Picture This
World-Renowned Handletterer in ADGA Educational Seminar
Alumnus Tony DiSpigna, pictured at left with Professor John McVicker, returned to his alma mater on April 19 to lead a seminar for a standing-room-only audience in the City Tech Department of Advertising Design & Graphic Arts’ (ADGA) Grace Gallery. This internationally renowned handletterer, graphic designer and partner in the legendary design studio of Herb Lubalin, Inc. shared award-winning examples of his handlettering from a long and illustrious career. Both students and faculty alike were “wowed” by the range of his work, which includes Spencerian Script, a type of handlettering few people can replicate today.
Designed in the 1840s by Platt Rogers Spencer, whose name the style still bears and who established a school to teach other designers how to affect its elegant execution, Spencerian Script, of which the Coca-Cola logo is an example, is a style of handwriting that flourished in the United States for more than 75 years. Application of the style diminished in the 1920s in commercial and other settings with the rising popularity of the typewriter.
05/08/07
