Hamilton Wood Type celebrates "Mardell," a new font designed by Louise Fili

Louise Fili has graced the pages of the Design Center and the Designing Women series in the past. Now we have news she has unveiled a new font--"Mardell"--in concert with The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. It is named in honor of Hamilton retiree and wood type cutter, Mardell Doubek. The font's design showcases Fili's ongoing exploration of Italian Modernist graphics, while featuring a futurist-inspired, geometric design.

Louise Fili said

This was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate two of my favorite subjects: women and Italy .... The bold, lively angularity of Italian futurist letterforms made it a natural choice for wood type. And since it is rare to find a typeface named after a woman, I was particularly pleased to know that this would pay tribute to veteran type cutter, Mardell Doubek.

Mardell is the fourth font cut for the museum as part of its Wood Type Legacy Project. Museum director, Jim Moran, explained,

The Project enlists internationally known designers to create original designs, naming the fonts after Hamilton Manufacturing employees who have helped preserve and carry on the rare craft of making wood type. Louise joins Matthew Carter, Erik Spiekermann and Nick Sherman, who have all designed fonts for this project.

In early March 2016, the Mardell font will be available for purchase in digital format. Thanks to Hamilton's ongoing collaboration with P22, the museum's digital font partner, Mardell will be the fortieth font published by Hamilton and P22.

Mardell is the fourth font cut for the museum as part of its Wood Type Legacy Project. Using the Mardell font, Fili also created a complete specimen poster. Only 100 copies of this limited-edition poster will be available for sale starting in March.

Moran added, "We are honored to partner with Louise on her first font release."

Everyone is invited to join Fili, the museum's staff and P22 to celebrate the font's release. A free, public event, including an interview with Fili about Mardell's design, will be held March 17, 7 p.m., at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum at 1816 10th Street, Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

See : Making Mardell: An Interview with Louise Fili

Designing Women:Interview with Louise Fili

Next :Documentary about Louise Filiby Julie Boswell

Next :Louise Fili on the importance of food packaging

2015 : Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum unveils Louise Fili Font

Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum-www.WoodType.org

The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum is the only museum dedicated to wood type preservation, study, production and printing. With 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns, Hamilton's collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world. In addition to wood type, the museum is home to an amazing array of advertising cuts from the 1930s through the 1970s, all of the equipment necessary to make wood type and print with it, as well as equipment used in the production of hot metal type, tools of the craft and rare type specimen catalogs.

Hamilton Wood Type began producing type in 1880 and within 20 years became the largest provider in the United States. Today, volunteers of the Two Rivers Historical Society preserve this legacy and host educational demonstrations, field trips, workshops and offer opportunities with this vast wood type collection.

And, thanks for reading

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