Briar Levit

The typewriter might be the first truly democratizing tool for the setting of body text—and therefore the printing of independent materials. This talk will explore two particular typewriters—The Hammond, and its immediate descendant, The VariTyper. Both machines, capable of changing typefaces and offering proportional spacing, offered a level of typewriting previously never seen, starting with the release of the Hammond in 1884!

We will look at how these two machines were marketed, who used them, and how their use evolved over time as users began to understand the vast benefits of what was an affordable typesetting device that fit easily on a desktop. We will try to understand how this typography was used and recieved by the industry, non-traditional users, and audiences alike.

Briar Levit is a Professor of Graphic Design at Portland State University. Levit’s feature-length documentary, Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production, which follows design production from manual to digital methods, established her scholarly focus on graphic design history—particularly aspects not in the established canon. She currently co-directs The People’s Graphic Design Archive with Louise Sandhaus, Brockett Horne, and Morgan Searcy. In 2021, she edited a book of featuring the research of 19 scholars for Princeton Architectural Press called Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History.

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