With the Revival of Printing movement of the 1890s, there arose a generation of book printers and designers, keenly interested in learning form the typographic heritage of the past generations. These typographers sought out each other’s company to talk shop and exchange ideas. The Typophiles of New York, which began in the early 1930s as an informal luncheon club, evolved into an important professional association, soon rivaling London’s Double Crown Club and Boston’s Society of Printers in influence. Arguably, for the better part of the 20th c. everybody who was anybody in the English-speaking typographic world became involved with The Typophiles as a member, luncheon speaker, author, or subject of their publications. Frederic Goudy, Bruce Rogers, D.B. Updike, Stanley Morison, Beatrice Warde, Rudolph Ruzicka, W.A. Dwiggins, and Hermann Zapf were among many who happened to be all of the above. The extensive Typophiles publishing program boasts many important books on the history and practice of the typographic craft, some of them scholarly, some playful. The president of The Typophiles, Misha Beletsky, will explore the highlights of the rich history of the organization, talk about their activities today, and outline their plans for the future.

Misha Beletsky has been the art director of Abbeville Press for nearly fifteen years. His new book, The Noblest Roman: A History of the Centaur Types of Bruce Rogers (co-written with Jerry Kelly), is forthcoming from RIT Press.

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