The Ins and Outs of Public Lettering

Preface - The Cardozo Kindersley Workshop is in the ninth decade of work after David Kindersley became Eric Gill's apprentice in 1934; two years later he set out on his own. And after the war in 1946 he founded his Cambridgeshire workshop, training his first apprentice - a practice still pivotal to the Workshop. He is considered to be the foremost English lettering man of the later 20th century. Much of the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop's output has already been documented in a series of books (details are to be found in the closing pages). They include volumes dominated by places, like Cambridgeshire or Oxford; by periods like apprenticeship; or by topics, like gravestones, gardens, sundials. By contrast the setting of this book is about the Workshop's public face: lettering in the hustle-bustle of everyday life. So we begin with street signs, and then with entrances great and small. But emphasis on the individual is never far away, and that is vital for exits; for instance on our war memorials with their many names. William Blake knew that 'He who would do good to another much do so in minute particulars....'