a diversity of other display fonts, dingbats, and wood type. "The VABC collection (at more than 375 cases) is the largest collection of moveable type accessible to artists in Virginia; it is also among the largest collections in the Mid-Atlantic. Yet printers and artists who come to use the studio's type lack a basic resource to see printed letter forms at work and play -- no simple way to pick one face from a crowd! "Typefaces in the book will be treated as a nexus of function (letters, words, and meaning) and form (visual and artistic display) that operate in a blend of verbal and nonverbal communication, just as human faces do.