Book designer and metal type master Russell Maret has begun a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter to try to raise $25,000 to have Micah Currier engrave and cast a new proprietary metal type family at the Dale Guild Type Foundry.
Maret writes: “Although the final product of the campaign, my typefaces Gremolata and Cancellaresca Milanese, will be for my personal use, the money generated will go to support Micah and his business partner Dan Morris at the Dale Guild. If you aren’t familiar with Micah and Dan, they are young printers and type founders who have recently purchased the Dale Guild from Theo Rehak. The Dale Guild is, in turn, the closest thing we have to an intellectual and physical heir to the largest historical American type foundry, the American Type Founders Co. What is interesting about Micah and Dan is that rather than using their resources at the Guild to only supply pre-existing fonts to the commercial printing trade, they have chosen to concentrate on their ability to create new metal type designs. From the stand point of private press printing, this is the equivalent of a new dawn, a chance to have new books printed from new type. Micah and Dan are eager and talented and they deserve the support of the community. And, if we are successful, I will do my best to put the type they make to good use. “