When we hold this reading device - this book - in our hands, we start again to understand the formal needs of the reader.” Here, Stauffacher shows his concern for the fundamental issues of legibility, readerly comfort, and the threat of distraction, which he insists we come to know best by actually reading. Quoting Paul Valéry’s claim that “a fine book is first of all a perfect reading device,” the same essay advises, “Typographic quality… is difficult to sustain unless there is a constant attention to the multiplicity of details along the path of reading. Reading, in other words, takes pride of place in Stauffacher’s public reflections.

“The inevitable polemic between modern and traditional is a moot question.” More can be learned, his writings and interviews repeatedly suggest, by attending closely to one’s own experiences of type, texts, and printed books. “Any dogmatic language that is too absolute can confuse things,” he tells us in a 1962 essay reprinted in A Typographic Journey: The History of the Greenwood Press. But Stauffacher didn’t seem to believe that the path to perfection could be found in fixed rules or stubbornly held positions. By the mid-1940s, he had already resolved “to shape the ideal book,” and many years later, those attending his famed Friday lunches were rarely in doubt about his opinions about a particular work. It wasn’t lack of ambition that kept Stauffacher from printing up his dictums on design.

In this post, we’ll explore a few of these notions - including the delicate relationship between reader and typographer, the generative power of limitations in design, and the value of our historical efforts to express our humanity. Although he never penned a complete guide to his thinking, Stauffacher’s shorter essays, interviews, and printed work offer insight into the practices and ideas that animated his work with type. Jack Stauffacher was a celebrated teacher, mentor, and typographic thinker whose legacy in art and design is explored in the pages of Letterform Archive’s third book, Only on Saturday. Deluxe: Hardcover with a portfolio of 10 facsimile reproductions and 10 impressions made with Stauffacher’s own wood type, bound and slipcased in dark green silk.

Regular: Scuff-free velvet-touch matte laminate case wrapped with a jacket.

Fineprint literary absolute write