Lettered Typefaces and Alphabets by Clotilde Olyff (2000)

Lettered Typefaces and Alphabets by Clotilde Olyff (2000)
Jan Middendorp and Clotilde Olyff
Spiral-bound softcover of 78 pages and measuring H235 x W215 mm with a 28-page booklet measuring H165 x W115 mm bound in. Acquired from Klondyke Books, Almere, NL, 28 November 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection

This is the rare first edition as published by the late Jan Middendorp through his Druk Editions. It bears all the hallmarks of his eye for design — the black coated wired binding, the heavy embossed card cover, the use of color to underscore the text’s theme, the embedded booklet — all nevertheless centering and providing a platform for the art and design of Clotilde Olyff.

Perhaps mostly noted for her pebble alphabet, Olyff should be noted for her Munari-like focus on the relation of the basic forms of circle, triangle and square to the shapes of letters and numbers and her ability to express that in sculpture, book art and games as well as type. Her works, as Middendorp writes in the preface, “are the result of investigations into the essence of the letter, into the mechanisms and conventions that guide our perception”.

In addition to being remembered for his own typographic design and publications, Middendorp is owed a debt of gratitude for collaborating with Clotilde Olyff to document her work.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Alphabets Alive! – Alphabets All Around“. 19 July 2023. Books On Books.

“Robert Beretta“. 18 February 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Kenneth Hardacre“. 18 February 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Elliott Kaufman“. 21 January 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“Lisa McGuirk“. 28 February 2023. Books On Books.

“Ellen Sollod“. 29 December 2022. Books On Books Collection.

De Looze, Laurence. 2018. The Letter and the Cosmos: How the Alphabet Has Shaped the Western View of the World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Hugo, Victor, and Nathan Haskell Dole, trans. 1890 (1895). Victor Hugo’s Letters to His Wife and Others (The Alps and the Pyrenees). Boston, MA: Estes and Lauriat.

Middendorp, Jan. 2018. Dutch Type. Berlin: Druk Editions.

Middendorp Jan. 2009. Shaping Text : Type Typography and the Reader. Amsterdam: BIS.