Editing William Addison Dwiggins (section)

==Career==
Dwiggins began his career in Chicago, working in advertising and lettering. With his colleague [[Frederic Goudy]], he moved east to [[Hingham, Massachusetts]], where he spent the rest of his life. He gained recognition as a lettering artist and wrote much on the graphic arts, notably essays collected in MSS by WAD (1949), and his ''Layout in Advertising'' (1928; rev. ed. 1949) remains standard. During the first half of the twentieth century he also created pamphlets using the pen name "Dr. Hermann Puterschein".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gonzales Crisp|first=Denise|title=Discourse This! Designers and Alternative Critical Writing|journal=Design and Culture|date=2009|volume=1|issue=1}}</ref>

His scathing attack on contemporary book designers in ''An Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books'' (1919) led to his working with the publisher [[Alfred A. Knopf]]. Alblabooks, a series of finely conceived and executed trade books followed and did much to increase public interest in book format. Having become bored with advertising work, Dwiggins was perhaps more responsible than any other designer for the marked improvement in book design in the 1920s and 1930s. An additional factor in his transition to book design was a 1922 diagnosis with diabetes, at the time often fatal. He commented "it has revolutionised my whole attack. My back is turned on the more banal kind of advertising...I will produce art on paper and wood after my own heart with no heed to any market."<ref name="Design Literacy">{{cite book|last1=Heller|first1=Stephen|title=Design Literacy|pages=207–210}}</ref>

In 1926, the Chicago [[Lakeside Press]] recruited Dwiggins to design a book for the [[Lakeside Press#The Four American Books Campaign|Four American Books Campaign]]. He said he welcomed the chance to "do something besides waste-basket stuff" which would be "promptly thrown away" and chose the ''Tales ''of [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. The Press considered his fee of $2,000 to be low for an illustrator of his commercial power.<ref>{{cite book |last = Benton |first = Megan    |year = 2000 |title = Beauty and the Book: Fine Editions and Cultural Distinction in America |publisher = Yale University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpOcowMfCIC |isbn = 9780300082135|pages= 130–131}}</ref> Many of Dwiggins' designs used celluloid stencils to create repeating units of decoration.<ref name="Letters of Credit Dwiggins essay">{{cite book|last1=Tracy|first1=Walter|title=Letters of Credit|pages=173–193}}</ref>

He and his wife Mabel Hoyle Dwiggins (February 27, 1881 &ndash; September 28, 1958) are buried in the Hingham Center Cemetery, Hingham Center, Massachusetts, near their home at 30 Leavitt Street, and Dwiggins' studio at 45 Irving Street. After Dwiggins' wife's death, many of Dwiggins' works and assets passed to his assistant Dorothy Abbe.<ref name="Recalling W.A. Dwiggins’ Studio">{{cite web|last1=Heller|first1=Stephen|title=Recalling W.A. Dwiggins' Studio|url=http://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/recalling-w-a-dwiggins-studio/|website=Print Magazine|date=26 August 2015 |access-date=20 March 2017}}</ref>

A full-length biography of Dwiggins by Bruce Kennett, believed to be the first, was published in 2018 by the [[Letterform Archive]] museum of San Francisco.<ref name="Kickstarter">{{cite web|title=W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design|url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/letterformarchive/w-a-dwiggins-a-life-in-design?ref=ap5gli|website=Kickstarter|publisher=Letterform Archive|access-date=1 April 2017}}</ref><ref name="Papazian">{{cite web|last1=Papazian|first1=Hrant H.|last2=Coles|first2=Stephen|title=W. A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design|url=http://typedrawers.com/discussion/2079/w-a-dwiggins-a-life-in-design|website=Typedrawers|date=29 March 2017 |access-date=1 April 2017}}</ref><ref name="Prospectus biography">{{cite web|last1=Kennett|first1=Bruce|title=W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design (prospectus)|url=https://letterformarchive.org/uploads/Dwiggins-Letterform-Archive-Prospectus.pdf|publisher=[[Letterform Archive]]|access-date=27 September 2017}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928061625/https://letterformarchive.org/uploads/Dwiggins-Letterform-Archive-Prospectus.pdf}}</ref>