Jost Hochuli, author of Designing books and Detail in typography, is responsible for an exhibition of the remarkable book production of his home town of St Gallen. While his own work is also shown, Hochuli insists that ‘Buchgestaltung in St Gallen’ is an exhibition of, as he puts it, work by his close friends Rudolf Hostettler and Max Koller, by his former students and other colleagues. ‘Buchgestaltung in St Gallen’ opened in April at the book fair in Geneva, but will be shown in St Gallen itself from 7 to 29 June 2008.

On 15 November a presentation of the new ‘Historical-Critical Edition’ of Franz Kafka’s writings will take place at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, followed by a panel (and open) discussion. On display will be some of the manuscripts concerned. The occasion is convened by the Bodleian Library, which has key holdings of Kafka manuscripts. The edition itself is edited by Roland Reuß and Peter Staengle of the Institut für Textkritik at Heidelberg. For details of the event, see here and here.

On Tuesday of this week, Christopher Burke talked in London on ‘Jan Tschichold: the missing typefaces’ to the Friends of St Bride Library. Speaking without notes, and in full command of his subject, he described and analysed the previously almost unconsidered typeface designs that Tschichold made in the 1930s. Prompted by the need for extra income in the difficult years of economic crisis in Germany, and then of his emigration to Switzerland, Tschichold offered some frankly commercial designs to a number of typefoundries. This was despite his belief, sometimes expressed in his writings, that such new typefaces were dubious affairs motivated by the pressures of capitalist competition, and perhaps just not necessary at all. A slightly later and also larger commission was his design of typefaces for the early photocomposition machine, the Uhertype.

In connection with his forthcoming book Active literature, Christopher Burke will be talking on 19 June at the St Bride Printing Library in London on ‘Jan Tschichold: the missing typefaces’. An exhibition at the Library of work by Tschichold, curated by Christopher Burke and Robin Kinross, will open then and be on display through to 23 August. Go here for more information.

The Optimod website has further material on the Edward Wright show.

An exhibition of Edward Wright’s design work opened yesterday at the Department of Typography in the University of Reading. For two months or so, the public has the chance to see some of the products and working materials of this special man, who in the spirit of the heroic modernists of the earlier twentieth century, did not pay much attention to boundaries between art and design. Yet – he was working in mid-century Britain, and in situations that were often pretty torpid.

Last month Fred Smeijers spoke about his work to an enthusiastic and packed audience. The exhibition ‘Fred Smeijers: work so far’ will continue at the St Bride Institute through into May (check with the Library to make sure it is open on the day you intend to go: telephone 020 7353 4660). Copies of Type now can still be bought at the exhibition. Meanwhile we congratulate Fred on his elevation to a professorship at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst at Leipzig.

On Tuesday 16 March at the St Bride Institute, London, Fred Smeijers will give a public lecture on the theme of ‘type now’. On that day also, the exhibition ‘Fred Smeijers: work so far’ will be opened at the St Bride Printing Library: a rare chance to see the work of a type designer on display in London. We will be selling copies of the book Type now at the talk and exhibition, for a not-to-be-repeated special price.