Carol Twombly (b1959) has made a enormous impact in the world of type by creating typefaces to suit a digital format. She became part of the font development team at Adobe, where she developed some of her most famous fonts (specimens above) including the Adobe Caslon family based on the design by William Caslon in the C18.

The University of Reading Women in Type project is uncovering the extensive contributions of women to type history. "It is frequently assumed that typefaces are the work of a single designer whereas, as most industrial objects, they result from a series of processes involving multiple skills often carried out by numerous people". One such person was Dora Laing ( job title: Draughtswoman/Type Design) who, like many other female employees at Monotype, played a significant role in the collaborative design process. 

The exceptionally talented designer, calligrapher and typographer Elizabeth Friedländer (1903-84) has appeared on the Post before, but merits another mention in the context of typography. She was one of the first women to design a typeface, Elizabeth, which was cut in 1939, six years after she had been forced to leave Germany. She eventually moved to London and produced many beautiful, well-known designs and patterns for companies such as Penguin.

This week we have typography and typographers on the Post. The presentation and readability of text on a page are crucial, so we choose our typefaces carefully (all our reset books are in Baskerville). The new Persephone Pamphlet is an opportunity to experiment a little, and for the central section we have chosen Mrs Eaves. Although this was designed in 1996 by Zuzana Licko who was inspired by Baskerville (1757), it is fittingly eighteenth-century and Bathonian in style. Indeed, it resembles the Bath street names which are painted on or carved into the stone.

It is impossible to talk about the "distinct identity" of Wales which meant so much to Siân James without mentioning the effects of the rise and fall of industry and mining in the valleys of South Wales. This is Six Bells (1962, Cardiff) by LS Lowry (1887-1976), a view of the Abertillery colliery which closed in 1988. Although the pits and works have gone, the rugged landscape with densely packed towns is very similar today.

Wales has plentiful supplies of water and wool, and beautifully patterned Welsh blankets are still being woven in small, whitewashed mills by rivers and streams. Melin Tregwynt in Pembrokeshire is one such mill which has survived the vicissitudes of fashion and the C20. It was a family business from 1912 to 2022, and is now in the hands of an Employee Ownership Trust. Its blankets and throws are both classic and contemporary; the reversible Vintage Star design was originally produced in the 1950s but has been revived in vibrant new colourways. 

Capel-y-ffin is a hamlet in a deep Welsh valley which, despite its tiny size, is well-known for its connections to several artists. Eric Gill lived in the C19 monastery from 1924 to 1928, David Jones was also there as part of the community, and Eric Ravilious and John Piper came later to paint the stunning, unchanging landscape and local buildings. This is Wet Afternoon (1938) by Ravilious, and the view - complete with rain and clouds - is, apart from higher hedges, exactly the same today.