Sydney Mullins: Analyzing the Typeface of Twentieth-Century Kentucky Printers

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"Primary source research is a different beast entirely. Creating knowledge in a field is really the strangest feeling, this information and data wouldn't exist without your research... that's such an empowering thing to feel."

-Sydney Mullins, April 2020

Sydney Mullins is a senior Art History/Visual Studies major at the University of Kentucky. She is interested in art from every era and region, but her senior research has been strongly focused on print media. Her research for the SCRC Learning Lab has been centered around the font choices of twentieth-century Kentucky fine art printing presses, and she has identified the fonts of over a hundred handmade books over the course of her research. She feels that working with handmade art objects from Kentucky has given her a better understanding of her home’s intrinsic culture, and wants other art historians to recognize the ingenuity of Kentuckian fine arts and crafts. Sydney has been accepted to the University of Kentucky Graduate School for the Curatorial Studies graduate program, and will begin her graduate degree in the Fall 2020 semester.

Sydney's work in the Learning Lab this year centered on an investigation into the typfaces used by 20th century Kentucky printers. She was inspired by her work with the Bur Press Records, 1941-1958, at the UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center. The Bur Press was a private printing press created by UK Library's own librarian, Carolyn Reading Hammer. Hammer started multiple imprints, including the High Noon Press, which operated out of the King Library basement and was named due to librarians and staff working on it during their lunch hour.

Sydney was accepted to present her research at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR), which was to be held at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, in March, but was unfortunately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research Abstract: Analyzing the Typeface of Twentieth-Century Kentucky Printers

To change the font of one’s typing on a computer, all one must do is highlight a certain block of text and change the font setting. Not much thought is given to this mundane task; changing Calibri to Arial or sizing up Times New Roman is as simple as two clicks. Before the advent of digital printing, however, great effort was given to cleaning, changing, setting, and especially choosing different typefaces. Kentuckian printmaker and librarian Carolyn Reading Hammer describes ruining typeface with lye and the need to collect dozens of sets of Goudy Old Style in her manuscript “Remembering the Bur Press: Before and After.” The Bur Press’s exclusive use of Goudy Old Style typeface begs the question, what typefaces and fonts were predominantly being used in early twentieth-century printing presses? When fonts were still physical pieces of type, how did printers like Hammer working in Kentucky engage with these different typefaces? Using selections from an archival collection of the Bur Press’s records and an extensive collection of nearly 500 examples of fine press books made in Kentucky during the twentieth century held at the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center, research into font choices will uncover which typefaces found popularity in twentieth-century Kentucky and how they were applied in their respective contexts.

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Comparing fonts during research in the Breckinridge Research Room at the UK Libraries SCRC. Photo by Sydney Mullins.

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Flowchart of research

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Locations of printing presses in Kentucky during the 20th century

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Kentucky printing presses that created work looked at during this research

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Fonts used in 20th century Kentucky printing presses

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Magnifying lens used to detect subtle differences in fonts in smaller books. Photo by Sydney Mullins.

Sydney Mullins: Analyzing the Typeface of Twentieth-Century Kentucky Printers