The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum staff is honored to partner with New York-based graphic designer Louise Fili on her first font release project. The new font, “Mardell,” is named for Hamilton retiree and wood type cutter Mardell Doubek. Lousie visited the museum for an interview on March 17, 2016. It was fun night of talking process, wood type, and design.

This is the fourth font to be cut for the museum as part of the Wood Type Legacy Project. 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.

Louise's design showcases her ongoing exploration of Italian Modernist graphics while featuring a futurist-inspired geometric design. The Mardell font is available for purchase at hamiltonwoodtype.com as a digital format. Also available will be a limited edition (100 copies) complete specimen poster designed by Louise, using the Mardell font.

"This was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate two of my favorite subjects: women and Italy." says Fili. "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."

Our friend, Jeff Dawson, of the Lester Public Library helped to document the event with the photos below. Please visit their flickr page to see more Two Rivers events.