The Lamentations of Zeno

On the Typeface

This book is set in Electra, a typeface designed by William Addison Dwiggins for use on Linotype typesetting machines in 1935. Dwiggins, a mildly eccentric book designer, illustrator, calligrapher and creator of marionettes, is credited with coining the term “graphic design”.

Dwiggins’s foray into type design began with a challenge from the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, after he had criticized the dearth of usable san serifs. Electra was Dwiggins’s first type design for book setting and would be one of his most enduring.

While the popular book faces of his time were revivals of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century printing types, Dwiggins sought to create a typeface that reflected the modern environment. As his friend and fellow illustrator Rudolph Ruzicka commented, Electra was “the crystallization of [Dwiggins’s] own calligraphic hand.” Its unbracketed serifs, flat arches, and open counters make for a face mild in pretence but alive in personality. Dwiggins explained, “The weighted top serifs of the straight letters of the lower case: that is a thing that occurs when you are making formal letters with a pen, writing quickly. And the flat way the curves get away from the straight stems: that is a speed product.”