Letterform Archive
@letterformarchive.org
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A nonprofit center for inspiration, education, publishing, and community in lettering, typography, and graphic design. We post items from our collection of over 100,000 objects. Visit, take a class, buy a book: https://letterformarchive.org
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letterformarchive.org
Throughout the next few weeks we will showcase works in this campaign.

To hear directly from some of our contributors, please join us on October 16 for our online salon, The Past is Always Present: 100 Tens. letterformarchive.org/shop/the-pas...
The Past is Always Present: 100 Tens
The international unveiling of our 10th anniversary celebration campaign, a collaboration with COLLINS and 50 of our favorite designers.
letterformarchive.org
letterformarchive.org
The project features contributions from designers around the world, including Christoph Niemann, Jennifer Morla, Marian Bantjes, Martin Venezky, Susan Kare, Tezzo Suzuki, and more. The work showcases an astounding range of creativity and imagination.
letterformarchive.org
To celebrate our 10th anniversary, Letterform Archive partnered with the San Francisco office of COLLINS on 100 Tens — 50 “1”s from the Archive’s collection paired with 50 new works from a range of today’s leading designers.

#LetterformArchive #100Tens
letterformarchive.org
We acknowledge that Letterform Archive is located on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. Consider a Yunakin Land Tax: www.ramaytush.org/donate.html
Donate
Please support the non-profit ( 501.c.3 ) work of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone (ARO).  We are funded entirely by donations and grants. We rely upon the generosity of individual donors like...
www.ramaytush.org
letterformarchive.org
Angel DeCora; binding, title page, and initials; Wigwam Stories; 1901–1909

On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor Angel DeCora, a Ho-Chunk artist whose lettering filled books like this one. letterformarchive.org/news/angel-d...

#IndigenousPeoplesDay #AngelDeCora #Lettering #BookDesign #HoChunk
Binding of a book showing the front cover and spine. The cover has a “WIGWAM STORIES” title featuring triangular lettering. Title page of Wigwam Stories with the following text:

WIGWAM STORIES
TOLD BY NORTH
AMERICAN INDIANS
COMPILED BY
MARY CATHERINE JUDD
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ANGEL de CORA
(CHINOOK • MAHIWI • KILINAKA)
BOSTON • USA
GINN & COMPANY
ATHENAEUM PRESS
1909 Cropped detail of a page from Wigwam Stories showing a drop cap “A” made of tree branches with a wolf peering through. Cropped detail of a page from Wigwam Stories showing a drop cap “A” made of curved lines and surrounded by phases of the moon. A woman inside the “A” looks upward.
letterformarchive.org
Calligraphy by Arthur Baker. We’re honored to hold Baker’s archive of hundreds of drawings, paintings, phototype negatives, and other material. letterformarchive.org/collections/...
Black calligraphic, swashy M and N on paper Calligraphic roman “abcd” on paper Calligraphic alphabet with long ascenders and descenders on paper. Calligraphic alphabet with hundreds of ‘a’s on paper.
letterformarchive.org
You win among our contributors for most lines in your 1! Thank you so much, Matthijs. Can’t wait to share all the designs later this week.
letterformarchive.org
The first step in making better type choices is learning how to see it in a new way. Develop your typographic eye with @stewf.com (Anatomy of Type) & @slye.bsky.social (Fontstand) in our weekend “Crash Course in Type Selection”.

Oct 25–26 at Letterform Archive
letterformarchive.org/shop/a-crash...
A diagram identifying various parts of letters (sometimes called type anatomy), including the spine of an S, the arm of a k, the eye of an e, the arch of an f, the ear of a g, and the tail of an a.
letterformarchive.org
In this online event we’ll hear directly from designers around the globe who contributed to the campaign. They’ll share their submissions, and the processes, inspirations, and obsessions that shaped them.⁠

letterformarchive.org/shop/the-pas...
The Past is Always Present: 100 Tens
The international unveiling of our 10th anniversary celebration campaign, a collaboration with COLLINS and 50 of our favorite designers.
letterformarchive.org
letterformarchive.org
Letterform Archive is a living archive, a perpetual project to not only preserve historic design, but to inspire new work. To mark our 10th anniversary we teamed up with COLLINS to create 100 Tens: 50 interpretations of the number “1” from the collection, paired with 50 contributions living artists.
letterformarchive.org
Making type is fun! Learn how to create your own font, from sketch to screen (and everything in between) in this 10-week online workshop with Fer Cozzi.

