Wood Type Research is a blog of current research in wood type design, manufacture and use during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Professor David Shields.

With a focus on organizing and clarifying the historical importance of wood type, I am working to expand the information available on the often elusive histories of nineteenth and twentieth century typographic designs.

Currently an Associate Professor (and served as chair 2012–2021) of the Department of Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond—and formerly an Associate Professor of Design at The University of Texas at Austin, and the Design Custodian of the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection—I am engaged in physical and historical research of the production and use of American and European wood type.

My research engages the world in a range of ways, from writing the new introduction for Kelly’ American Wood Type reprint to cataloging the Globe Poster Collection in Baltimore—affording it’s rescue and survival as a study collection at MICA. I am currently at work on the research for a Conspectus of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Wood Type. The intentions behind my research work and why I created this blog can be found here.

Any and all clarifications to the information presented in this blog are greatly appreciated.
I can be reached at dawash@woodtyperesearch.com.