Letterboek voor den teekenaar en ambachtsman

Allow us to steal from Mathieu Lommen’s Theosophy and lettering and begin this description by noting that the year 1907 saw the publication of this item by Klaas van Leeuwen. Mathieu’s sixteen pages on the subject are easy to read and could describe its significance better than we could. Last night we showed this portfolio to Kenji Nakayama and the first thing he said was “Very geometric.” That’s exactly right. This is (to now quote Mathieu) “characterised by a religiously-fuelled penchant for geometry.” It contains examples from Ven Leeuwen’s friends as well as historical models, but the strict adherence to geometric forms is really the star here. Geometry has long been used to aid in the construction of letters, but typically rules would be broken a little so things would look right rather than be right. Not so here. The grid must be obeyed! The results are both grotesque and fascinating. Only four copies at libraries in the U.S. and not at Harvard, Yale, RISD, or your house (probably). And we’ll include a copy of Theosophy and lettering.