Introduction to Modern Type Design
Wednesdays, Sep 17–Nov 19, 2025⁠
5:00pm–8:00pm PT (10:00am–1:00pm AEST)⁠

letterformarchive.org/shop/introdu...
A photo of a woman with letters overlaid on top: “Intro to Modern Type Design / IMTD" Graphic of a bold lowercase ‘a’ with vector outlines, nodes, skeleton, and other evidence of digital type design. Graphic of a bold lowercase ‘n’ with vector outlines, nodes, skeleton, and other evidence of digital type design.
letterformarchive.org
Đức designed Homecooked while studying at Type West Online from his home in Vietnam. Learn more about the yearlong certificate program in type design—available in-person at the Archive or online—by attending one of our upcoming open houses: letterformarchive.org/events/?q=op...
Events - Letterform Archive
Lectures, workshops, and other events hosted online and onsite at Letterform Archive.
letterformarchive.org
letterformarchive.org
Đức Cao, Homecooked type specimen, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2021⁠

Homecooked is a casual sans-serif typeface exploring the warmth and expressiveness of the flat brush.⁠ The French foundry Blaze later released Đức’s typeface as Swirl: blazetype.eu/typefaces/sw...

#TypeDesign #Fonts #TypeWest
Sample of a typeface in a swirling, calligraphic, outline style. Process work for the typeface showing gestural calligraphic marks on pages. Sample of a typeface in a swirling, calligraphic, outline style and other solid styles. Sample of a typeface in a swirling, calligraphic, outline style and other solid styles.
Reposted by Letterform Archive
Reposted by Letterform Archive
tenderloinmuseum.bsky.social
@sfneon.bsky.social's Randall Ann Homan & TLM's Katie Conry appeared on @ktvufox2.bsky.social to talk about the upcoming annual #NeonSpeaks Festival & Symposium — of which the Tenderloin Museum is a proud sponsor — as well as the Museum's plans for a neon gallery in our upcoming expansion project.
San Francisco neon sign exhibit and festival | KTVU
YouTube video by KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
www.youtube.com
letterformarchive.org
As part of the festival we are doing a special tour of sign related material in our collection at Letterform Archive. Still a few tickets left for 1pm on Saturday, Sep 13. www.eventbrite.com/e/letterform...
Letterform Archive Tour for Neon Speaks
A hands-on tour of neon, sign, and lettering artifacts curated for the Neon Speaks Festival.
www.eventbrite.com
letterformarchive.org
Joe Caroff, West Side Story movie poster, United States, 1961⁠

Caroff, designer of book covers, posters, and logos, including the “007” for the James Bond franchise, died on Sunday, just before his 104th birthday. Among his iconic creations was this poster often misattributed to Saul Bass.⁠
Detail of a poster focused on the words “WEST SIDE STORY” in a weathered stencil style, and an illustration of a man dancing on a stairway. Detail of the same poster but showing more of the dancing illlustration, including a woman on the stairway. Full, uncropped poster with this text on the top, “The screen achieves one of the great entertainments in the history of motion pictures.”
Reposted by Letterform Archive
areeworawongwasu.bsky.social
I’m honored to share that I’ve completed the inaugural Donald Knuth & Charles Bigelow Type Design Incubator (KBI) course. KBI is a groundbreaking program launched by @stanfordsilicon.bsky.social, @letterformarchive.org, and @wordsoftype.com! 🙌🏽 #TypeDesign #LanguageJustice #KBI #KnuthBigelowIncubator
Donald Knuth & Charles Bigelow Type Design Incubator
awards Areerat WORAWONGWASU
this completion certificate of the programs's
South East Asian cohort,
2025 edition.

Stanford, Letterform Archive, and Words of Type logos