Alan Kitching – Broadsides 12

1989

Kitching's 'series of experiments in typography and printing'... 'will attempt to assess and re-state the standards postulated in the traditions of the craft and the technology of printing and thus the implications they may hold for tomorrow.' This reaction to the 'corruptions and caprices of much work of today', at the time of the accelerated burgeoning of computerised graphic design, informed his decision after a decade as a respected graphic designer, to set up his Typography Workshop and go back to print. Starting with typographic samples of stationery all on one sheet, the Broadsides progressed through specimens of typefaces held at the workshop, to a celebration of the typefaces Albertus and Pegasus, designed by Berthold Wolpe, and then one of his first typographic maps, of Clerkenwell, showing the location of the Workshop. The Broadsides increased in complexity and colour and were used in his teaching both at the Typography Workshop and at the Royal College of Art, with input of students and assistants credited. One of the crucial lessons he imparted, that he himself had learned from Anthony Froshaug, was the importance of the meaning of the text to be designed.

Medium: Letter Press Print
Size: H44.5 x W64cm
Editiion: Rare