Pencil to Pixel at Metropolitan Wharf

An interesting exhibition on some of our most familiar typefaces. If you get the change pop in on your way home next week, or during the day if you're in Wapping

By chance I happened to come across reference to the Pencil to Pixel exhibition on Twitter. The exhibition is being held in Metropolitan Wharf, at the back of the building and looks out the wharf's terrace which you can access, which alone is worth a visit, for the rare privilege of accessing a normally private stretch of the river.

Although Monotype was an American company, for much of its history it has had a presence in the UK and its most famous creation is possibly the font Time New Roman, which it created with The Times newspaper.

The exhibition is in three parts. The first that greets you is shown  in the picture below- various tressle tables with different documents, designs and artefacts from the Monotype archive. I didn't see a catalogue explaining the linkages or importance of the different displays, but guided tours are available, which I imagine would give greater context. However, it was quite nice just to browse over the various design books and drawings (all of which are labelled). One of my favourite items was book listing the various monotype fonts, with various ones crossed out as they were discontinued.
 

 
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The Main exhibition space

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The second space you access, is a large digital animated projection, of what I think is the name Monotype made from a void within some swirling dots, but unfortunately, there seemed to be a technical glitch and only half was being displayed. I assume this represents the importance of digital fonts and the move away from metal typesetting.
 
 
The final room was showing a black and white promotional film for one of Monotypes automated typesetting machines. It was very quaint but also quite enjoyable and interesting just to see how things have changed.
 

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Details

The exhibition is open on the 16th, 19-23rd November from 10 am to 7.30pm, at Metropolitan Wharf, Wapping Wall.
Details on the Pencil to Pixel website
Free guided tours bookable here


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