A selection of lively stenciled embellishments by W. A. Dwiggins, reproduced in a suite of 20 notecards with accompanying envelopes
In the 1920s, graphic designer William Addison Dwiggins developed a delicate visual language composed of tiny geometric elements. He cut these modular shapes into celluloid stencils and used them to create abstract typographic ornaments, elegant architectural motifs, intricate page borders, and delightful allover patterns in his book designs. Dwiggins referred to these organic vignettes, which he first experimented with in woodblock printing, as “sprigs, leaves, and flowers.” Initially printed in a commercial booklet of paper samples, Dwiggins’s cheerful decorations find a new home in this stationery set, printed on special paper and presented in a keepsake box.