The Thunderbolt and the Monk: Lloyd J. Reynolds and Robert J. Palladino, Teachers who influenced calligraphy, handwriting, and digital type design

2022. San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 2022.

4to, 320 pp. Foil stamped Harmatan leather binding, and a digitally printed photograph tipped-in on the cover, with slipcase and text covered in black Japanese book cloth, museum board portfolio contains a quote by William Morris, lettered on archival paper by Jerry Kelly. Fine, new.

§ One of the Deluxe Edition of 25 copies. An appreciation of the lives and careers of Lloyd J. Reynolds and Robert J. Palladino, calligraphy teachers at Reed College, Oregon.

"Unlikely as it may be, two calligraphy teachers at Reed College were the seminal inspiration for some of the (truncated) most important figures in early digital typography. Former students Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.), Sumner Stone (Adobe Industries), and Charles Bigelow (Stanford University and Rochester Institute of Technology) integrated their teachers’ lessons of letter design and legibility into the nascent world of digital type technology. Other classmates took the Reed studio message into emerging fields: environmental signage, entertainment, branding, and digital humanities. A significant number excelled in the already established fields of calligraphy, handwriting education, fine art, poetry, and writing.

The originator of the calligraphy program at Reed, Professor Lloyd J. Reynolds, possessed a dynamic persona and boundless curiosity for art, literature, philosophy, religion, and most significantly the historical forms of writing. He developed a steadfast conviction about the importance of writing, especially italic handwriting, and proselytized that message through his classroom studio, countless workshops, instructional books, exhibitions, and popular public television series. Reynolds’s successor, Robert J. Palladino, a former Trappist monk, was quieter but similarly remarkable in his devotion to his craft and teaching. While he never used a computer during his life, he directly influenced the future of digital type design.

Written and designed by Nancy Stock-Allen, The Thunderbolt & the Monk profiles the lives and careers of both Reynolds and Palladino along with a representative cross-section of their remarkable former students. The preface is authored by noted book designer and calligrapher, Jerry Kelly, who studied under two of Reynolds’s students, Don Kunz and Denis Lund. A substantial introduction recounts the historical background and technical developments of the italic form—the foundation of Reynolds’s handwriting mission." - Kevin Kosik, Executive Director, Book Club of California. (Inventory #: 126194)