The University of Texas at Austin | Department of Design

Kelly’s Folio

American Wood Types: 1828–1900, Volume One (1964)

 

"Wood Type" is set in the Celtic chromatic typeface on an off-white background, with a decorative border. This table is applied to a brown cloth-wrapped box of Kelly's original folio.

 

In 1964, Kelly published a folio of 19th-century type specimens that he designed and printed from his collection.  It was a volume of unbound 17 x 22” prints contained in a cloth-wrapped clamshell box, released as an edition of 45 copies. Most of the copies were sold through Chiswick Book Shop in New York City, originally priced at $75. It was titled American Wood Types 1828–1900, Volume One, though Kelly never produced a second volume.

The folio includes 97 specimen prints, featuring 130 complete alphabets. 95 plates are numbered, and 2 additional unnumbered leaves display some woodcut designs and images used during the same period. 

The loose prints are accompanied by a 12-page document bound with a black plastic comb. This document includes introductory notes on the collection and some discussion of wood type history, as well as an index of the folio pages. Much of the content was originally assembled from Kelly’s research for Design Quarterly Issue No. 56, commissioned and published by the Walker Art Center in 1963. Georgia Beaverson, a staff editor at Design Quarterly, provided editing support to Kelly. 

More information on Design Quarterly Issue No. 56 is available on our “What is Wood Type?” page.

 

American Wood Types 1828-1900, cover of a folio of wood type print specimens, a brown cloth-wrapped clamshell box with a small title plate

The buckram cloth-wrapped box with the title plate, which holds Rob Roy Kelly’s original folio of type specimens. It was released in 1964.

American Wood Type is printed in different typefaces in black. An eagle emblem sits above the title. It is bordered by a large, square decorative pattern, printed on brown paper.

The paper cover of the introductory document of the folio. It was originally bound, but the plastic binding has since been lost and the punched edge of the paper has deteriorated.

 

Kelly’s original folio did not include all of the type that is currently included in the collection—namely the German script faces and other decorative material. Additionally, it also contains a number of blocks and faces that are no longer present in the collection as it now stands.

The copy of the folio that is present with the collection is number 32. Unfortunately page 28 and 72 have been lost, and the introductory document is no longer bound with the comb. The specimen gallery below features recreations of the missing pages.

Much more information on the folio is available here, along with a numbered list of all known copies, available here. Thanks to David Shields for his work to compile this extensive wealth of knowledge. 

 

 

Editions of "American Wood Type: 1828 -1900"

American Wood Type 1828-1900: Notes on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types book cover, white background with black tilting letterforms

The first edition cover of “American Wood Type: 1828-1900,” published in 1969.

American Wood Type 1828-1900: Notes on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types book cover, lock-up of wood type on press bed spelling title

The second edition cover of “American Wood Type: 1828-1900,” published in 1977.

American Wood Type 1828-1900: Notes on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types book cover, red and blue on white background with intricate border

The third edition cover of “American Wood Type: 1828-1900,” published in 2010, reissued with a forward by David Shields.

 

Kelly’s work on Design Quarterly 56 and his production of the folio lead him to publish a book titled American Wood Type: 1828-1900, in 1969. It was the first major publication on the subject of wood type. It was reprinted as a paperback edition in 1977. In 2010 a third edition was published, including a foreword by Shields. 

In 2022, we set out on a collaborative endeavor to produce a new specimen folio, designed and printed by our students, faculty, and staff. This project was completed in the summer of 2026, and will be exhibited and released to the public in the near future.