Gerald Giampa (March 4, 1950 - June 24, 2009) was a

printer Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * James ...

typographer Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

and

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

Biography

When Gerald Giampa was born on 4 March 1950, his parents lived in a tent in

Duncan, British Columbia Duncan (pop. 5,047 in 2021) is a city on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It is the smallest city by area (2.07 square kilometres, 0.8 square miles) in Canada. It was incorporated in 1912. Location The city is about 45 kilo ...

. His interest in printing books came from his grandfather, who liked to read. Giampa studied

letterpress printing Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...

and typography under Wil Hudson and Nick Schwabe in Vancouver. From 1975 to 1981 Giampa's Cobblestone Press in Vancouver published not only jobbing printing but also works by

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

Robin Blaser Robin Francis Blaser (May 18, 1925 – May 7, 2009) was an author and poet in both the United States and Canada. Personal background Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California, in 1944. There he met Jack ...

and

George Bowering George Harry Bowering, (born December 1, 1935) is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and raised in the nearby town o ...

among others. During this time he chiefly used Caslon type. Later Giampa expanded his company, renaming it the Northland Letterpress Company, and in 1983 he bought the US Lanston Monotype Machine Company of Philadelphia from

M & H typefounders M, or m, is the thirteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''em'' (pronounced ), plural ''ems''. History Th ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. With the Lanston Monotype Company's stock he acquired much of

Frederic Goudy Frederic William Goudy (, March 8, 1865 – May 11, 1947) was an American printer, artist and type designer whose typefaces include Copperplate Gothic, Goudy Old Style and Kennerley. He was one of the most prolific of American type designers and ...

's materials. He and

Jim Rimmer Jim Rimmer (April 1, 1934 – January 9, 2010) was a Canadian graphic designer, letterpress printer, proprietor of the Pie Tree Press and is especially notable as a designer of typefaces. Biography Jim Rimmer was born on 1 April 1934 and was ...

adapted these for digital form; and from 1988 to 2004 ran the digital foundry, Lanston Type Company. In 1994 Giampa moved to Prince Edward Island, but a few years later his stock was destroyed in a storm. The name of his firm, together with its fonts, were bought in 2004 by the digital foundry P22, of Buffalo, NY. Giampa designed the

Bodoni 26 Bodoni is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Bodoni followed the ideas o ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

, which was named in the top 100 Types in a survey conducted by the Type Directors Club. He died on 20 June 2009 in Vancouver.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Giampa, Gerald 1950 births 2009 deaths Canadian printers Canadian typographers and type designers

Biography

Further reading

References