To call W. A. Dwiggins a consummate American type designer, calligrapher, book designer, and illustrator is just to get started. Gifted with a superb literary sensibility and a flair for the dramatic, he wrote plays, stories, and crafted marionettes in a theater of his own devising. His work is on display at the Boston Public Library, but more to the point is that Bruce Kennett has brought Dwiggins to life in this impeccably written and designed biography. And by design I mean the book is in every respect Kennett’s creation. Plenty of biographers write books, very few illustrate them, and none so far as I know create the physical product. This book may well be unique in the history of biography. . . . [W]hat Kennett reveals is one of the heroic lives of the twentieth century, who sacrificed none of his humanity for his art, and, instead, created art that made him and others better human beings.
Bruce Kennett understands Dwiggins’s wit, his original sense of humor and unique obliquity of approach, and his ability to transform those ingredients into graphic images that still intrigue, astound, and captivate. Bruce’s book is a marvelous presentation of the man, his work, and his imperishable contribution to the graphic arts.
W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design, while rightly focused on Dwiggins’s invaluable contributions to the field of graphic design, combines that analysis with a study of the Hingham artist’s radical explorations in modernist marionette theater, which stand even today as a remarkable contribution to the field. While Kennett’s book will undoubtedly be acclaimed for its insights into Dwiggins’s design work, puppeteers and puppet-interested audiences around the world will be excited and inspired by its perceptive analysis of Dwiggins’s equally essential puppet modernism.
Wonderful, extraordinary, amazing . . . I just got the Dwiggins book. It is really the best design book I’ve ever seen. The balance of text and art is perfect. . . . The quality of reproduction, and its understated use of color correction adds to the book’s authenticity. . . . Bruce made me understand the extent of WAD’s genius. I was always impressed, but I had no idea.
This is a book to spend a year with. . . . Everybody should know about W. A. Dwiggins — not just because we say he coined the term graphic design — not just because he did so much as a designer, as an artist, as a letterer, as a calligrapher, and as a stage craftsman — but because it’s a wonderful book to read.
Bruce Kennett presented "Building Dwiggins," the latest in the BPL's ongoing series of author talks. Kennett completed W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design after fifteen years of research, writing, photography, and design. He made about eighty trips to the BPL during that time to conduct his reasearch at the Dwiggins Collection, which is by far the largest holding in the world of works by this amazing visual artist, graphic designer, writer, and puppeteer.
The Kate Cheney Chappell Center for the Book Arts at the University of Southern Maine hosted "W. A. Dwiggins and the Serious Business of Fun," an illustrated lecture by Bruce Kennett, author of W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design.
In a presentation sponsored by Sheridan College and the Alcuin Society, author Bruce Kennett spoke about polymath artist and graphic designer W. A. Dwiggins.
Bruce Kennett, author of W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design, presented an illustrated talk about Dwiggins in his hometown of Hingham, Massachusetts. After the presentation a number of Dwiggins-designed books from the library's collection were on display for up-close examination.
Bruce Kennett, author of W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design, presented a slide talk, "Dwiggins at Left Bank," to a gathering of loca readers and printers at Left Bank Books in downtown Hanover. Dwiggins had many ties to Hanover through his friendships with Dartmouth faculty member Ray Nash and artist Rudolph Ruzicka.
Author Bruce Kennett gave a presentation about W. A. Dwiggins as the latest in the Gaspereau Press Typographers' Lunch Lecture Series, Kentville, Nova Scotia.
Daniel Dejan of Sappi Paper talks with author Bruce Kennett about American artist and designer W. A. Dwiggins.
Bruce Kennett, author of W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design, read aloud an excerpt from Chapter 8 of his book at the annual conference of Biographers International in New York City.
Bruce Kennett, author of W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design, presented an illustrated lecture "WAD @ HOW" before an audience of nearly 450 attendees at the 2018 HOW Design Live conference in Boston.
Author Bruce Kennett presented "WAD at COV," a slide lecture on the life and work of Boston’s own W. A. Dwiggins.
Letterform Archive invited author Bruce Kennett to speak about his new book, W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design, which is the first in a series of publications from the organization.
